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NFL 2018 III - Gronk is Better at Life Than You


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1 hour ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

So now that Brees is the all-time passing yards leader, where should he rank among the greats?  Going into last night’s game, I would have ranked him as such:

1. Rodgers

2. Manning

3. Brady

4. Marino

5. Elway

6. Montana

7. Favre

8. Brees

Perhaps he deserves to be higher, but as is always the case, it’s hard to balance modern stats versus how the game used to be played.

Pretty close list although I have Rodgers down mid pack at best. I can't see how he could be above Brady in any way, any form or measure. Brady has had crap receivers most of his career and they seem to change every year or two and he still keeps winning and collecting stats.

Also have Brees IMO well above Favre. Brees has basically equal TD's and yards with 5% better completion percentage and 108 less int's, 108 less! Hell I'd have Staubach, Aikman (yes I have Cowboy fan bias) and Bradshaw equal or close to Favre. Yes Favre has stats but his style of play lost his teams games as much as it made them win them.

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2 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

So now that Brees is the all-time passing yards leader, where should he rank among the greats?  Going into last night’s game, I would have ranked him as such:

1. Rodgers

2. Manning

3. Brady

4. Marino

5. Elway

6. Montana

7. Favre

8. Brees

Perhaps he deserves to be higher, but as is always the case, it’s hard to balance modern stats versus how the game used to be played.

Where is @Rockroi? This aggression will not stand, man.

:P

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22 minutes ago, Week said:

Where is @Rockroi? This aggression will not stand, man.

:P

Don't worry. I'll help.

@SpaceForce Tywin et al. are you out your mind? I'm about to freak out so hard I'll be fined.

'Cause you're dumb as a stump, never been a rock you won't hump

Less cool than Ja Rule, whenever this boy come around he actin a fool

Manning at two Brady at three, something wrong here what could it be?

 

I'm tired of writing the song.

You're an idiot!

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I do have to say, for the record, I'm pretty tired of Brady. His lack of charisma combined with MAGA and (what seems like) pretty poor behavior in grooming a successor ... it has been a great run, but all things come to an end.

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1 minute ago, Week said:

I do have to say, for the record, I'm pretty tired of Brady. His lack of charisma combined with MAGA and (what seems like) pretty poor behavior in grooming a successor ... it has been a great run, but all things come to an end.

None of these guys go out gracefully.

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I have never liked Brady, and for a long time have thought he was overrated.  But at this point you have to make an almost ridiculous argument to put him behind Manning (healthier, far more postseason success) or Marino (one AFC Championship?  Come on).  Rodgers is a better qb when he's healthy, but Brady is better at staying healthy, will probably have a longer career, and while Rodgers postseason stats are also great (unlike Manning's), his success in the team game is incomparably worse. 

Any time you are rating qbs there are caviats, and Belichick is a huge caviat for Brady.  The 11-5 season with the utterly mediocre Matt Cassell is a strong argument against Brady.  But then Montana had Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott and Bill Walsh. 

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6 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

None of these guys go out gracefully.

Elway? -ish. I do agree with you though it rankles me when juxtaposed with the GOAT bleating.

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I extremely bullish on Montana being higher on the GOAT list, and I think he's the only one with an argument (and not a great one) to be better than Brady at this point. If Brady had a retired a few years ago, you could maybe make the argument that because someone like Rodgers has a better peak, maybe that's enough to be ranked higher. But Brady (unfortunately) has the sustained success over so long a period of time, that its hard to argue against him. Montana had great numbers in an earlier, tougher on QBs era, and, unlike Marino, also had enormous postseason success. 

There is the Belichick issue, but the flip side of the argument is that maybe its Brady who makes Belichick look better. The Matt Cassell season is brought up a lot, but it should be remembered that that was a stacked Patriots offense and a team that had gone 16-0 (or 18-1 if you prefer) the year before. If Brady hadn't gotten injured, they might've easily gone 14-2 or better.

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5 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Funny that we have two top 10ish WRs who were a 5th round pick and an undrafted free agent yet our 1st rounders have all sucked over the last decade.

