I've watched both of these quarterbacks since the day each started in the NFL. Each has their strong points.
1. Peyton is Mr. Consistency. Brady is more clutch on the final drive. But Peyton is more consistent throughout the rest of the game. And he's more consistent from game to game. Every game Peyton plays you know you're going to get a good game from him. With Brady, he'll play like the best QB in the league one game then awful, losing to a team like Buffalo or the Jets the very next. I think the QB rating of both of these quarterbacks over the last few years attests to that. That's also partly what Peyton has the most 5-0 starts of any QB ever. And the most consecutive trips to the playoffs.
2. Brady gets passes off with 1-2 minimal steps, deftly avoiding tackers. He's awesome at it. Peyton does it by super quick releases on his passes.
3. Peyton goes outside the box to get yardage. He'll catch a team with 12 men on the field. He'll draw them off sides. He'll pass to a guy that was held to get the penalty yardage and draw attention to the hold. He'll gesticulate to throw the defense off. He'll make a minor adjustment to a play the defense thinks they know and burn the defense on it. Peyton does all these little things that Brady just doesn't do or just doesn't do nearly as much. Peyton really out-thinks the other team where Brady relies on his OC to do that for him. Now some might say that other QB's do the hurry up or catch teams with 12 men on the field. But Peyton is the one that popularized it.
4. Yes, Brady did have a comeback from a 24 point deficit. But he still lost that game by 10 points. When Peyton was down to Brady by 18 points, he won that game. Big difference.
5. Brady hasn't won a Super Bowl in the last decade. He was a rookie when the Pats won those Super Bowls. And if you go back and look who the Pats sent to the Pro Bowl those years, it was basically all defensive players. The whole Super Bowl title argument just doesn't hold water. That would be like saying Terry Bradshaw is the best quarterback in the NFL because he won 4 Super Bowls. Even Harrison and Bruschi and several other former Pats players have said Peyton is better. The reason why Brady has won more is because he had a far better defense and running game to work with back then. Look what has happened to the Pats defense since then. And how many Super Bowls has Brady won since then: A BIG FAT ZERO in TEN years! When Peyton won the Super Bowl back in 2006, he won it with the lowest ranked defense to ever win a Super Bowl. That tells you right there who the games were riding on.
6. I know a lot of people are mentioning how great Brady is because of how well he did this year with so little talent. Belichick and Josh McDaniels really deserve the credit for that instead of Brady. Belichick used what he had and adjusted his plays for every team he played. And he did it masterfully. McDaniels did a great job of implementing the run game. In fact, that's what won them the game against Andrew Luck and the Colts. Brady didn't throw for a single touchdown that game. In fact, Andrew Luck's stats have been nearly as good as Brady's this year and Luck has far worse receivers to throw to than Brady even had this year. The Colts were mainly working with practice squad receivers. At least Brady had 2 second round draft picks, Edelman, a descent Amendola, Austin Collie and Gronk for part of the season. And Pats fans think that's BAD?!!! I've seen Peyton play with FAR FAR FAR worse. In 2009, he basically only had 1 wide receiver that was drafted in the first two rounds (Reggie Wayne) playing for him. The rest of the squad was a 6th rounder for the year before with only 3 catches and far more drops than catchse. Another was a 4th round rookie. And the rest weren't even drafted. But that year he started 14-0, should have gone 16-0 if not for Caldwell. And he went all the way to the Super Bowl. He did far more with a lot less than Brady. This was probably the first year in Peyton's entire career that he probably had a better team surrounding him than Brady has had. And he's taking his team to the Super Bowl again.
7. While Brady may have won more playoff games. Don't forget that for the last 5 years or so these guys lost to the very same teams in the playoffs. Brady just lost by larger margins than Peyton did. So how is Brady better if he lost to the same team in the playoffs but by a wider margin?
8.There's really no record of Peyton's that Brady has beaten and held. However Peyton has knocked off and held many of Brady's records like the consecutive regular season wins. Another is the TD record. Peyton has owned that record twice. When Brady briefly held it, it took him playing 2 more games than Peyton to beat it by 1. Peyton obliterated the record this year and in the process knocked off Drew Brees's record too.
9. There's also things that Peyton has done that Brady hasn't even come close to accomplishing like making a 28 point comeback with 4 minutes left in a game to win the game. Just ask John Gruden. He vividly remembers that beating at the hands of Peyton. Then there's the win over Miami in the shortest offensive period by a QB ever. Peyton was on the field for less than a quarter of the game and pulled out the win. It was an aerial show of dominance that was just a once in a lifetime thing of beauty to watch.
Brady is very good. He's very clutch at the end of a game. But he's not as consistent as Peyton. He doesn't have the grand chessmaster football thinking ability that Peyton has. And Brady doesn't develop receivers like Peyton does. Peyton took that 6th rounder that really sucked and turned him into $45 million player Pierre Garcon. Brady's best receivers have all been developed veterans from other teams like Welker, Moss, etc. And the Pats keep trying to continue it with guys like Ocho Cinco, Larry Fitzgeral, Amendola, etc. And there's just feats that Peyton has done that Brady will never match. He'll never score 28 points in the last 4 minutes of a game. He'll never win a game in under 15 offensive minutes. He'll never make an 18 point AFC Championship come from behind win. He won't because he can't because he's not good enough to.
When you talk about talent it should be about how well a player plays. When you draft a player, you don't draft a QB on how many BCS titles he's won. If that makes a QB better, then you'd better pick a quarterback like Tim Tebow over guys like Andrew Luck, RG3, Russell Wilson, Cam Newton, Kaepernick, Foles, etc.
Peyton may not have more titles, but he players better.