Drew Brees: Poking Brady and Manning with a stick

Over the last several years, it's been accepted conventional wisdom that Tom Brady(notes) and Peyton Manning(notes) are the NFL's best quarterbacks. Oh, you'll have the odd Big Ben, or Philip Rivers(notes), or Kurt Warner(notes) (Cardinals version) in the argument, but since Kurt Warner (Rams NFL MVP version) became Kurt Warner (New York Giants version), it's been Tom Terrific and Manning the Elder at the top, with a nice list of second-tier signal callers. At this point, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that if Brady's "1A" and Manning's "1B", Drew Brees(notes) is at least "1C" and climbing. Last season was the warning shot, when he came within a couple plays of Dan Marino's single-season passing yardage record (5.069 yards to Marino's 5,084) in an offense with no consistent running game, and tied to a defense that assured his constant passing just to stay in games. In other words, everyone knew what Br...