It's a debate that's been going on for a decade: Is Tom Brady better than Peyton Manning?

Tom Brady has more championships, so the conventional wisdom would say that yes, Brady is superior.

But I think this week's season opener proves otherwise.

This Sunday marked the first time since 1997 that Peyton Manning was not the Indianapolis Colts' starting quarterback.

Championships aren't the only measure of quality for an NFL quarterback. Remember, Dan Marino never won a Super Bowl. He's easily the best player in Super Bowl era of NFL history to have never won a Super Bowl, and he's one of - if not the - best quarterbacks in history. And Manning does in fact have a ring! He won it against my Bears in 2006. But if somebody was going to beat the Bears in the Super Bowl, I'm glad it was Manning. The guy deserves it!

So how else can we compare them?

Dallas Cowboy quarterback Tony Romo has built quite a reputation over the years of blowing big plays and ruining his team's chance at winning games.

Last night, against the New York Jets, he did it again.

After a standout performance in the first 3 quarters of the game, he gave up two turnovers in the fourth, including a fumble on the Jets 3-yard-line and a game-losing int to Darrelle Revis.

According to a post that I saw on Operation Sports, EA has finally submitted its second patch for NCAA Football 12 to Sony and Microsoft for approval for release. It's about damn time. This patch was announced back on August 2nd on the EA blog, and football fans have been waiting [not so] patiently for a whole month to hear news from EA regarding the patch's release.

This patch is supposed to fix a bug that changes player tendencies when their names are changed, which makes it impossible to play the game using named rosters, since AI-controlled players will behave completely inappropriately. Most hardcore football fans have had to wait for the patch to release in order to be able to even start their Road to Glory and Dynasty modes.

...

Personally, I've been delaying my review of this game while I wait for this patch to hit, since the problems are so severe. Regardless of whether or not the patch significantly improves the quality and playability of the game, I will be taking the poor state of the game at release into account when I write my final review.

In Thursday's preseason opener against the Buffalo Bills, the Chicago Bears decided to ignore a newly-passed NFL rule change that moved kickoffs from the 30 yard line to the 35 yard line.

Special teams coordinator Dave Toub had been given permission from the officiating staff prior to the game, since apparently, the rule is vague enough that it does not completely clarify that the ball has to be kicked off from the new location. However, after kicking from the 30 twice in the game, the league told the Bears, "No, you can't do that anymore."

The Bears had supposedly elected to kick from the old distance so as to give their special teams unit some live practice at covering kicks.

I think this rule change passed by a margin of 26-6 in the off-season. The argument in support of the change is that by moving the kickoffs up five yards, there will be more touchbacks, fewer returns, and therefore fewer injuries. A majority of injuries in NFL games happen on kick return plays - although the exact percentage escapes me at the moment. Although the real reason for this rule change might just be that the other teams in the league are terrified of players like Devin Hester, Josh Cribbs, and DeSean Jackson.

I managed to watch the Chicago Bears' first preseason game when it was re-aired on NFL Network on Sunday afternoon. The game did not look very promising.

Chicago had to skip its planned pre-season opening against the St. Louis Rams in the Hall of Fame game because it was canceled due to the labor dispute that plagued the spring and summer, so the game against the Buffalo Bills was the first chance to see the 2011 Bears team in action.

And it did not look good.

Last year's offensive line was a disaster for the first half of the season. The team gave up a league-leading 56 sacks, including about 10 in one game against the Giants on a Monday night. The line did significantly improve following the week-eight bye, but Cutler was still sacked more often that I'd like to have seen, and the line still had trouble opening holes for the running backs in many situations.