I'm damn near positive Thielen only went undrafted because he's white, because he was a goddamn beast in college and his combine measurements were pretty much all above NFL average.  Even fantasy players don't respect him because he's white.  Or at least they didn't heading into this year despite his top ten finish last year looking like anything but a fluke.

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I still find Montana's dominance to be more impressive than Brady's personally, but I'm absolutely biased.  I think if Montana had a career as long and as healthy as Brady, he probably wins 6-7 rings.  But health is a skill too...

42 minutes ago, Fez said:

There is the Belichick issue, but the flip side of the argument is that maybe its Brady who makes Belichick look better. The Matt Cassell season is brought up a lot, but it should be remembered that that was a stacked Patriots offense and a team that had gone 16-0 (or 18-1 if you prefer) the year before. If Brady hadn't gotten injured, they might've easily gone 14-2 or better.

No doubt, that was a very good team, and I agree there's a good chance they win 13 or 14 games if Brady were healthy in 2008.  But if Tom Brady is "only" 2-3 games better than Matt Cassell, that is in fact a legit criticism of Brady.  Because I think that second tier pro bowlers like Philip Rivers and Tony Romo are 2-3 games better than Cassell. 

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19 minutes ago, briantw said:

I'm damn near positive Thielen only went undrafted because he's white, because he was a goddamn beast in college and his combine measurements were pretty much all above NFL average.  Even fantasy players don't respect him because he's white.  Or at least they didn't heading into this year despite his top ten finish last year looking like anything but a fluke.

The Patriots disagree with you. :kiss:

Sometimes players fall through the cracks. Especially those from smaller programs with one good year --

Who wouldn't be drooling over this BEAST. I can't get enough of the NSIC South Division All-NSIC First Team. Note - I cannot even make fun of other players on this roster because I can't find it.

Quote

For his efforts, Thielen was named NSIC South Division All-NSIC First Team, the Daktronics Super Region No. 3 Second Team, and Don Hansen Super Region Second Team. Thielen finished near the top of several career receiving categories after his four years at Minnesota State including finishing second in receiving yards (2,802), second in receptions (198), and third in touchdown catches (20). As a Maverick, he notched five 100-yard receiving games, including a career-high of 167 against Southwest Minnesota State in 2012.

Granted -- he had great combine numbers .., so do many players that end up going nowhere (look at any list of top SPARQ scores over the last few years -- some diamonds in the rough and some... shit).

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2 minutes ago, Week said:

The Patriots disagree with you. :kiss:

Sometimes players fall through the cracks. Especially those from smaller programs with one good year --

Who wouldn't be drooling over this BEAST. I can't get enough of the NSIC South Division All-NSIC First Team. Note - I cannot even make fun of other players on this roster because I can't find it.

Granted -- he had great combine numbers .., so do many players that end up going nowhere (look at any list of top SPARQ scores over the last few years -- some diamonds in the rough and some... shit).

What I look at is their college dominator rating combined with their production, athletic profile, YPR, etc.  Thielen may have went to a smaller school, but he absorbed 46% of the offense at that school on 16 YPR and was just generally wildly productive.  When you have an NFL athlete at a small school like that, you want to see them do exactly what Thielen did...dominate against the lesser athletes.  

The biggest red flag for me is when guys have elite NFL athleticism but don't translate that into college production, or translate it into underwhelming college production.  Take Zay Jones, for example.  He's a top-tier athlete at the WR position, and he put up some gaudy stats in college.  But then you look at his YPR, which is a pathetic 11.1 (7th percentile), and that tells you that, while he did absorb a lot of his team's offense, he wasn't out there making plays.  And if he couldn't make plays against the guys Eastern Carolina was playing, he sure as shit wasn't gonna do it against NFL athletes, and he certainly has not.

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That's tremendous - I'm very glad for you. It isn't relevant to what you said before -- "I'm damn near positive Thielen only went undrafted because he's white". That is stupid, ridiculous, and very far from the reasonable post above which that does not make any such assertions.

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4 minutes ago, Week said:

That's tremendous - I'm very glad for you. It isn't relevant to what you said before -- "I'm damn near positive Thielen only went undrafted because he's white". That is stupid, ridiculous, and very far from the reasonable post above which that does not make any such assertions.

