Colts: Peyton Manning trolls Tom Brady in Hall of Fame speech

Almost every Tom Brady joke feels hackneyed at this point, mostly because they all end up being compliments.

“Oh, he’s so old and still so good! He’ll still be playing when his son has a son of his own to kiss!” Everything starts as an age-related dig, but just ends up being another awe-struck remark about how long Brady’s managed to not only persevere, but dominate.

Leave it to Colts legend Peyton Manning to break that streak, though, and find something to tweak Brady about on stage in Canton: the bizarre resurgence of his social media use.

Because while Brady dominating on the field as he nears his mid-40s is bizarre enough, his Instagram and Twitter presences feeling like those of a much younger man is far lamer.

Manning invited Brady into his own lair, asking him to share crowd space with his ex-Colts teammates this weekend in Canton, just to level him with a finishing move midway through his emotional speech.

By the time Brady gets to the Hall, though, Manning thinks he won’t even deliver a speech. It’ll just be some well-crafted and pithy Instagram post, probably ghostwritten by a 22-year-old who’s really “captured” Brady’s “voice” (eg, weird jokes and pranks).

Colts legend Peyton Manning took a shot at Tom Brady.

Boom. Right where it hurts most for Brady these days — a shot at his Instagram followers.

I’m sure everyone who has chosen to signal-boost Tom Brady’s social media is a very nice person. But he’s come a long way from the inscrutable Crocodile-based cartoons, which were kind of lovably deranged, and now has an extremely pitch-perfect, “wink wink, nudge nudge” highly online version of himself across all channels. Which is extremely grating.

No, Brady is never “hilariously trolling” anyone. No, Brady hasn’t had us splitting our sides, rolling on the floor, or tilting our head sideways while crying (three times) for years now. It took Manning, on the biggest stage, to get the point across effectively, though.

One of the three greatest quarterbacks we’ve ever seen may be a social media maven and micro-influencer, but he’s still nowhere close to Manning in terms of natural humor and charisma.

Brady has chiseled a “hilarious” persona out of unworkable clay. Manning just … is funny. And the difference was on display on Sunday.

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