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NFL Offseason: Trail of Tears or My Cousin Kirky


Manhole Eunuchsbane

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4 minutes ago, Reny of Storms End said:

LB Jay Elliot and CB Devon House, both ended up signing with the Packers. 

Elliot was a UFA and so was House, but House got cut.  I guess they may have gotten sick of always being the Bride's maid and just said they would not do it for Hightower.  I don't see this as a big deal, but its fun to try to figure this out.

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10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

That said, the reason why I can't agree with the idea that Brady is the GOAT, or even the best QB ever, is because there are two other QBs who played at the same time who I think most objective people outside of NE would rather start their franchises with over Brady. Brady is certainly the most successful QB ever, and an all time great, but I honestly don't view him as the best.

Who would you take over Brady in his prime? The only ones who come to mind are Rodgers and Manning, but while they're better than he is at certain things (e.g. Brady has never moved like Rodgers does), he has no equal when it comes to winning and he has done it with teams that have no common thread beyond Darth Hoodie and Brady himself. FiveThirtyEight has an article attempting to untangle the two and I think there is little doubt that if your goal is to select a quarterback who will win, Brady is your best bet.

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11 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Who would you take over Brady in his prime? The only ones who come to mind are Rodgers and Manning, but while they're better than he is at certain things (e.g. Brady has never moved like Rodgers does), he has no equal when it comes to winning and he has done it with teams that have no common thread beyond Darth Hoodie and Brady himself. FiveThirtyEight has an article attempting to untangle the two and I think there is little doubt that if your goal is to select a quarterback who will win, Brady is your best bet.

That's one hell of a thread though, isn't it? Not to take anything away from Brady (I do believe him to be the GOAT at this point) but these Pats teams have been way more consistent than the Packers teams that Rodgers played with or the Colts teams that Manning played with. At least in terms of being complete teams.

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2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

That's one hell of a thread though, isn't it? Not to take anything away from Brady (I do believe him to be the GOAT at this point) but these Pats teams have been way more consistent than the Packers teams that Rodgers played with or the Colts teams that Manning played with. At least in terms of being complete teams.

In some aspects, but consider this. Peyton Manning never played a single season without either Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, or Demaryius Thomas on his offense. From 2003-2008 he had both Wayne and Harrison. When he moved to the Broncos he had DT and then what was usually considered the best receiver corp in the NFL. Rodgers has never played season outside of 2015 without Greg Jennings or Jordy Nelson. 

Brady played 01-06 with nobody of that calibre. He got Moss in 07. He was injured in 08. Had Moss until the middle of 2010. He then got Gronk in 2010 who consistently gets injured almost every year who he just won a SB without. Brady locks down that offense for the Patriots. 

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Just now, lancerman said:

In some aspects, but consider this. Peyton Manning never played a single season without either Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, or Demaryius Thomas on his offense. From 2003-2008 he had both Wayne and Harrison. When he moved to the Broncos he had DT and then what was usually considered the best receiver corp in the NFL. Rodgers has never played season outside of 2015 without Greg Jennings or Jordy Nelson. 

Brady played 01-06 with nobody of that calibre. He got Moss in 07. He was injured in 08. Had Moss until the middle of 2010. He then got Gronk in 2010 who consistently gets injured almost every year who he just won a SB without. Brady locks down that offense for the Patriots. 

Sure, I think it's fair to say that Brady does more with less on the offensive end (although he has had some really nice pieces as well). I'd point more to the defensive end. The Pats have had a top defense for just about the entire Brady era. It has waxed and waned at various times, but I don't think it's ever been mediocre. Outside of his last couple years in Denver, I don't think Manning even had a decent defense to rely on. Rodgers may have fared a bit better in this regard, but not by much, methinks. 

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1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Sure, I think it's fair to say that Brady does more with less on the offensive end (although he has had some really nice pieces as well). I'd point more to the defensive end. The Pats have had a top defense for just about the entire Brady era. It has waxed and waned at various times, but I don't think it's ever been mediocre. Outside of his last couple years in Denver, I don't think Manning even had a decent defense to rely on. Rodgers may have fared a bit better in this regard, but not by much, methinks. 