Eh...I think a lot of NFL teams tend to underrate and undervalue white receivers.  Doesn't mean every team does it, but you also have to consider that not every team has to in order for a guy to slip through the cracks, as they don't all need receivers every year.

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Look, a top 10 all-time list is subjective, and if you read carefully, my post was actually talking about how I have under appreciated Brees' greatness. 

I have Rodgers at number one because he is simply the greatest QB I have ever seen. Brady will have more titles even if Rodgers plays another 10 years and I doubt Rodgers will be better statistically, other than maybe in things like TD-Int ratio (I think I read somewhere that he only throws an interception on 1.09% of his passes for his career). For me, Rodgers is simply the best to ever do it, and I say that as someone who was raised to hate the Packers (though I have long outgrown the concept of sports hate, unless it's for comedy).

I have expressed here on several occasions why Manning is better than Brady TO ME. That doesn't mean it has to be for you or even convince you. Out of every QB to ever play, Manning is the guy I think would be most likely to succeed no matter when or where he played, even if he had been drafted by the terrible Browns. Manning didn't have close to the greatest tools like some of the guys I listed. But he does have the greatest football mind of any QB to ever play. I don't think anything outside of an injury could derail his career.

Look, Brady is great. Putting at Brady at three is not saying Brady is bad. Brady is the most successful QB in NFL history, and it's unlikely that anything will change that. But that doesn't make him the guy I want the most. And inversely to Manning, I don't think you can say that Brady would have been great not matter what. If not for an untimely injury, he may never had a career, and just been a 6th round pick who bounced around as a backup. And then as we all know. There is the Belichick factor. It will always be a chicken and egg dilemma with those two, so unless we see would succeed elsewhere, we'll never really know. 

And here's the crux of it with these three. If they all took turns trading places, would they be able to replicate to improve on their successes? I think Rodgers and Manning both win more titles than they did if they were on the Pats and I don't think Brady is a five time champion in either Green Bay or Indy, and that's assuming we allow for him to have the same level of greatness he's enjoyed. I think Manning succeeds in all three places and Rodgers does in at least two. I just can't say that with Brady. Keep in mind, Indy and Green Bay have not had great rosters, and both organizations largely failed their guys IMO. I know the Pats didn't always either, but they always get the most out of their guys and scheme to make things as easy as possible for their guys to have success. That's not true of the other places (and for the sake of the argument I'm just setting Denver off to the side). Hell, if Rodgers never wins another title, Mike McCarthy may go down as one of the most overrated coaches in NFL history.  

As for everyone else not named, that's when it really becomes a mess. Montana is the only guy I think you pick to replace any of those three guys. And frankly, as someone who was too young to ever see him play, I have no idea how to rank him. And then you have to factor in the vast difference in the eras.

Nearly every old head I've spoken with before his new era has said that Marino was the best pure passer ever. I don't hold it against him that he never won a ring. Championships in football are hard to value due to the nature of the sport in a way that's not true of basketball. LeBron is better than Jordan, but he can never be the GOAT, not even if he wins four straight titles and passes Jordan in number of championships. But it doesn't work like that in football.

When I think quarterback, the two guys my mind instantly goes to are Elway and Favre. I can't explain it other than to point to the fact that I started watching football when the met in the Owl. They are imprinted into my mind as what a QB should be. No one will ever say they were the best, but along with Marino, they redefined what a QB was.

And then there's Brees. Brees is so different. He's more like Manning that the other guys, but he's half a foot shorter. His accuracy is otherworldly. And he has one factor that makes him unique: he saved a city after a natural disaster. God knows where New Orleans would be today if the Saints didn't serve as a rallying cry for it. Brees also has another unique factor to him, though it's one that doesn't matter: Alabama would likely not be what it is today if Danny Kanell's dad didn't tell Saban that Culpepper was more likely to heal than Brees. Had Miami gone with Brees instead, Saban likely never arrives in Tuscaloosa.  

TL:DR There is no definitive right answer to who is the greatest QB ever, who the top three are, top five, top ten etc. There is only your responsibly to argue why your list isn't entirely wrong.

 

@dbunting,

 I'm way too young to be able to credibly discuss Staubach, but I will concede that everyone who saw him play says he is one of the all-time greats. Bradshaw is too in the sense that you weigh his importance to the game, but it's hard dismiss the fact that he had a 1-1 TD-Int ratio. 

