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It has been 17 years since the Indianapolis Colts drafted Peyton Manning as the first pick of the 1998 draft, and 15 since the New England Patriots picked up Tom Brady in the sixth round of the 2000 draft. Since then, they've won a combined five Super Bowls, have been to 9 of the last 14 Super Bowls, set records, dominated multiple offseason news cycles, and had careers that put them both among the best to ever play the game. As their careers wind down, they represent the last of a generation of football players from the years after Elway, Young, and Marino, inspiring all of the young quarterbacks entering the league today. Brady, of course, has spent his entire career as the face of the New England Patriots, coached by arguably the best coach in the league today, and Manning spent a great deal of his career in Indianapolis, carrying the Colts to multiple Super Bowls on his back, before being replaced by Manning 2.0, and going to Denver to prove he's still got it. But what if an accident happened, and the entire fabric of their careers changed? September 10th, 1997, a few days after the second game of the NFL season, a terrible tragedy occurs. Drew Bledsoe, starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, is killed in a car crash on his way home from practice. The upcoming week's game against the New York Jets, led by Bill Belichick (and Bill Parsells, who was coaching the Patriots just one year prior), is pushed back to Thursday to give the players and coaches time to grieve, recover, and get back up to playing fit, and the game that night sets a regular season record for TV ratings as people tune in to see how the Patriots will cope with the tragic loss of their leader. They lose that game, and the rest in that season, falling to 2-14, the worst record in the NFL. Immediately after the season ends, speculation begins about the draft, where the Patriots and Indianapolis Colts are drafting first and second, respectively. Both teams are in desperate need of a quarterback, and as luck would have it, two of the greatest prospects the league has seen in quite a while at the position are entering the draft that year. After months of speculation, the Patriots draft Peyton Manning, quarterback out of Tennessee, to lead their team in Bledsoe's absence. The Colts, in turn, select Ryan Leaf, from Washington State University. Manning is stepping into a unique situation, will he lead the team to a Super Bowl? Will he bomb out under the pressure? One thing is for certain, however: Ryan Leaf is a fuckup in any timeline. Two years after drafting the highly touted QB, the Colts are starting to look for an out. So, in a late round of the 2000 draft, they select Tom Brady, of the University of Michigan, to provide some competition for Leaf. Brady impresses in training camp, and by the end of the season, has locked in a starting spot. Without the coaching of Belichick, will Brady become the multiple Super Bowl winning quarterback we know and yell at? Or will the pressure of being the quarterback for a team in far more need of fixing than any one player can bring be too much for him? TFF, what happens next? Are they both still HoF shoo-ins? Do the Pats become the team that they are today, or does someone else fill that hole? What player replaces Drew Bledsoe as "ex-NFL QB with a vineyard"? In 2015, in this alternate dimension, does Brady still deflate a bunch of balls to win a game? Is he even around to deflate them? Does Luck replace Manning or Brady, or go to some other sad sack team in need of a QB? How much better off are the Chargers, not having to deal with Ryan Leaf and his bullshit? How much does the league we watch today change with one little player switch?
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Sep 6, 2015 21:32
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 21:20 |
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Tom Brady never gets a start in the league and sells insurance. Colts take Chad Pennington and Indy fans cheer him instead of boo and he noodles his way to a ring.
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Sep 7, 2015 00:07
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I think that without his particular set of circumstances as they were, Brady may have never started a single NFL game. But let's pretend anyway that he does come in and start for the Colts. The Colts were a weaker team throughout most of the last 20 years. A lot of their success relied on being carried by a hall of fame QB. Not so much with the Patriots - Tom Brady wasn't even that great until about his fourth or fifth year, and was largely carried through three super bowl wins by a great coach and a great defense. The term "Game Manager" was thrown around quite a bit. On another team I don't think Brady would have lasted those 4-5 years to become what he is now. It's quite possible he'd have become a career backup, drifting around the league once his rookie contract was done. Maybe he comes in and has a good game somewhere and ends up with a starting contract, and maybe that doesn't even pan out. Basically, Matt Flynn.