They've always had a good overall defense. But from like 2009-2012 their secondary was a freaking nightmare and the end of games sucked. The only reason they were in the Super Bowl in 2011 was because Brady willed his team along all year to overcompensate. And consider this, the two times Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl in 2006 his offense actually was kind of abysmal in the playoffs and his defense legit carried the team with an excellent showing (I think the defense outproduced the offense that playoff run) and in 2015 he was again carried by a defense when he was at the end of his rope. 

Manning's had some pretty good defenses. Nothing as good as Brady. But really outside of 2001, it's not like Brady didn't carry his weight in his Super Bowl runs. He was 3rd in MVP voting in 2003, led the league in passing,  and won a major shootout against the Panthers, he and the offense were elite in 2004, in 2007 he led one of the best offenses of all time, in 2011 he overcompensated and made it to the Super Bowl with one of the worst secondaries to ever enter in the league, I think he had the number 1 or 2 ranked offense in 2014, and he led an outstanding offense this year. 

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So, if the Pats go into another season with a super-stacked team, heavily favoured and healthy and fall short, will that add to or detract from Brady/Hoodie's legacy? Not necessarily 18-1, but clear front runners who falter in the crunch. 

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Just now, James Arryn said:

So, if the Pats go into another season with a super-stacked team, heavily favoured and healthy and fall short, will that add to or detract from Brady/Hoodie's legacy? Not necessarily 18-1, but clear front runners who falter in the crunch. 

They are already ahead of anybody,anything they do just adds to that. Even if they go 18-1 now they had two of the only 3 perfect regular seasons, they increased their lead in AFCCG and Super Bowl appearances. Brady blows open his lead for most wins of all time and increases his winning percentage to near an .800 average with twice as many wins as anybody with a similar average (Lamonica and Graham who have around 60 all time wins to Brady's over 200). It's just more stats on their resume. They already did something that you'd have to go back to before the merger to find any coach or QB doing something similar. 

 

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1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

The Pats have had a top defense for just about the entire Brady era.

I think this can be a great (if not redundant) topic, and after my trial in the morning I may take time to unpack some of this, but for now I just want to tackle this one piece.  Brady's defenses have ranged from "fucking great" (2003-2004) to overrated (2001), to "meh" (2007, 2009, 2012) to flat out fucking terrible (2011, 2013).  

Here are the Pats defensive rankings (DVOA) by year, broken up in total defensive ranking and Weighted (w. Weighted games that happened at the end of the season count more than games that happened at the start) 

2001: 13th total D, 13th Weighted D (not nearly as great as we all remembered) 

2002: 14th Total, 21 Weighted (last time Brady finished a season and the Pats did not make the playoffs) 

2003: 2 and 2

2004: 7 and 7 (seems like they should have been better)

2005: 27 and 24 (somehow made the playoffs) 

2006: 7 and 4 (MUCH better than I recall) 

2007: 11 and 19 (Weighted seems exactly right: the D began to deteriorate rapidly in the 2nd half of the season) 

2008: N/A

2009: 14, 13 (what's interesting here is that Brady was not at 100% yet the team's D was about the same as in 2007.  And yet...) 

2010: 21 and 11 (THe D played great in the second half and it helped the Pats not at all)

2011: 30 and 28 (How fucking stupid is it that the Pats made the Superbowl that season?  How??!?!?!?) 

2012: 15 and 15

2013: 20 and 24 (Pats had no business making it to the AFC Championship game with this D) 

2014: 12 and 13 (Again, in retrospect they seemed better...) 

2015: 12 and 15

2016: 16 and 11 (they got better as the year went on... after they got rid of Collins... makes no sense).  

