The World of Mandom: NFC Playoff QBs

By Spencer Hall
All the world loves Mandom, and the collection of manliness that is the NFL playoffs is living proof of this. If you’re not familiar with the term: Mandom is the official cologne of Charles Bronson, and a quick viewing of Bronson’s 1970 Japanese commercial for the stuff will show you that in each bottle is nothing but pure ripped manliness.
We rate each of the quarterbacks’ Mandomness in the NFL playoffs with the appropriate number of bottles of Mandom they earn, on a scale of one to five. One important note: remember that even one bottle of NFL Mandom is more than you, dear reader, or I will ever possess, since we wouldn’t make it in pro football. These men’s lives are all still ten times more awesome than yours will ever be.
First, the NFC:
Brett Favre. 273 straight starts. A grizzled salt and pepper beard you last saw on one of the extras in Saving Private Ryan’s opening battle scene. Most touchdown passes, most completions, most yards, and whatever other passing records you care to throw his way. Survived a car wreck in college and subsequent surgery that removed 30 inches of his small intestine, and still won a game versus Alabama six weeks later. Once won a game in college despite vomiting during warmups due to heavy drinking the night before.
Mandom Rating: Five Bottles of Mandom.
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Tony Romo. Okay, there’s his habit of working his way through the commercially attractive blonde celebrities of the Southeastern United States (Carrie Underwood, Jessica Simpson), so he gets one bottle of Mandom for that alone. He also worships Favre, tends to gunsling and freelance, and can take vicious hits with aplomb. Also worked his way into the starter’s spot despite years of riding the bench and coming from a D-1AA school, Eastern Illinois, thus showing grit. Also appeared with karaoke metal masters Metal Skool with Mr. Belding from Saved By The Bell for an inspiring and profane version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”
For a guy still relatively new to the NFL, Romo’s Mandom rating reaches an impressive three bottles of Bronson’s finest.
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Matt Hasselbeck
Played last season’s playoff games with broken fingers on his non-throwing hand--points! Also made the famous “We want the ball, and we’re gonna score” call during the 2003 playoff overtime coin toss with Green Bay--courage and bravado equals points! Throwing the ball for a game-killing pick six to Al Harris and the loss in that same overtime, though, loses Mandom points. Hasselbeck seems like a relatively normal guy who just happens to play football--I mean, he even made a Got Milk? ad, and it doesn’t get more wholesome than that. For that, his visible on-field competitive fire, and his long, determined climb from the Green Bay bench to the Seattle starting gig, he earns a respectable three bottles of mandom.
Mandom rating: three bottles.
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Eli Manning. Manning starts at least three bottles down due to a crippling trio of factors: he already comes from football royalty, isn’t exactly a bubbly personality, and hasn’t really had time to amass the myth of manliness surrounding, say, a Brett Favre or Tom Brady. And given current indicators, he’s not going to: he doesn’t seem to be all that thrilled to play football, completes just over half of his passes, and occasionally appears in photos that make him look like just walked out of an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. He doesn’t date models, hasn’t endured any great public injury agony, and can’t hold a candle on the Mandom scale to any of the guys on this list, much less his tight end Jeremy Shockey. (A solid four-bottler on our scale.)
Eli clearly needs some reps in this department. Shockey, train ‘em up!
Mandom rating: one bottle.
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