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The Weather
Did Peyton Manning have a disappointing game? And was it because of the frigid New England weather? I'm going with sorta and probably not.
Manning's numbers — 19-of-36 for 150 yards, two touchdowns, one interception — are unquestionably pedestrian. No arguing that. Of course, there's context that also needs to be applied to any set of quarterback statistics. Manning was playing the vast majority of this game with a lead, meaning he spent most of his time handing off and passing only in obvious situations. That naturally depresses a quarterback's numbers, and the Denver running game was incredible: The Broncos ran the ball 48 times for a whopping 280 yards. When he did throw, the Patriots were able to get consistent pressure on Manning, as left tackle Chris Clark had a truly disappointing performance after his great work against the Chiefs a week ago.
When he needed to come up with a game-tying score, Manning delivered the drive of the night from either team, with a number of throws fit into minuscule windows or delivered on a surprisingly tight rope. That drive even included two consecutive drops from his receivers, who collectively didn't have a great night, either. Demaryius Thomas couldn't escape Talib, Eric Decker was anonymous, and Welker was essentially a non-factor as a wideout in his return to Foxborough, dropping one pass and having another knocked out of his hands. It doesn't excuse Manning's performance, but it qualifies some of the critiques.
The bigger question being asked is whether Manning is materially affected by cold weather. I don't believe that to be true. The stat going around before the game was that Manning was 0-2 in games where the temperature was below 20 degrees at kickoff, which is absurd for reasons beyond the small sample; one of those games was a meaningless 30-7 loss to the Bills in Week 17 of the 2009 season when Manning played only in the first quarter (leaving with the score 7-7) before turning things over to Curtis Painter. His touchdown ratio was 11-to-13 in games played at 32 degrees or under, but using the freezing point is an arbitrary cutoff for determining whether a day is "cold."
You can see Manning's performance as split into 20-degree buckets for yourself here. His numbers look dramatically better if you include his other rate statistics and those games played with a starting temperature between 33 and 40 degrees, which isn't exactly balmy. It's a smaller sample, but none of his statistics suggest there's anything specific about Manning's performance in colder games that stands out as a sign of his weakness there. It's also true that just about every quarterback plays a little worse in cold weather than in warm weather,4 so we would expect Manning to be a bit worse. Unless you think there's a meaningful difference in terms of Manning's ability to throw the football between 30 degrees and 35 degrees, the evidence suggesting Manning folds in cold weather is flimsy. If Manning had a bad game Sunday, it was because he had a bad game, not because he can't handle the cold.
Did Peyton Manning have a disappointing game? And was it because of the frigid New England weather? I'm going with sorta and probably not.
Manning's numbers — 19-of-36 for 150 yards, two touchdowns, one interception — are unquestionably pedestrian. No arguing that. Of course, there's context that also needs to be applied to any set of quarterback statistics. Manning was playing the vast majority of this game with a lead, meaning he spent most of his time handing off and passing only in obvious situations. That naturally depresses a quarterback's numbers, and the Denver running game was incredible: The Broncos ran the ball 48 times for a whopping 280 yards. When he did throw, the Patriots were able to get consistent pressure on Manning, as left tackle Chris Clark had a truly disappointing performance after his great work against the Chiefs a week ago.
When he needed to come up with a game-tying score, Manning delivered the drive of the night from either team, with a number of throws fit into minuscule windows or delivered on a surprisingly tight rope. That drive even included two consecutive drops from his receivers, who collectively didn't have a great night, either. Demaryius Thomas couldn't escape Talib, Eric Decker was anonymous, and Welker was essentially a non-factor as a wideout in his return to Foxborough, dropping one pass and having another knocked out of his hands. It doesn't excuse Manning's performance, but it qualifies some of the critiques.
The bigger question being asked is whether Manning is materially affected by cold weather. I don't believe that to be true. The stat going around before the game was that Manning was 0-2 in games where the temperature was below 20 degrees at kickoff, which is absurd for reasons beyond the small sample; one of those games was a meaningless 30-7 loss to the Bills in Week 17 of the 2009 season when Manning played only in the first quarter (leaving with the score 7-7) before turning things over to Curtis Painter. His touchdown ratio was 11-to-13 in games played at 32 degrees or under, but using the freezing point is an arbitrary cutoff for determining whether a day is "cold."
You can see Manning's performance as split into 20-degree buckets for yourself here. His numbers look dramatically better if you include his other rate statistics and those games played with a starting temperature between 33 and 40 degrees, which isn't exactly balmy. It's a smaller sample, but none of his statistics suggest there's anything specific about Manning's performance in colder games that stands out as a sign of his weakness there. It's also true that just about every quarterback plays a little worse in cold weather than in warm weather,4 so we would expect Manning to be a bit worse. Unless you think there's a meaningful difference in terms of Manning's ability to throw the football between 30 degrees and 35 degrees, the evidence suggesting Manning folds in cold weather is flimsy. If Manning had a bad game Sunday, it was because he had a bad game, not because he can't handle the cold.
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