Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are two of the most storied and respected quarterbacks in NFL history. Both won multiple Super Bowls, and both even brought the Lombardi home for two different franchises, and both have a claim as the best quarterback of all time.
Now, Brady is dishing on how he viewed Manning during their playing days, and he’s being brutally honest.
“When I look back on my relationship with Peyton Manning, my respect, admiration, and appreciation for him as a competitor has grown with each passing year,” Brady wrote on his blog.
“It was always there, don’t misunderstand, but while we were competing against each other I couldn’t let that get in the way of the fact that he was my enemy, that he didn’t respect me, that he thought he was better than me because he was a #1 pick from an SEC school—or at least that’s what I made myself believe.
“Convincing myself that those things were true created a sense of urgency within me to prove him wrong, and it provided the extra bit of energy and motivation necessary to lock in and focus and execute just that much more so that I could beat him more often than he beat me.”
Brady added that he feels rivalries are better served when the sides see each other as enemies.
“I also believe—and this is kind of an old school point of view considering where we are with social media these days—that you have to allow your rivals to become your enemies,” he wrote. “True enemies, in your mind and on the field. You can, and should, respect them, but you can’t look at them like ‘friendly competition.’”
Brady said that his only friends were the ones on his team.
“I didn’t have any real friends on any other teams when I played. I had the guys on my team and that was it.”