NFL 2018 Draft: On The One Hand...

[briantw]

6 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Yeah, Deniro hasn't done anything really great since the mid-90s.  If he just wanted to retire that's one thing, but he's made a ton of movies with mostly forgettable performances.  It's been 22 years since Casino/Heat came out in 1995.

He's had a couple of fun performances, like in Machete and Stardust, but he really hasn't had an iconic performance in decades.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, briantw said:

He's had a couple of fun performances, like in Machete and Stardust, but he really hasn't had an iconic performance in decades.

Obviously I've not seen everything he's done since 1995, and some of the work I've seen like Silver Linings Playbook was indeed pretty good.  But if you're talking about the truly great Deniro performances, it's all before 1995.  And he was only in his early fifties when Casino and Heat came out, still plenty of time to do great work, as Streep has shown. 

[briantw]

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Obviously I've not seen everything he's done since 1995, and some of the work I've seen like Silver Linings Playbook was indeed pretty good.  But if you're talking about the truly great Deniro performances, it's all before 1995.  And he was only in his early fifties when Casino and Heat came out, still plenty of time to do great work, as Streep has shown. 

I'd say it's actually more impressive that Streep has managed to stay as relevant as she has, because it's a lot easier to find great roles as an older man in Hollywood than it is an older woman.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, briantw said:

Well, Streep is still out there making good movies, whereas De Niro has mostly made shit for over a decade now.  De Niro may have had a better prime, but longevity matters.  You go through De Niro's past decade and it's mostly garbage cash-in films outside of a few solid performances.

This is eerily analogous to a certain previous conversation…

[briantw]

21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This is eerily analogous to a certain previous conversation…

Yeah, you could certainly make a similar argument in the LeBron/Jordan debate.  Jordan won more titles, but what LeBron is doing is basically unprecedented.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, briantw said:

Yeah, you could certainly make a similar argument in the LeBron/Jordan debate.  Jordan won more titles, but what LeBron is doing is basically unprecedented.  

Are you being funny or did you miss the reference?

Regardless, the Jordan/LeBron debate is pointless because the correct answer is Wilt!  

[briantw]

8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Are you being funny or did you miss the reference?

Regardless, the Jordan/LeBron debate is pointless because the correct answer is Wilt!  

Being funny.  I'd take Rice, by the way.  

[James Arryn]

2 minutes ago, briantw said:

Being funny.  I'd take Rice, by the way.  

Over Streep?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Over Streep?

I thought he meant over pasta.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Nope. 

Rice’s single game highs blow Moss out of the water. Remember Randy’s 3 TD monster against Dallas? Awesome, right? Rice scored 5 touchdowns in a game. ( against Deion’s Falcons, too, in a 13 catch 225 yard burner, though Prime always points out that he was mostly on the other receiver, but the point was Glanville actually let Rice get single coverage a lot, which was almost unheard of at that time, and, well...)

His highs go: 16 catches, 289 yards, 5 touchdowns. 

I can’t honestly tell you what Moss’s are, because the search engine i’m using only goes top 50 and he doesn’t show up in any of the three categories. 

But if you want to win one game and it’s the Superb Owl, Rice is, again, head and shoulders. Career highs in everything, but also highest in single games. Most touchdowns ( 3, did it twice) most yards (215) and his 11 catches were the most until Demarius Thomas. He also had 10, 2nd most, and 9. 

I think maybe you’ve got later Rice welded into your perception, Ty.

 

 

To the last line, possibly.

This is the last thing I'll say on the issue because we've beat this dead horse into the ground until it was mush, then we went on an epic quest to find the Necronomicon so would revive the horse, kill it, and beat it some more. If we're going purely off stats, I'll never win. And Rice's stats have earned him the right to be the greatest ever to play the position. But I still think Moss is the best because of how impacted the other 21 players on the field. The defense had to overload on whatever side he was on, allow the rest of the offense to get easy yards. You can't pack the box when Moss is on the field, and if the offense is running a three WR set, there might only be 6 men in the box. That makes it a lot easier to run up the gut. Likewise, it makes it easier for the slot WR and the TE to carve up the middle. And the WR2 will get single coverage all day. The defense eventually has to respond to this and then BAM!, Moss hits an easy home run. I watched the Vikings and the Pats do this and when they did they were damn near unstoppable. Rice is the most complete and consistent WR ever, but Moss was the cheat code.

