Vic Fangio was in all likelihood merely politely talking up a friend who was his guest that day. But when the Denver Broncos first-year head coach discussed Archie Manning he made a comparison that Pittsburgh Steelers fans might not appreciate.
Fangio indicated that he believed that 1970s NFL star Archie Manning was a better NFL quarterback than the Super Steelers’ Terry Bradshaw.
“I always said if he was with the Pittsburgh Steelers back when he played instead of Bradshaw, Archie would have had all those Super Bowl rings and Bradshaw would have had to go through the agony of playing with the Saints in the ’70s,” Fangio said, according to aggregation last week from USA Today’s NFL Wire team sites.
What if Archie Manning and Terry Bradshaw had traded places? http://t.co/L9qDd0YfuN pic.twitter.com/utkWNHzlhs
— NOLAsports (@NOLAsports) August 22, 2014
Bradshaw guided the Steelers to four Super Bowl wins, the first quarterback to do so – though he was surrounded by four Hall of Famers on offense and four others on defense in addition to Hall of Fame coach Chuck Noll.
Manning, meanwhile, toiled for the lowly New Orleans Saints for 11 of his 14 NFL seasons. He was 35-101-3 as a starter, never playing on a team that had a winning record.
Bradshaw was 107-51 as a starter, plus 14-5 in the postseason, winning the Super Bowl MVP twice.
Manning’s career completion percentage is better than Bradshaw’s, but Bradshaw (albeit in more games) has the better career numbers in most other categories.
Stumbled across this while looking for other photos: Archie Manning (looks like Eli), Terry Bradshaw and Bob Griese at Pro Bowl site in 1979. pic.twitter.com/WKkE18egYT
— Jimmie Tramel (@JimmieTramel) January 15, 2018
“Archie’s the old sage,” Fangio said after Archie and Peyton attended Broncos practice Wednesday. “Archie — the uncommon belief out there is that he’s the best quarterback in that family.”
Archie, of course, is the father of Peyton and Eli Manning, each of whom were multiple Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks over the past two decades.
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