What is your problem? Typical Steeler fan? I think not. However, I am a Steeler fan and proud of it. What team do you root for?
As for not really grading line play, I admit that. But unless you have to, who does? That is not something 99% of fans do. As to me defending Pouncey like “a typical Steeler fan”, you need to give me something more than one guy’s article about how he’s gone to not one, but two pro-bowls and didn’t deserve to.
The pro bowl is voted on by other players in the league, and coaches, correct? How am I over-rating Pouncey if I didn’t vote for him, but he went to 2 pro-bowls anyway? So, the entire NFL has overrated him? How about the Steelers, who voted him the team MVP his rookie year. He also received 2 of 50 votes for the NFL rookie of the year voting. I’ll wager not too many rookie centers have made a dent on that vote.
And oh yeah, didn’t the Steelers go to the Super Bowl with him his rookie season?
I ask again, what team do you root for, and over rated by who? Everyone except the author of the article and you?
I have no idea about Pouncey, but I do respect Pro Football Focus as one of many good opinion sites. Just because they don’t like your guy doesn’t mean they have an agenda or hate your team.
Walter Football thinks the 49ers safety Dashon Goldson “stinks” in coverage despite his 6 INTs this year. Goldson isn’t the greatest safety, but I disagree with their opinion that the position needs to be upgraded. I’ll still read their player reports.
there is no persecution complex. I don’t know why being a Steeler fan upsets so many people, but I have no persecution complex, and I don’t think the whole world hates the Steelers.
I don’t care if they don’t like Pouncey or love him. I truly don’t. I just don’t understand where the idea that he’s so overrated comes from. I’m asking you and anyone else to, as an objective fan who knows little if anything about how to grade out a center, and explain to me how a guy is overrated who in two seasons in the league has made two pro bowls.
If someone wants to say that Pouncey isnt the best center in the league, OK, I’m not going to argue. But the 12th in the conference? That seems strangely low, and I don’t get it. I know probably as much about Pouncey as you do, so if he didn’t play for the Steelers and he played for the Ravens (who I hate) I’d have to say that based on his first two seasons and being chosen to play in 2 pro bowls that he’s a pretty good center. One of the best in the AFC. But I can’t tell you he’s the best, because I can’t name another center in the AFC beside his brother.
Are you understanding my point here? Maybe there are some Steeler fans who rant and rave without thinking, but I thought about the article and the post, and can’t see it. Hell, I remember when Dwight Stephenson was supposedly an all-world center for the Patriots. I saw him play in the 80’s against the Steelers. The Steelers had Mike Webster. I couldn’t tell you who was better. They both made the HOF, so that’s good enough for me. But if Stephenson was better, who cares?
Unless the article breaks down every game by every center in the afc and he comes out statistically significantly worse than most centers in the league, I don’t see how you can say he’s overrated. Maybe he is, but by what standard?
That’s exactly what it does. Based on their statistical rankings, he comes out as the 12th best center in the AFC. You’re objecting to this article without knowing what it says.
You’ve essentially been saying “Pouncey is highly rated, therefore you are wrong that he is overrated” over and over again. The fact that he goes to pro bowls but doesn’t deserve to, and that he’s received all this hype, is what makes him overrated.
I’m not an expert, but I’m more knowledgable than average. I know a guy who was an OL coach for a college program so I’ve picked up some techniques for evaluating players. This is just an appeal to my own authority, but there’s not really any sort of data I can use to back up this claim - except the PFF article, which you’ve already rejected. Those guys go through every play of every game and rate the outcome of every play by every player, and then give their net scores for the game. They rate Pouncy as the 12th best center in the AFC. I’m not sure he’s that low, but he’s never done much to impress me when I’ve seen him.
Of course you can reject their opinion too, but they’re about as good as it gets in terms of objective detailed analysis of football games.
Also, it’s 3 SDMB 2011 FF championships, not just one. I am a dominant force.
Steelers fans consistently and doggedly repeat some of the most bizarre ill founded things, over and over again without fail. It’s downright comical. The echo chamber in and around Pittsburgh really must be something to behold.
What team I root for matters not one whit on whether or not Pouncey deserves to be in the Pro Bowl. I provided a small quote about a website the breaks down the performance of NFL players that concluded that Pouncey was undeserving of a Pro Bowl, and, in response, I got “Well, he must hate the Steelers”. Now, as if you want to double down on the idea that anyone who thinks any Steeler is overrated must hate the Steelers, you ask what team I root for. Do you not see how silly that is?
By the way, I’m a Packer fan.
No, really I don’t. I don’t much care if you believe he deserves to be voted into the Pro Bowl or not. But your simple dismissal of an educated opinion based solely on the undeserved conclusion that he must hate the Steelers was laughable.
And fan votes. 1/3 each. And Pouncey won the fan vote this year.
The quote was from this year regarding whether or not he deserved to be in the Pro Bowl this year. He had a very good rookie year (for a rookie), but this year, he was undeserving of the Pro Bowl. I realize you might not be convinced by PFF, but c’est la vie.
