Sports: NFL

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by japes

Yes...yes I do. Peyton Manning was really good but not matter how good a team is ran there is a point when it is all on the QB and Brady has shown he has the "whateveryouwannacallit" factor that comes from being a little arrogant.

I have to disagree pretty strongly with your assessment here. Brady is certainly a good QB, but I'd take Peyton over him every single time in any situation and it isn't because I 'like' him more as a person. Peyton is just flat out a much better QB on the field. Give him the team full of talent Brady has had over his run, toss in the coach and organization that is not above cheating to help insure wins, then factor in all the crazy reffing decisions that have routinely favored the Pats (starting with the Tuck rule right up through that Jag's Fumble and Return for a TD that was blown dead last week) and Peyton never loses a Super Bowl to Eli.

[Tornado]

Never liked Peyton myself, going back to college when they wanted to give him the Heisman before the season started. So awesome when he threw all those picks at the end.
I literally fell to my knees when Charles Woodson won. One of my all time favorite sports moments.

Nationwide is on your side.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

I have to disagree pretty strongly with your assessment here. Brady is certainly a good QB, but I'd take Peyton over him every single time in any situation and it isn't because I 'like' him more as a person. Peyton is just flat out a much better QB on the field. Give him the team full of talent Brady has had over his run, toss in the coach and organization that is not above cheating to help insure wins, then factor in all the crazy reffing decisions that have routinely favored the Pats (starting with the Tuck rule right up through that Jag's Fumble and Return for a TD that was blown dead last week) and Peyton never loses a Super Bowl to Eli.

So Reggie Wayne, Marvin Harrison and Dallas Clark with Edgerrin James is a step down from what Brady played with those days...

Brady's thrown TD passes to around 70 different receivers in his career...its just a run of good luck that he's played with so many Hall of Fame Receivers...

I found this list of the top five receivers Brady played with...keeping in mind Moss was at the end of his career...

1. Randy Moss
2. Wes Welker
3. Troy Brown
4. Deion Branch
5. Julian Edelman

Moss was a HOF candidate long before he arrived in NE

Then I found this...

Troy Brown
With Brady: 84 games, 337 receptions, 19 touchdowns
Without Brady: 108 games, 220 receptions, 12 touchdowns

Deion Branch
With Brady: 64 games, 261 receptions, 19 touchdowns
Without Brady: 51 games, 190 receptions, 13 touchdowns

Wes Welker
6 seasons in NE and 6 seasons not in NE
with NE 672 of 903 catches, 37 of his 50 TD

75% of his stats came in the half of his career in NE

None of these guys (other than Moss) are screaming first ballot HOF


You can say the overall team was better but in nearly all of those Super Bowls Brady had a drive for points when they needed it. So yeah...I do think he deserves a little credit there.


~hating that he is defending a Patriot...

[dok]

Apparently the greatest receiving Tight End of all time does not deserve mention. And Moss was clearly at his peak when he joined Brady, even if it was the tail end of his peak.

As I said, Brady has had between a good and great offensive line for all but maybe two years of his career. Despite playing with two of the very greatest receivers of all time, the most consistent strength of Brady's supporting cast has been his excellent offensive line.

By contrast, Manning frequently labored behind pretty mediocre offensive lines in Indianapolis (and his last year in Denver, but he was washed up that year anyway). Any measure we have to isolate line play from the QB (avg. time to throw, short yardage performance, scouting evaluations) came back that those Colt O-lines were pretty bad, and the Pats O-lines were almost always good. (Exceptions being... 2015, and... that's it?)

Dallas Clark certainly falls in the same category as guys like Branch and Brown; i.e. never anything special without Manning. Basically, Manning had two consistent all-pro level guys for most of his career, and a bunch of average receivers that he elevated, along with a mediocre line. Brady has had the greatest WR of all time for a few years, the greatest TE of all time for half of his career, and consistently good line play. Oh, and the greatest coach of his generation.

[Yodaking]

I don't really feel like looking up all the specific stats, you can do that if you want. Take a look at how well every one of Brady's back up QB's have played when he wasn't able to. Look at the Pat's record in those games without Brady. Then look at how much success those same QB's had after they left to become the starter on another team. The New England machine has shown itself to run just fine without Brady, but the individual parts don't work nearly as well outside of the machine. Trying to pretend if you were to plug Peyton into that machine it would suddenly fall apart is a joke. Also convenient how you left out Gronk and even Hernandez off the list of Brady targets just because they weren't WR's. A TE that demands double teams has no effect on how the WR's are covered at all.

[dok]

Matt Cassel got 10 wins as the Pats' QB. Matt Cassel!

Meanwhile, we saw what happened to the Colts when Manning got hurt.

The one Pats QB who clearly appears capable of great production outside of New England is Garopolo. There's a reason BB wanted to hold onto him so badly.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by dok

Matt Cassel got 10 wins as the Pats' QB. Matt Cassel!

For the curious, it was 10 wins against 5 losses, back in 2008. LINK

[Hahma]

Yeah, there have been some QB's that stepped in. Seems like a darn good system where the parts are interchangeable. I've always looked at the Patriots as more of a system team than one relying on Brady to do it all.

While I don't like the Patriots and especially Brady, I have always envied their creativity (not cheating) in play calling. As a Bears fan, it has driven me nuts for a long time that they can't get creative once in awhile.

