wittle feelings??? ELway crapped the bed for years. So did Peyton. Palmer, ad nauseum. It was his first freaking time in the playoffs. Jeebus. It's a long game, big picture scenario. Youre a pound of flesh kinda guy, I imagine.
Elway crapped the bed for years? He consistently dragged a weak-ass Bronco team to the Super Bowl… 3 times in his early days. Not sure how that’s crapping the bed for years. He also consistently got the Broncos to the playoffs. Something Kyler hasn’t accomplished yet. So, that doesn’t seem like a basis for comparison.
You won’t get any argument from me on Peyton overall. He def crapped the bed for the majority of his playoff career. But he also played at an MVP level in his second and third seasons and consistently got the Colts to the playoffs… where he would meltdown. But at least he was aces for the entirety of seasons 2 and 3, as opposed to the back to back late season swoons by Kyler.
As for Palmer… he does not exist in this dojo of all-time QBs next to Peyton and Elway so I’m not sure why he’s even in this convo. He had one great full season (with us in 2015) after he tore his ACL in his third season, was consistently mediocre in regular seasons and pretty much trash in all his playoff games… well, what little games he actually got under his belt.
All that said, I wouldn’t have benched Kyler either. You need to show faith in a young QB in that situation even when he craps the bed. And we did. But that really made his decision not to finish the game with his teammates all the more pathetic. The team stood behind him in tough times. But he sat on the them when times were at their toughest.
