If there’s someone who knows a thing or two about greatness, that’s definitely Bill Belichick. Over the past coupleof decades, he’s become an institution in the National Football League as one of the best coaches of all time.
But even the greatest often struggle when they have to meet someone as good – or even better than them, and Belichick isn’t the exception to that rule. He knew that he needed to be flawless when his team met Peyton Manning.
Manning was recently inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, further cementing his legacy as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. That prompted plenty of praise from Belichick himself.
Bill Belichick Says Peyton Manning Is The Best Quarterback He’s Coached Against
“He is definitely the best quarterback I’ve coached against,” the Patriots coach said. “When it came to control and decision-making in an offensive system, Manning was on his own level in any era. There have been quarterbacks who called their own plays but it was nowhere near the same as what he did.”
“He basically called every play by adjusting and/or changing the play once he saw what the defense was doing. He excelled at using the cadence and recognizing blitzes and more than any one single offensive player, he forced us to change and adapt defensive gameplans.”
While often deemed as a cold person, Belichick has always praised greatness when he’s had to. And for one of the greatest defensive masterminds to speak so high of a player, well, that’s got to mean something.
While Belichick’s Patriots often got the best of him of Manning’s Colts and Broncos, Peyton always put in a fight. He may not be the winningest gunslinger of all time – and Tom Brady could be to blame for it, but he definitely has a case for being the best pure quarterback in the history of football.