[Yodaking]

Yeah, Cassel is the one I was thinking about where he played the whole season and the Pats still did just fine. I couldn't recall his name because he was so utterly forgettable once he left NE and became a starter with the Chiefs. Plus during Brady's 4 game suspension for deflate-gate, NE went 3-1 starting two different QB's! Brady is a good QB, no one denies that, he just isn't the only QB that could have done what he has done in NE if they were given the same set up.

[japes]

Originally Posted by Yodaking

Yeah, Cassel is the one I was thinking about where he played the whole season and the Pats still did just fine. I couldn't recall his name because he was so utterly forgettable once he left NE and became a starter with the Chiefs. Plus during Brady's 4 game suspension for deflate-gate, NE went 3-1 starting two different QB's! Brady is a good QB, no one denies that, he just isn't the only QB that could have done what he has done in NE if they were given the same set up.

And how far did Cassel take that team in the playoffs...oh that right they didn't make it to the playoffs that year. Winning games isn't the same thing as winning championships. Lots of teams have QB's that have won 10 regular season games in a season but haven't won championships...to say that any good QB would have won all those Super Bowls is doing a disservices.

The same arguments were made about Joe Montana back when he was playing...Great team, Great Coach, Great system...does that make Joe less of a QB?

The first NFL game I have memories of is the Super Bowl between the Raiders and the Eagles so why I've rooted for the Raiders my whole life the Eagles were a close second...I have a Raiders blanket in my house to this day that my mom got me that for Christmas when I was in HS. She later told me that she was so nervous because she wasn't sure if she got me the right team because she was on the fence with Eagles or Raiders...That was in the Cunningham days...so trust me I'm rooting hard for the Eagles despite my son (A die Hard Cowboys fan) giving me dirty looks...but if you can't admit Tom Brady is great you are blinded by (justified) hatred...

NE hit a perfect storm with team, coach, QB...none of them exist without the other...Bill averaged 7 wins his first 6 years coaching before Brady...NE was 8-8 the year before Billy arrive and won 5 games his first year with Drew Bledsoe (not an awful QB) The next year with a very similar roster...with the exception of Brady...they win the SB and have only one fewer than 10 games 1 time.

I was a Brady hater for a long time but after last year I've figured out that I was wrong and for all his non football flaws...He's the real deal.

[Yodaking]

Originally Posted by japes

And how far did Cassel take that team in the playoffs...oh that right they didn't make it to the playoffs that year. Winning games isn't the same thing as winning championships. Lots of teams have QB's that have won 10 regular season games in a season but haven't won championships...to say that any good QB would have won all those Super Bowls is doing a disservices.

We were not talking about 'any good QB' we were talking about Peyton Manning. He & Brett Farve are the first two QB's on my Mount Rushmore of QB's.

Originally Posted by japes

The same arguments were made about Joe Montana back when he was playing...Great team, Great Coach, Great system...does that make Joe less of a QB?

Funny you bring up Joe Montana, I was never a big fan of his either. I thought Jerry Rice made him look much better than he actually was. I still remember watching Jerry reach to grab a football that was a yard out of bounds, pulled it back into play, while keeping his toes in bounds. Any other receiver and that was an incomplete pass. Thought Steve Young was better than Joe.

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

There are a couple reasons why I hate them. One of which is this attitude that their fans have: you hate us cuz we're better. No, I hate the Patriots because their coach is a disgusting pig of a man. I hate the Patriots because of their institutional disdain for the rules. Has there ever been a week when Tom Brady wasn't on the injury report? Videotaping other teams' practices? Playing with under-inflated balls? It's just disdain for the rules.

Nothing ever happens to them, but it's annoying as hell to watch. And, like all good cheaters, the response is something like "every team does it," or "we didn't get punished so it didn't happen," even though both of those things are lies.

And often, as in this case, there's an officiating call making a difference in a tight game. In a close game you say "experience beating inexperience," but of course you could just as easily say "one enormous blown call," by the premature termination of a play, and either way you are describing something that happened on the field. In fact, the blown call is a better explanation, in that it's something concrete you can point to instead of the nebulous "experience" thing.

Also, Tom Brady is an asshole. Maybe not as big an asshole as Belichik, but they are both right up there as leading assholes in the NFL. *You* might not care about whether your team is populated with, or led by, assholes, but I do.

You want to root for the Patriots, then go ahead. But keep your sneering to yourself. You can have your wins, and your team led by a pair of sneering, disgusting men, and I'll root for my team that doesn't win so often but also doesn't get embroiled in biannual cheating scandals.

I remember the same arguments against Dallas during the early 90's with a coach that kept yelling "if your going to walk the walk you better talk the talk." They were, unfortunately, just so good (3 Superbowls over 4 years if memory serves) that even though the rest of the fans were calling out cheating (specifically videotaping other teams practices - it's not a new "cheat") and obvious referee preferences (and suspicious blown calls)...there wasn't anything to be done as "nothing ever happened to them". Especially since the Pats were running so far down in Football results that it seemed they were 43rd in the league (yeah I know how many teams are in it). So looking at it as objectively as I can, I'm still not sure Belichik has been as bad as Johnson was.

As for nothing happening, Brady was given a quarter season suspension for deflating footballs, which I've heard makes it tougher to throw but, at that level, even I don't buy that.

So I do recognize your hatred for them and I even understand it...as I said before guess success breads contempt.