Also, just out of curiosity, do you know where you can find their target percentages? I'd be interested to see how often each guy was targeted per game. 

[Nictarion]

5 hours ago, briantw said:

Well, Streep is still out there making good movies, whereas De Niro has mostly made shit for over a decade now.  De Niro may have had a better prime, but longevity matters.  You go through De Niro's past decade and it's mostly garbage cash-in films outside of a few solid performances.

Streep’s filmography from the last decade or so doesn’t do a whole for me, but most of it just isn’t stuff that would interest me. And yes, it saddens me De Niro is in so few good movies these days, but he is 74. The roles are probably just not there. I have high hopes for The Irishman, though. 

[briantw]

2 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Streep’s filmography from the last decade or so doesn’t do a whole for me, but most of it just isn’t stuff that would interest me. And yes, it saddens me De Niro is in so few good movies these days, but he is 74. The roles are probably just not there. I have high hopes for The Irishman, though. 

Don't disagree, but De Niro hasn't just been bad recently.  He's been mostly bad for over twenty years now.

[dbunting]

If I had to pick one to start my team with it would be Rice. Mostly because of his work ethic and professionalism.

One defense of Moss. Compare the QB's that Rice and Moss had for most of their careers.

Rice had Montana, Young, Jeff Garcia (3 pro bowls around then) and Rich Gannon for his time. His QB's won 5 NFL MVP's while he was there.

Moss had Culpepper, Cunningham or Moon?, dumpster fire Oakland and Brady and whoever else after. Had Moss had the same level QB play for most of his career like Rice did then he may just have broken all his records.I'd probably still take Rice first though.

Not sure what spurred this pages long discussion but there is an interesting article on Bleacher report saying Jerry Rice isn't  #1...spoiler alert, neither is Moss. They make an arguement for Don Hutson.

[dbunting]

I read an article where Cleveland brass says there is no point in being secretive, that they are drafting a QB 1st. Then goes on to specifically mention Chubb at 4 being a dream, that lining him up with Garrett on the other side would be great, something he thinks about at night.

So is he trolling the Colts and trying to get them to trade up with them or is he actually showing his hand? Seems like a troll job to me. If they were able to trade back to 6 and collect a 2nd rd pick or more out of it, and STILL get their pick of QB's and either Chubb, Barkley or Fitzpatrick it would be sick.

[DMC]

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Rice had the better career, but if I had to pick one for a single game, give me Moss. And for that matter, I might want Johnson and TO too over Rice. They lacked Rice’s consistency, but their ceilings are arguably higher.

Calvin Johnson?!?  I assume you mean Calvin and not Andre.  Johnson played 9 years, here are his career stats:

135 games, 130 GS, 731 catches, 11619 yards, 83 TDs.

And here are Rice's for his first 9 years:

140 games, 127 GS, 708 catches, 11776 yards, 118 TDs.  

So, even ignoring the obvious differences in league context between 1985-1993 and 2007-2015, and the fact Rice's three best seasons (at least in terms of catches) were immediately after in his 10th-12th seasons, Rice still had more yards and many, many more touchdowns with 23 less catches.  It's apparent from your list you're valuing physical attributes and the "wow" factor when evaluating "ceiling" rather than, ya know, actual production and impact on the game.  To each his own I guess.

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If anything this has less to do with me being a homer and more to do with the fact that when I started really watching football (late 90’s), Rice was a shell of himself.

Well yeah that might be a major issue.

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

And of course Streep is the better actress. The only other actor/actress that can be mentioned in the same conversation with her in the last few decades is De Niro, and he still stands in her shadow.

Daniel Day Lewis says hi.  He may not have had the same longevity or consistency, but some would argue he had a higher ceiling.  And much better ball skills.

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

The Frances McDormand reference is kind of silly though. She’s not from Minnesota, and she was in one film featured here that isn’t as popular as you might think. You would have been better off comparing the Coen brothers (it was funny the first time I canvassed their old home) with some of the other great directors of our era.

If people don't get the McDormand reference, they're definitely not going to get a Coen brothers one.  She's the most associated with the accent.  Hell, here's an article on the Minnesoooota accent from a Minnesoooota paper, and look whose picture is up there.