So, to recap, the Pats D was only in the top ten THREE times w/ Brady as the starter (03, 04 and 06) and while the Pats DID win the SB in 2 of those seasons, those were all early-year successes.  The Pats have enjoyed extraordinary post season success with team Ds that have been anything but great and in a few cases (01, 07, '14 and '16) made it to or even WON the Superbowl with pretty mediocre Ds and in a few seasons made it DEEP into the playoffs with below-average to terrible D (2013 to the AFC Championship game; 2011 to the Superbowl).  

So, no; Brady did not have a top-notch D for even the majority of his career; he basically had a top-notch D for 3 of his first 6 seasons and that was it. 

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16 minutes ago, Rockroi said:

So, no; Brady did not have a top-notch D for even the majority of his career; he basically had a top-notch D for 3 of his first 6 seasons and that was it. 

 If you consider DVOA to be the end-all, be-all, I suppose. Their defense last season was #1 rated using more conventional metrics, no? They allowed 42 fewer points than their closest competitor. Not buying it. I'll give you 2011. I can't think of another Pats D that I would describe as being even average. 

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45 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 If you consider DVOA to be the end-all, be-all, I suppose. Their defense last season was #1 rated using more conventional metrics, no? They allowed 42 fewer points than their closest competitor. Not buying it. I'll give you 2011. I can't think of another Pats D that I would describe as being even average. 

True but didn't like almost every analyst say something like the Patriots had one of the worst schedules for opposing offense in the league and highly questioned the validity of that ranking? 

The Patriots had good defenses but they had nothing on teams like the 2000 Ravens, 2008 Steelers, 2013 Seahawks, 2015 Broncos.

And tbh a lot of people will argue that DVOA is more predicative of success than ppg. I think it's better to say they always had competent defenses for the most part, though 2009-2012 were crap imo. And as much as people remember the early 2000's as being great, the 2001 team wasn't a world beater defense. It was more of a plucky team with good scheming and fundamentals and Brady doing some game managing as well as making some clutch plays down the stretch. 2003 was a great defense but Brady was also the 3 best QB arguably in the league and like I said led the league in TD's. Also their defense that year made Jake Delhomme look like Joe Montana in that Super Bowl. And the 2004 team also had a great defense, but the offense again was a powerhouse as well. They might actually have been the most dominant team of the 2000's when you consider what they were and what they did. They went through a historically great Colts offense, a historically great Steelers defense, and the best team in the NFC (and really standardbearer for the NFC in the early 2000's) in the Eagles.

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 Sure, strength of schedule should factor in, but points allowed is a rubber meets the road sort of stat over the course of a season. If you gave up the fewest points in the league, you're arguably the best defense, or at least among the best. If DVOA says the Pats were a middle of the road defense last year, then DVOA is crap in that particular instance. I'm not saying this was one of the great all-time defenses (it clearly wasn't), but it was at the very least one of the best defenses last season.

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43 minutes ago, Triskan said:

But a great stat that I mentioned a while ago is that Brady's D has never gotten owned in a playoff game.  For Brady's staggering number of playoff appearances they've never given up high 40's.  

That seems like an incredibly odd place to draw the line - giving up 38 points and what, a 20 point comeback in 2005 seems like kind of a big deal, as does the bizarre amount of points they gave up to Seattle two years ago. Or that 33-14 beatdown to the not particularly offensively impressive Ravens. Or giving up 28 to the Jets. 

Their defense has largely been not an active travesty, but by NFL levels it's not been insanely good or even particularly decent at times. 

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5 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

That's one hell of a thread though, isn't it? Not to take anything away from Brady (I do believe him to be the GOAT at this point) but these Pats teams have been way more consistent than the Packers teams that Rodgers played with or the Colts teams that Manning played with. At least in terms of being complete teams.

Well sure, if you're asked whether you want to pick a 21st century coach/GM together with a contemporary quarterback in his prime, there's even less doubt who gets chosen, but I think most people would go with Brady even if asked to simply asked to pick a 21st century quarterback.