And you get the hell out of here with Troy Aikman! I threw 20 or more passes in a season ONE time while being on possibly the most talented team of all time. 


@Jace, Basilissa

Do. Not. Make. Me. Come. To. The. Northwest. And. Dutch. Oven. You!

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10 minutes ago, briantw said:

It really is a shame that so much of Rodgers' career has been wasted playing for Mike McCarthy.  Imagine how incredible he could have been with a real coach.

I saw an excellent break down last year comparing Brady and Rodgers and how their coaches scheme for them. Belichick schemes to get guys as open as possible as quick as possible. It both plays into Brady's strengths, his accuracy, ability to read a defense and quick decision making while eliminating some of his weakness, mainly just do to age and protecting him. It's why you see him make several quick reads and then just dump it off or get rid of it to live for the next down. McCarthy, OTOH, calls a lot of long developing plays in which no one helps each other get open. Each route exists in a vacuum. Green Bay's receivers must win their individual routes or Rodgers has to make an amazing play. It's why he's so deadly when he escapes the pocket because then the coverage break down, but it doesn't have to be that way. If you put Rodgers in Belichick's offense, he would make Green Bay Rodgers look like only a top 10 QB rather than the best in the game. It's such a disgrace, and then when you consider how little they've done to get talent around him, it's no wonder they haven't won a title since back when the team was actually competently built. And key in mind, that was when Rodgers was just really good, not the best in the league. The Packers might go more than a decade without even reaching the Super Bowl while having the best player in the game at the most important position. And Mike McCarthy is most to blame.

And as a Vikings fan, I thank him for it.

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My take on Montana was that he was a perfect fit for his system.  And he was teammates with the GOAT - Ronnie Lott.  He also played in the squankiest division in my experience - the NFC West was wretched for more than a decade in the 80's.  His teams could get seven division wins just by putting on their cleats (it was a 5 team division).

Had Dan Fouts played with a Ronnie Lott defense, his name would be one everyone's list.  He took a bunch of chances and threw too many picks, but he did so because a punt and a pick six were exactly the same result almost every year he played.  But if the Fouts teams had even an average defense, they'd have won multiple titles.

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4 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

I saw an excellent break down last year comparing Brady and Rodgers and how their coaches scheme for them. Belichick schemes to get guys as open as possible as quick as possible. It both plays into Brady's strengths, his accuracy, ability to read a defense and quick decision making while eliminating some of his weakness, mainly just do to age and protecting him. It's why you see him make several quick reads and then just dump it off or get rid of it to live for the next down. McCarthy, OTOH, calls a lot of long developing plays in which no one helps each other get open. Each route exists in a vacuum. Green Bay's receivers must win their individual routes or Rodgers has to make an amazing play. It's why he's so deadly when he escapes the pocket because then the coverage break down, but it doesn't have to be that way. If you put Rodgers in Belichick's offense, he would make Green Bay Rodgers look like only a top 10 QB rather than the best in the game. It's such a disgrace, and then when you consider how little they've done to get talent around him, it's no wonder they haven't won a title since back when the team was actually competently built. And key in mind, that was when Rodgers was just really good, not the best in the league. The Packers might go more than a decade without even reaching the Super Bowl while having the best player in the game at the most important position. And Mike McCarthy is most to blame.

And as a Vikings fan, I thank him for it.

This is why I hope and pray that Baker isn't good enough this year to save Hue Jackson's job.  It's be an absolute shame if Mayfield has to deal with that dumb fuck for the next few years.

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@SpaceForce Tywin et al.  yes, it all is objective of course. Anytime someone does a ranking there is debate and I suspect that is why you did a ranking in the first place. The issue I have is putting Rodgers at the top, above Brady and a few others. Brady is who he is, he has damn near the same stats as all of the other "stat qb's" and has more championships than all of them, those two things do not normally go hand in hand. The Belichick factor is also kind of over rated since Belichick wasn't Belichickan(?) until he had Brady as his QB. Before Brady Belichick had a losing record as a head coach and was known as a defensive guru. It was only after Brady came along that his offensive "genius" came to be known, now why is that?

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