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Sep 7, 2015 12:40
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in this timeline the dolphins still go 8-8
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Sep 7, 2015 12:42
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Fenrir posted:I think that without his particular set of circumstances as they were, Brady may have never started a single NFL game. But let's pretend anyway that he does come in and start for the Colts. The Colts were a weaker team throughout most of the last 20 years. A lot of their success relied on being carried by a hall of fame QB. Not so much with the Patriots - Tom Brady wasn't even that great until about his fourth or fifth year, and was largely carried through three super bowl wins by a great coach and a great defense. The term "Game Manager" was thrown around quite a bit. Yeah, other than rosters stacked with elite offensive skill position players and a great OC for his entire Colts career, Peyton had nothing to work with and was carrying the Colts all by himself. Meanwhile before 2007 Brady was lavished with offensive weapons such as one season of Corey Dillon playing well before the wheels fell off and [file not found] to inflate his passing stats. The "game manager" thing was always kind of dumb as gently caress because even throwing to scrubs Brady was already posting better passing stats than anybody called a "game manager", and the 2001 team didn't even have that good of a defense (#24 in fewest points allowed) compared to the offense (#19 in points scored). I mean zero time Pro Bowler Antowain Smith was OK I guess? Brady was a really, really good QB prospect that fell through the cracks. That's, like, the entire story. Had he gone to the Colts he would have been coached up like Peyton, and since we know he had a similar ceiling to Peyton and would have had the bananas skill position weapons Peyton often had would have produced similar results (lots of offense undermined by bad head coaching and erratic defenses leading to lots of regular season wins and postseason bombs.) I mean they're both similar goony but durable white guy QBs with  physical tools who win from the neck up so it's not exactly an interesting hypothetical we've got here. More better weapons = bigger passing numbers Better organization overall = more championships That's pretty much the whole Brady vs Peyton thing.
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Sep 7, 2015 14:36
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Brady is also clutch though
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Sep 7, 2015 14:43
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Raku posted:Brady is also clutch though To be fair Peyton doesn't really choke anymore so much as just dissolve into a patch of dust and cobwebs.
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Sep 7, 2015 14:48
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Raku posted:Brady is also clutch though Peyton has been pulling game winning drives for years so did the word clutch get a new definition
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Sep 7, 2015 15:49
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I think we'd still see New England with the rings and the Colts with the stats. There was just too much talent all over the defensive side of the ball in New England not to get a few championships with Manning. Brady would've had crazy 2007-like numbers for most of his career though.
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Sep 7, 2015 15:56
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Attendance drops dramatically for the Colts during the Ryan Leaf era. The team moves to Houston before drafting Brady. He never succeeds and Houston continues to be mediocre.
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Sep 7, 2015 17:31
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Well, Brady went down one season, and his backup won 11 games. Peyton sat out, and the Colts went 2-14. I think it's more a case of Peyton making marginal players great, than him being surrounded by great players.
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Sep 7, 2015 17:39
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Brady a superior leader from the sidelines
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Sep 7, 2015 17:48
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Khorre posted:Well, Brady went down one season, and his backup won 11 games. Peyton sat out, and the Colts went 2-14. I think it's more a case of Peyton making marginal players great, than him being surrounded by great players. Noted "marginal players" Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Marshall Faulk and Edgerrin James, sure.  The Colts went from 10-7 to 2-14. The Patriots went from 18-1 to 11-5. And Cassell, for all his faults, is still way better than any of the scrubs the Colts trotted out at QB. So it doesn't prove poo poo, basically.
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Sep 7, 2015 19:23
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ok, thats cool, but hear me out: in the NEW timeline, everything plays out like it did in the real world, but terrorists did 9/11...on foxboro instead
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Sep 7, 2015 22:54
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NickRoweFillea posted:ok, thats cool, but hear me out: in the NEW timeline, everything plays out like it did in the real world, but terrorists did 9/11...on foxboro instead We strike an alliance with Al Qaeda and give them Kurdistan in exchange for their help on Iran, and Philip Rivers win a superbowl with the Saints
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Sep 7, 2015 23:06
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I assume Lavar Arrington is the one who still kills Bledsoe in the car crash right?
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Sep 7, 2015 23:56
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and get this: what if paul tagliabue did it as an inside job, just like the real 9/11
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Sep 8, 2015 00:32
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In this timeline, you've left out one thing: what about Tony Romo? http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2637905
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Sep 8, 2015 09:31
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Ehud posted:in this timeline the dolphins still go 8-8 Constant like the speed of light to all observers. This is what killed the quantum leap guy.
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Sep 8, 2015 16:34
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PFM is so good that BB never becomes a cheater
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Sep 8, 2015 17:51
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Yoshifan823 posted:a terrible tragedy occurs. Drew Bledsoe, starting quarterback for the New England Patriots, is killed in a car crash on his way home from practice. If Drew Bledsoe drove like he runs, this would be impossible. Fender bender at worst.
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Sep 8, 2015 21:15
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In this universe the afc south is so trash they disband
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Sep 9, 2015 03:44
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 21:20 |
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Brady will not be on the Colts because they draft Chad Pennington, Peyton will throw an interception in Super Bowl XXXVI because New England head coach Pete Carroll will call a pass play on the 1 yard line and Belichick will coach the New York Jets, draft Brady, and lead them to football dominance. Truly the darkest timeline.
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Sep 9, 2015 13:37
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