More Peyton Manning...I Know, I Know

It is not enough to simply be consistent in athletics. To have a sporting career worthy of being remembered fondly and even revered after retirement, one must merge this consistency with actually being good. Peyton Manning, as much as any NFL quarterback, exemplifies both attributes, that of being consistent and good. In Manning's nine seasons, he has only had one season, the 2006 one, where his completion percentage standard deviation has topped .100.

Splitting his career numbers into wins and losses uncovers one intriguing fact. Ironically, Manning has played more consistently in the games that resulted in a Indianapolis Colts loss than he did when they won. For completion percentage (.078 to .089), yards per pass attempt (1.7 to 2.2), and yards per catch (2.4 to 2.6) Manning has a lower standard deviation in the Colts losses than the Colts wins.

Even though Manning has been more consistent in Colts losses, his performances in the wins completely blow away what he has done in losses. He has completed 66.6% of his pass attempts with 8.1 yards per pass attempt when the Colts walk off the field victorious and only 59.1% and 6.9 yards per pass attempt when they walk off losers. And although Manning does only average 1.3 less yards per game in the losses, he is only doing so as a result of the fact he is averaging 5.3 more pass attempts per those contests so it would seem the more passes Manning is required to throw over thirty-two or thirty-three, the more likely it is that the Colts will lose.

As is pretty evident, Manning is both consistent in his wins and his defeats so now one can look at only his final statistics and be able to guess with a fair amount of certainty and accuracy what the result of the game was.