Is it too early to give Peyton Manning the 2013 NFL MVP? Broncos QB continues unbelievable start

[DenBronx]

DENVER – No quarterback has ever started a season as well as Peyton Manning has in 2013.

At this point it's pretty hard to imagine Manning not winning the MVP award at the end of the season, as long as he stays healthy. The Broncos quarterback is playing at a level that may be unsurpassed in NFL history, much less by any 37-year-old who has played the game.

[Watch: Fantasy stocks on the decline for Week 4]

Manning picked apart the Raiders on Monday night in a 37-21 win. He was 32-of-37 for 374 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. He now owns the NFL record for most touchdowns through three games to start the season, with 12. He has yet to throw an interception. He came in with an unfathomable 131.0 rating for the season, then had a 152.1 rating in the first half against Oakland. He has 1,143 yards already this season. Manning is on pace to throw for 6,096 yards and 64 touchdowns. Again, he's 37 years old.

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[Dapper Dan]

I'm just amazed that after missing a season...after the injuries...after moving teams...he's possibly playing the best football of his career. I used to think I saw that because he's a Bronco. But the stats are backing it up. I'm not so sure anything like that ever happened.

[Northman]

Great stats but as long as we are holding the Lombardi at the end of the year i dont care about the rest of this.

[Traveler]

Great stats but as long as we are holding the Lombardi at the end of the year i dont care about the rest of this.

I'm with you on this. Don't want to extend Manning's streak as the best regular season QB, only to see him go one and done again in the playoffs.

[zbeg]

I'm with you on this. Don't want to extend Manning's streak as the best regular season QB, only to see him go one and done again in the playoffs.

Not really Manning's fault for the most part. Four times he's handed the keys over to the defense with the lead with 40 seconds or left, and the defense blew it.

Twice he drove his team down the field to make the game-winning FG, and his kicker missed a fairly routine FG.

Manning's a "playoff choker" as much as Elway was a Superbowl choker. Elway can't win in the Super Bowl, remember? Until he did of course.

It's a team game, and Manning's teams have consistently let him down in situations where other quarterbacks have had their teams come through.

[Dapper Dan]

Not really Manning's fault for the most part. Four times he's handed the keys over to the defense with the lead with 40 seconds or left, and the defense blew it.

Twice he drove his team down the field to make the game-winning FG, and his kicker missed a fairly routine FG.

Manning's a "playoff choker" as much as Elway was a Superbowl choker. Elway can't win in the Super Bowl, remember? Until he did of course.

It's a team game, and Manning's teams have consistently let him down in situations where other quarterbacks have had their teams come through.

I think you've just proved that Manning needs to work on his kicking and defense.

[olathebroncofan]

I can't think of another player that is coming close to having a season like this at any position. I haven't taken full advantage of "football on your phone...uh huh...Football on your phone!" This season. So I can't speak on anyone else.

It could be a run away...

[CrazyHorse]

Yes. He's easily the clear front runner though.

[BroncoWave]

Assuming he keeps playing like this he will run away with it. Who else is even close?

[vandammage13]

Manning Stats:
Week1: 27/42, 462yds, 11.0ypa, 7td, 0int, 83.6qbr
Week2: 30/43, 307yds, 7.1ypa, 2td, 0int, 89.1qbr
Week3: 32/37, 374yds, 10.1ypa, 3td, 0int, 95.4qbr

I'd like to know what the hell you have to do to get 100 qbr in this ridiculous formula of ESPN's quarterback evaluation.

[TXBRONC]

Yes it's to early and as North pointed out winning another Lombardi more important.

[Ravage!!!]

Manning Stats:
Week1: 27/42, 462yds, 11.0ypa, 7td, 0int, 83.6qbr
Week2: 30/43, 307yds, 7.1ypa, 2td, 0int, 89.1qbr
Week3: 32/37, 374yds, 10.1ypa, 3td, 0int, 95.4qbr

I'd like to know what the hell you have to do to get 100 qbr in this ridiculous formula of ESPN's quarterback evaluation.

Personally, I think ANY "number" from a formula to give us a numerical evaluation of a QBs play is pretty dumb. I mean, it was derived in 1970 to give people that didn't have a chance to see football, and basically only read about football in the paper the next day, a SIMPLE number to use to judge QB play since they couldn't actually see the games for themselves. The formula, today, still uses the "average" season number of the 1970 players. Which is pretty absurd. Why don't they change it every year to use the average from the season before? Like this year, we use 2012 averages to use in the Quarterback rating for this season instead of 1970 averages?

