yeah, i think watching brady and manning now is maybe even better than watching montana and marino back in the 1980s, not because the QBs are more talented, but because they are:

a) more evenly matched in achievements (marino was mr. stats but never won an SB; montana was the super bowl king but didn't break any major records). peyton won his super bowl last year, while tom may break all the single-season records aside from marino's total yards one.

b) it's much, much harder to put together a dominant team now than it was then. as much talent as the pats and colts have, they can't stack the team like the 49ers did. my guess is that the extreme success of manning and brady has almost as much to do with their incredible work ethics as talent.