Manning, without a doubt.

From career stats:

Yards/attempt: Manning- 7.7, Favre- 7.
TD:INT ratio: Manning - 2:1, Favre - 1.5:1
Sack rate: Manning: 3.3%, Favre, 4.8%
Fumble rate: Manning: .9%, Favre, 1.7%

In Favre's prime - 1992-1997, he averaged 6.3 to 7.7 yards/attempt.
In Manning's 1999 - present - already longer than Favre's best years, he averaged 7.1 to 9.2 yards/attempt

I could pull up more specific details, but they'll be pretty similar to the career numbers.

Pro bowls: Manning has missed the pro bowl twice. His Rookie year and 2001, totalling 9 appearances, 3 all pro, and 3 MVPs during the regular season.
Favre has had far more years to accumulate pro bowl appearances, but has "only" 10, with 3 all pro appearances.

You could harp on the Pro Bowl being a popularity contest, but the other statistics are more compelling to begin with.

I could go in to more details and more advanced statistical analysis, but while Favre was a great, and is a first ballot HOF player without the slightest doubt, Manning eclipses him across the board as a better QB.

NFL historical accumulation numbers:

Completions: Favre - 1st, Manning, 5th
Attempts: Favre - 1st, Manning, 8th (Note that the lower ranking in attempts than completions is an example of a higher completion percentage for Manning)
Yards - Favre - 1st, Manning - 7th (Manning still has higher yards/attempt than Favre does, but some other prolific QBs have slightly higher ones)
TDs - Favre - 1st, Manning - 4th (More TDs per pass for Manning)
Interceptions - Favre - 1st, Manning - 42nd (Well, this one speaks for itself)
Sacks - Favre - 5th, Manning, 76th (Manning is one DIFFICULT guy to sack!)

NFL historical best yards/attempt per pass:
Favre - 78th (tied with many)
Manning - 12th

Yards/completion -
Manning - 150th
Favre - 190th
Ah, yes, the days of the past when QBs completed far fewer passes for a couple yards/each more.



Neither Favre nor Manning transformed the way football was played like, say, Sid Luckman did. In a time where football QBs were horribly inefficient, Luckman transformed the nature of the game entirely, putting up numbers in 1943 in particular that looked nothing remotely like what anyone had ever accomplished before.
Source(s):
http://pro-football-reference.com for the stats

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