PFF does break down every game by every center in the NFL. And, in doing so, they determined that Pouncey was the 12th best Center. If you want to completely ignore that, fine. If you want to give their opinion absolutely not credence, you can do that too. But I reserve the right to laugh at you when you immediately conclude that, either the author is perfect or he hates the Steelers.
I give up. As you have all pointed out, I haven’t read the article, so I have no idea what it says or how it evaluates centers. If it evaluates centers based on some standardized league criteria, I can’t argue that.
I also am going to assume that these authors are not biased in any way, and evaluated every play as they say. I have no reason to not take their word for it. So if he graded out at 12, he graded out at 12.
One question I have is this. Is the measurement criteria used by all NFL teams to evaluate centers, or is this something these guys came up with for the article? Just because I ask this does not mean I think they were out to get Pouncey. If they did everything objectively, and Pouncey came out at 12, and the methodology is accepted, there you go.
However, I still am glad the Steelers drafted Pouncey. And back to my original point, if they pick someone as good as Pouncey for the d-line I’ll be just as happy. If that means he grades out 12th in the league but attends two pro-bowls in two seasons, that will be just fine.
One other question… if he’s this average (actually, below average if he sits at 12), how does everyone buy into him as an all-pro? I’m not talking about us knuckle dragging Steeler fans, I’m talking about the players and coaches? It can’t be the result of a great marketing blitz by the Steelers front office. Myron Cope is dead, so who is spreading the word through the NFL, and more importantly, how is the AFC player and coaching base completely snowed on this guy?
PS. Packer fan. Pfft. Figures.
Players and coaches don’t have the time to evaluate players any more than you do. They hear something on SportsCenter, like, I don’t know, Pouncey made it to a Pro Bowl, and they figure that means something. Exactly the same way you did. But it doesn’t mean very much.
Sometimes really good players make it and deserve to. A lot of times players make it who don’t deserve it. The latter happens far more frequently on the offensive line than anywhere else.
I think players cut after the Superbowl can immediately sign with teams but the other ‘free agents’ don’t have their 2011 contracts expire until March 12th. So Randy Moss can probably also sign up if some team really wants him.
I read on profootballtalk yesterday that the Browns are evaluating RGIII, Richardson, Blackmon and…Texas A&M QB Ryan Tannehill. I hope the Tannehill evaluation didn’t take long. He appears to be that guy who’s stock is mysteriously soaring between the end of the season and the combine.
There’s a contingent of Browns fans who are anti-RG3 and pro-Tannehill and they drive me nuts. They either want to get him because they can get him with the second first rounder (you know, because QB isn’t worth investing a #4 overall pick in, but taking a fucking right tackle with that pick is okay - seriously), or because they make the not-racist-at-all RG3 is Andre Ware/Akili Smith/JaMarcus Russell comparisons.
They’ve also said Tannehill is better because he’s more NFL ready because he played in an NFL style offense (he didn’t, the vast majority of his snaps were out of the shotgun, and most of his under center snaps were quick one read throws … exactly like RG3) and apparently it doesn’t matter that he played the position for just one fucking year. Idiots.
Bolding mine. It’s exactly that thinking that stuck the Browns with QBs like McCoy and Frye. I simply know nothing about Tannehill, but this draft seems to severely lack QB depth to the point that if you don’t get one of the top 2 guys, you might as well forget about it. I really hope they get RGIII, even if it costs them both their 1st round picks and their 2nd rounder.
I think yhere is more than enough depth at the QB position this year. The problem I think is that Luck and RGIII are so much better prospects than they’ve seen, that while the rets of the QB class is below them, they’re still better than average. I’d put guys like Tannehill, Cousins, Wheedon, and maybe Osweiler and Foles as potential starters in the NFL. I like the top end, as well as the depth, a ton more than last year’s class. It’s just that this years class looks worse when compared to Luck and RGIII.
In a little bit of Hamlet related news, PFT is reporting that things are liable to get ugly between the Packers and Center Scott Wells. This part was somewhat interesting.
And it highlights one of the reasons why I’ve come down hard on any Bears bloggers who have insisted that the Bears draft Wisconsin Center Peter Konz with their first or second rounder this draft. If Center is a position that the Bears feel the need to upgrade, free agency is the way to do it, but frankly the Bears are is a decent situation at the position with 3 guys who can handle the role. Improving at OG and LT are much more critical.
In perhaps less provincial news, PFT is reporting that the Redskins have slipped up and revealed their plans at the QB position.
So, that’s pretty exciting news. Perhaps it’s all somewhat obvious, but the Redskins getting into the Manning sweepstakes would be really dramatic. I think it’d be catastrophic for them, but it’d also be a potential windfall for the Browns and serious blow to the leverage the Rams might have in moving that 2nd pick. Dum dum dum.
Flynn to Miami, Manning to Washington has been my hope all along. Then the Browns can sit at #4 and grab Griffin. Unless, I suppose, they intend to start Manning for a year or two and draft Griffin anyway for development - but that’s unlikely.
