Come on, people. We're letting Payton Manning off much too easy. One Saturday Night Live does not make this guy Chris Rock. Alot of people have invested alot of time hating him. Are we just going to let all that negativity, all those nasty blog entries go to waste? Because of ONE good night.

Get your heads out of your DVD's, line back up at that keyboard, and let's pound this guy. What's next? Love letters to Kobe Bryant? Are you going to watch Barry Bonds play with a syringe sticking out his back pocket and say, "Well, we don't know for sure, we're can't really tell if it's a syringe, Babe Ruth was on heroin most of his career." Yada, yada, yada. We're bloggers here, so let's try to act like it. Give me a break.

First off, Manning is overrated. Sure, he's had a few good commercials and the SNL gig was OK, but you have to consider his supporting cast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZpPf-q2_es&mode=user&search=

When you see Manning on TV he's working in a system that was designed for him. Put those kids in the lineup and they'd make Aaron Brooks into the next Richard Pryor. Put Manning in a lineup with the kids from "Phil From the Future" and he wouldn't connect on 35% of his jokes. Plus, we haven't seen Manning work with animals, or animated characters, or super models. Oh yeah, super models.

Tom Brady has worked with super models. He dates one, Giesel Bunchen. Brady used to date actress Bridget Moynahan, who is expecting his child. Manning married his college sweetheart. Brady takes risks. Manning goes with the safe call.

Then there were the passes he threw to the kids. Did you see anything over 10 yards? Did you see him air it out? Sure, he hit 75% of those kids, but in that spread offense you've got to nail at least one of the little suckers every down. Johnny Unitas would have shot a bullet to one of those kids on a deep corner and left them in a sling. Manning didn't even bruise their tiny little hands.

You probably laughed at Manning's joke about why Brady is like a three ring circus compared to Manning (two more rings). If you look at the film you'll see that he saw pressure from the SNL band, came up to the mike, and checked down to a safer joke than the one Tony Dungy had sent in.

From the cheap seats it looked to me like Manning phoned in the locker room sketch. Granted, he sustained the routine for over 4 minutes, but when it came time to punch it in Mr. Big Time Commercial Guy couldn't come up with the key punchline.

Here's the bottom line. Archie Manning never won an Emmy. Payton Manning has never won an Emmy. Eli Manning is probably never going to win an Emmy. But Tom Brady will probably sleep with someone who does. And that (along with two more rings) is why Payton Manning can't carry Tom Brady's cue cards.