It says much about the enduring genius of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning that their rivalry is bracketed with that of Nicklaus versus Palmer, Evert-Navratilova and even Ali-Frazier, when the pair of them are never on the field of battle at the same time.

But as these two nonpareils prepare to face off for the 17th time in the polar freeze of Colorado’s Mile High Stadium on Sunday evening, the shadow of the quarterbacks’ cumulative achievements leave everybody else on the gridiron in shade.

They might never take the field at the same time, but the headline individual match-up of the New England Patriots’ confrontation with the Denver Broncos is such a draw that it stirs a time-honoured debate across every barroom in America: which of these two, long since shoo-ins to join Joe Montana and Dan Marino in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is better?

The implausibly boyish Brady, who at 38 appears to have discovered from supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen the elixir of eternal youth, can make a powerful claim: he has more Super Bowl rings, four to one, than Manning, as well as a significantly superior play-off record.

But Manning, who has seemed destined for greatness ever since the Indianapolis Colts selected him as their No 1 overall draft pick from the University of Tennessee, boasts all-time season records for touchdown passes, in addition to earning an extraordinary five league most valuable player awards. No wonder Jim Brady, the CBS doyen of play-by-play commentary, feels moved to declare that the Brady-Manning battle “transcends the NFL”.

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Brady, for his part, feels much the same way. He has a proud record to protect, having prevailed in 11 of the previous 16 instalments. And this, with Manning entering the advanced autumn of his career, is almost sure to be the last. There is a particular needle to this one, too: while Brady is scrupulously polite in public about his adversaries, a recent leak of many of his private emails reflected a need to assert his superiority over Manning. “I’ve got another seven or eight years,” Brady wrote, rather optimistically. “He has two.”

Argument that Brady is better

Not only is Brady blessed with the better arm at this juncture in his career, unleashing greater power than Manning in those huge down-field passes, he also continues to display an innate understanding of where the coverage of his receivers is going to be. He can espy the slightest weakness in a defence, and can attack it mercilessly.

Where Brady is concerned, though, strict statistical comparisons with Manning can be sullied by subjectivity. For New England, he is the signature player of an entire franchise, whereas his elder is unlikely ever to be accorded that distinction for Denver. Indeed, the most Manning can hope for is to be remembered as the greatest Broncos quarterback not called John Elway.

Brady has also encountered more barriers on his path to the top, as a moderate college player who had to sit through 198 draft picks before he was finally selected by the Patriots.

But it was Tony Dungy, formerly Manning’s coach at the Colts, who offered the ultimate measure of why Brady had enjoyed the better career. It was, he explained, all about the ring, and on this analysis Brady – with three Super Bowl triumphs in five attempts – eclipses his rival, stuck at only one in three after the Broncos’ crushing defeat to Seattle last February.

Argument that Manning is better

On just about every raw numbers count beside Super Bowl victories, Manning can consider himself out in front. He has started more games, accumulated far more passing yards, and become only the second player – alongside Brett Favre – to amass more than 500 touchdown passes, ultimately gaining the record on 513 and counting.

His decision-making at the line of scrimmage is impeccable: he almost never lets a blitz reach him and he exhibits the most consummate control of his offensive line. The fact that he holds a higher official ‘pass rating’ than Brady is attributable to the fact that he is, overall, just more accurate with his throws, proving time and again that he can thread the ball through an eye of a needle.

No one can touch, either, the number of fourth-quarter comeback wins he has inspired: 45. Simply, nobody has ever played the game at such a high standard over such an extended period. Similarly, it is too simplistic to say that Manning must by default be inferior to Brady because he has lost two-thirds of their 15 head-to-heads.

If you take the crucial post-season contests among those matches – the 2003 AFC Championship game, or the 2004 divisional play-off – you find that the Patriots won not necessarily because Brady outperformed Manning but because they possessed the better defence. Indeed, if you switch their teams starting from the outset of their careers, placing Manning at New England and Brady at Indianapolis, you would find little argument that Manning would ultimately have been saluted as the greater quarterback.

Verdict

Manning enjoyed a campaign for the ages in 2013-14, with a jaw-dropping 55 touchdown passes. But Brady’s Super Bowl record elevates him to the company of Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks ever to have acquired four rings. But for the Patriots’ two desperately close losses to the Giants, in 2008 and 2012, he would have been uniformly anointed as the greatest of all time. Already, he is only man ever to have started six Super Bowls, having eclipsed Elway’s five in Glendale last year.

And when it comes to postseason achievements, the parallels with Manning are not even close: Brady has won 21 of 29 matches, Manning a mere 11 of 24. It is devilishly difficult to dispute the logic of Dungy, who mentored Manning throughout his pomp at the Colts, when he says: “It’s all about getting to Super Bowls and winning – and Tom has been to five of them. That’s what you’re looking for. Your career isn’t over until it’s over, but right now Tom is definitely in the lead.” It is a lead he will be looking to underscore come Sunday.

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Tom Brady

Peyton Manning

Age

37

38

Teams

New England Patriots

Indianapolis Colts / Denver Broncos

NFL draft pick

199th

1st

Career starts

201

247





Tom Brady

Peyton Manning

Super Bowl appearances

5

3

Super Bowl wins

3 (2002, 04, 05)

1 (2007)

Post-season record

18 wins 6 losses

11 wins 12 losses

Career win percentage

77.2%

69.9%

Head-to-head wins

10

5





Tom Brady

Peyton Manning

Season MVP awards

2 (2007, 10)

5 (2003, 04, 08, 09, 13)

Career touchdowns

377 (5th)

513 (1st)

Most TDs in a season

50 (2nd)

55 (1st)

Career passing yards

51,208 (6th)

67,098 (2nd)

Career pass rating

96.1 (6th)

97.9 (2nd)

Most yards in a season

5,235 (3rd)

5,477 (1st)



(numbers in brackets are all-time NFL rankings)