43 minutes ago, Triskan said:

But a great stat that I mentioned a while ago is that Brady's D has never gotten owned in a playoff game.  For Brady's staggering number of playoff appearances they've never given up high 40's.

But surely this is at least partly Brady's doing? It is possible to score 40+ points against a decent offense (I think I've seen a few Drew Brees games where this happens), but it is much easier to do when you can shut down the opposing offense with 3-and-outs and turnovers thus gaining both time of possession and field position.

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1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Sure, strength of schedule should factor in, but points allowed is a rubber meets the road sort of stat over the course of a season. If you gave up the fewest points in the league, you're arguably the best defense, or at least among the best. If DVOA says the Pats were a middle of the road defense last year, then DVOA is crap in that particular instance. I'm not saying this was one of the great all-time defenses (it clearly wasn't), but it was at the very least one of the best defenses last season.

Er... they were REALLY middle of the road.  

The Pats had a fantastic game in week 3- they shut out the Texans but make no mistake- the Texans were so bad at that time and Watt was playing hurt.  Also, the Texans committed costly turnovers on special teams; the D never really had to take the field.  

But also, Pats played a lot of TERRIBLE offenses in 2016 which assisted keeping their PPG total low.  Again, looking at DVOA- this time on the offense's side - the Pats played the BOTTOM FIVE teams in DVOA - the 49'ers, Texans, Rams, Browns and Jets.  The Pats played four more games against sub-average DVOA teams Bills x2 and Miami x2.  And the Bills BEAT the Pats in week 4 (no Brady).  Look at the top-ten DVOA teams from 2016- Pats were 1-1 against those teams with a loss to Seattle, and a win against Pittsburgh, but that Pittsburgh win was without Big Ben.  

In the Playoffs, the Pats tightened things up by the AFC Championship game, but their D was mediocre against the Texans, good against Pitt and schizophrenic against the Falcons.  But the Superbowl is also cloudy; a HUGE part of the Pats success came from the Offense keeping Ryan-Jones off the field for so long.  

And Hightower's strip-sack helped... 

Regardless, I think for 2016 the Pats D was helped out tremendously by the schedule and was otherwise middle-of-the-pack which is sometimes good enough.  

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13 hours ago, Altherion said:

Who would you take over Brady in his prime? The only ones who come to mind are Rodgers and Manning, but while they're better than he is at certain things (e.g. Brady has never moved like Rodgers does), he has no equal when it comes to winning and he has done it with teams that have no common thread beyond Darth Hoodie and Brady himself. FiveThirtyEight has an article attempting to untangle the two and I think there is little doubt that if your goal is to select a quarterback who will win, Brady is your best bet.

Those would be the two. Personally, if I was starting a franchise over from scratch, I would rather have Rodgers or Manning over Brady, and for me, that somewhat undercuts the argument that Brady is the GOAT. 

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I don't get that much into best-of-all-time.  I will say I thought while I watched them, that Marino (the best thrower of a football I've seen) was better than Montana, but everyone said Joe's a winner; never holding it against Montana that he played for an all star team (and Marino played with junk).

Now, it seems the criteria has changed, Brady is the best winner of all time, but I see a lot of "yeah but...", where Bill or the defense is concerned.  Where is the criteria now, somewhere between "eye test" and stats?

Was never a Manning fan, so admittedly biased, however Manning (who ran his own offense?) seemed to call a lot of passing plays when it was 1st and goal in the 4th quarter when he was up two touchdowns. 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Those would be the two. Personally, if I was starting a franchise over from scratch, I would rather have Rodgers or Manning over Brady, and for me, that somewhat undercuts the argument that Brady is the GOAT. 

Have to say my opinion is entirely different. Brady has been consistently great while working with mediocre talent. Manning/Rodgers have had much better talent at WR. Brady has Marino like stats with Montana like winning, to me that's the best of both worlds. Looked at a few stats.

QB                  Yards          TD             PR         WINS

Marino               5th            5th             26th       5th

Brady                4th             4th             3rd         3rd

Montana          17th           16th             13th      10th

 

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