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

This isn’t about being a homer. It’s about pointing about that Moss’ ceiling is second to none.

No, it's about you adopting a decidedly wrong position about Moss' ceiling being higher than Rice's because you're being a homer.  

[James Arryn]

9 hours ago, dbunting said:

If I had to pick one to start my team with it would be Rice. Mostly because of his work ethic and professionalism.

One defense of Moss. Compare the QB's that Rice and Moss had for most of their careers.

Rice had Montana, Young, Jeff Garcia (3 pro bowls around then) and Rich Gannon for his time. His QB's won 5 NFL MVP's while he was there.

Moss had Culpepper, Cunningham or Moon?, dumpster fire Oakland and Brady and whoever else after. Had Moss had the same level QB play for most of his career like Rice did then he may just have broken all his records.I'd probably still take Rice first though.

Not sure what spurred this pages long discussion but there is an interesting article on Bleacher report saying Jerry Rice isn't  #1...spoiler alert, neither is Moss. They make an arguement for Don Hutson.

Montana missed a lot of time, etc. Up until the end of the Young era, Rice played 24 games with backups (not counting Young) with illustrious names like Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac, Jeff Kemp, Mike Moroski and Matt Cavanaugh. In those 24 games he put up these numbers:

134 catches, for 2,177 yards and 23 touchdowns.

Pared down to a 16 game season, that’s 89 catches for 1451 yards and 16 touchdowns. And about a quarter of those games happened before or after his prime (ie rookie year or when he was 34+) Again, Steve Bono, Elvis Grbac, Matt Cavanaugh and Mike Moroski. 

Jerry Rice likes these arguments against him. He likes them the way he likes Pro Bowl double coverage with safety help. He loves what he does to them both. It’s like cake. 

[Rhom]

I just clicked to open the last page of this topic, saw multiple posts on DeNiro and Streep and had to double check that I hadn’t mistakenly clicked the Oscar thread...

[sperry]

Rice > Moss. It's not a debate. Randy was probably more physically gifted, and likely could have surpassed Rice if he'd had the same competitive drive, but that's kind of a moot point because he didn't.

[James Arryn]

Hopefully last point, but in terms of perception/competition, I think 2 things:

1) people don’t realize what a statistical outlier he is. The top 20 in TD receptions go:

84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 99, 100, 110, 111, 114, 128, 130, 153, 156, 197.  The gap between him and 2nd is more than 26% of the second’s total. 

Receiving yards, same but even more extreme (just gonna do 10, longer numbers)

14, 345  14,580  14,731  14,934  15,127  15,208  15,392  15,545  15,934  22,895

The difference between him and 2nd is an astonishing 47% of the 2nd place’s total.

We just don’t see this kind of domination in pro sports. To put it into contrast, the TD gap would be the equivalent of someone hitting 964 home runs. The yards gap is the equivalent of someone who hit 1,094 career home runs. Just for fun, it would take Brady another 3 Super Bowl wins to top it. Someone would need to pass for almost 800 TDS to be equally dominant. 

The only comparison is Wayne Gretzky. Anyone arguing that there is even a conceivable argument for anyone else being even close is picking just about the most insanely difficult mountain to climb. It can’t be done.

2) Again, I think due to them focusing on his later career, many people here seem to be seeing Rice as a possession receiver. RICE WAS NOT A POSSESSION RECEIVER. 

He only lead the league in catches twice in his career, he was 3/4 times more dominant in yards and touchdowns. His best yards/catch season is better than Moss’s best y/rec season. His 2nd best y/rec season is better than Moss’s 2nd best y/rec season. Moss’s 3rd best y/rec season would be 5th on Rice’s chart. 

Think about that for a second when making the argument for who was dominant how. Rice’s best seasons were much more big play seasons than Moss’s. It’s only in his mid-late 30’s, lost speed and always playing through injuries that his numbers begin to look anything like what you might call a possession receiver. He was a big play receiver. He was THE big play receiver. 

 

 Edit: fucked up the bold, can’t seem to correct it. Ah, Fuck, this is in bold too.

[Nictarion]

8 hours ago, Rhom said:

I just clicked to open the last page of this topic, saw multiple posts on DeNiro and Streep and had to double check that I hadn’t mistakenly clicked the Oscar thread...

Well, the Rice vs Moss debate certainly didn’t deserve attention...