But this, this is a different formula with different considerations. Why is the #100 important? What are the ratings of the other QBs in the NFL? The number 100 means nothing without context. Doesn't the average QB get somewhere in the 70s with this formula?

[BroncoWave]

Personally, I think ANY "number" from a formula to give us a numerical evaluation of a QBs play is pretty dumb. I mean, it was derived in 1970 to give people that didn't have a chance to see football, and basically only read about football in the paper the next day, a SIMPLE number to use to judge QB play since they couldn't actually see the games for themselves. The formula, today, still uses the "average" season number of the 1970 players. Which is pretty absurd. Why don't they change it every year to use the average from the season before? Like this year, we use 2012 averages to use in the Quarterback rating for this season instead of 1970 averages?

But this, this is a different formula with different considerations. Why is the #100 important? What are the ratings of the other QBs in the NFL? The number 100 means nothing without context. Doesn't the average QB get somewhere in the 70s with this formula?

The biggest flaw of the ESPN QBR formula, IMO, is that it gives extra weight to "clutch" plays late in close games. What this does is penalize QBs for building big early leads and not needing any clutch play down the stretch.

In week 1, Manning had like the 4th or 5th highest ESPN QBR for the week. There is no way anyone in their right mind could say that Manning was outplayed by 3 or 4 QBs in week 1.

[zbeg]

I like the idea of QBR, very broadly speaking. They're trying to be better than passer rating, which doesn't take context or anything else into account. Receiver drops a ball and it leads to an interception, or a QB accumulating some nice stats in garbage time (the Carson Palmer/Matt Stafford special), things like that. I like the idea of something that looks at every play and tries to assign weight to the situation.

But as is, it's just not very well executed. It's probably better than passer rating over a large sample, but passer rating is also deeply flawed so it's not really saying that much.

It's a good idea. Something that takes into account context and game situation and receiver play as opposed to just blindly going off a box score is potentially going to be better. It just needs work. It's a little like going from sprites to polygons in video games. Those early polygon games looked terrible compared to the sprite-based ones, but once the polygons caught up, they blew sprites out of the water.

FWIW, Footballoutsiders also does charting stats, and theirs seems to be a lot better.

[jhns]

Manning Stats:
Week1: 27/42, 462yds, 11.0ypa, 7td, 0int, 83.6qbr
Week2: 30/43, 307yds, 7.1ypa, 2td, 0int, 89.1qbr
Week3: 32/37, 374yds, 10.1ypa, 3td, 0int, 95.4qbr

I'd like to know what the hell you have to do to get 100 qbr in this ridiculous formula of ESPN's quarterback evaluation.

The numbers are just dumb. In week 1 he had 460 yards and 7 TDs. He was 4th or 5th on the list of that QBR, behind guys who had 200 yards and some picks. These numbers clearly can't tell how well a QB played in a game.

[jhns]

The biggest flaw of the ESPN QBR formula, IMO, is that it gives extra weight to "clutch" plays late in close games. What this does is penalize QBs for building big early leads and not needing any clutch play down the stretch.

In week 1, Manning had like the 4th or 5th highest ESPN QBR for the week. There is no way anyone in their right mind could say that Manning was outplayed by 3 or 4 QBs in week 1.

I didn't read this before my last post but the clutch thing makes sense for explaining their crap number. Cutler had 250 yards, 2 TDs, and an INT. He also had a better QBR than Mannings 470 yards and 7 TDs. It's easy to see none of those above Manning had close to as good of a game that week. I think that should make them rethink their rating system.

[MOtorboat]

It's a little early, but I heard Mike Greenberg say this morning "When is it time to stop saying he's had a great start to the season and start saying he's having a great season?" Interesting question, kind of ties in, I think.

As to QBR, it sucks, because you can't compute it. Even as flawed as passer rating is, I still know the formula and can manipulate it myself. That makes Rating better than QBR, because I can quantify it logically. All I ever get shown for QBR is the number, and it just doesn't mean anything to me.

[TXBRONC]

I didn't read this before my last post but the clutch thing makes sense for explaining their crap number. Cutler had 250 yards, 2 TDs, and an INT. He also had a better QBR than Mannings 470 yards and 7 TDs. It's easy to see none of those above Manning had close to as good of a game that week. I think that should make them rethink their rating system.

The idea clutch plays add weight to a QBR is just stupid because it's subject because in every game you have clutch plays that go along way in determining the outcome.