Ben Roethlisberger- the new Tom Brady or new Kurt Warner?

Cafe Society
1

In other words, will he have a career more like Brady- early Super Bowl win, then consistent stellar play with continued playoff success, or like Warner, two good early years followed by a decade of subpar performances. I’m leaning towards the latter right now. And has Ben, in his short career, reached the status of unbenchable, and should he be?

On a similar note, I know quality backups are hard to find, but why would the Cowboys go into the year with the unproven Tony Romo the #1 backup to the long past his prime Drew Bledsoe? God that was embarassing- he actually deserved Owens’ insults.

2

I think it’s too early to decide re: Big Ben. Maybe he’ll pull his shit together this season. Or maybe he got one good year, and that’s the end of that. I would be sad if he went the Warner-route though, and I’m not even a Steelers fan.

Re: Bledsoe, no kidding. I was watching the game with my husband, and he was all excited because it looked like the Cowboys had a chance to score. I said, “No, don’t worry. He’ll throw an interception.” And then he did about five seconds later. Am I psychic? No. I just know that Bledsoe will always throw an interception when the game is on the line. :rolleyes:

3

And what about those lame asses Aikman & Buck trying to defend Bledsoe’s interception where he underthrew Owens by about five yards by saying Owens must have ran the wrong route, or somehow blaming Owens for a woefully underthrown ball, and Aikman kept going on and on defending Bledsoe? That was not the type play where you throw to spot, assholes, he saw Owens break and threw it poorly, admit it.

4

Bear something in mind: Roethlisberger is only a 3rd year man! Most 3rd year quarterbacks are either struggling or just starting to show signs of greatness. It’s really unfair to jusge Ben more harshly than, say, Philip Rivers or Eli Manning.

Ben was good, but also VERY lucky, just as Dan Marino was, to end up with a tream that was already a championship contender before his arrival. It’s impressive that he was almost undefeated as a rookie, but the fact is, the Steelers didn’t rely upon him to win games in his rookie year. The Steelers had him hand the ball off a lot, and had him make afe passes to a corps of veteran, quality receivers. But in the playoffs, when the team HAD to rely on him, he performed poorly (as almost any rookie would).

He made huge strides in last year’s playoffs, of course. I never expected the Steelers to have him come out throwing against the Colts (Tony Dungy clearly never expected it, either, and didn’t prepare for it)… but he did, and it worked.

And now? Well, the Steelersd aren’t nearly as good as they were last year, so they’re going to have to rely on Ben a LOT more than in the past. In the past, Cowher could tell Ben, “We’ve got a great team- so let them do their jobs, and just don’t make mistakes. You don’t have to win games for us, just don’t lose them.”

Henceforth, Ben will have to win games, not just refrain from blowing them. THAT’S how we’ll find out if he’s genuinely great or just a flash in the pan.

5

I agree with the give him time/its too early.

One thing that is different than Warner - Warner was 28 in his break out season and had played for 2 NFL Teams , in Europe and in the Arena League.

Ben R was 22 then and is 24 now. He will be the same age Warner was in his break-out season in the 2010 season. Eli, Phil Rivers, J.P. Losman, [who currently lead him in QB ratings] Matt Shaub, Luke McNown, Andy Hall are his peers.

6

It’s way too early to judge. And let’s not forget that Brady’s Patriots missed the playoffs in 2002-03 after winning the Super Bowl for the first time. Roethlisberger may not be physically and mentally healthy, or this may just be a down year. Brady was still good in that ‘off’ year, but if the Steelers get going they could end up 9-7 too.

Yes and yes. They’re playing pretty badly and so is he, but they could damage him for the long term by benching him. Maybe this year is a lost cause, and he started too late after the motorcycle accident and the appendix surgery. He’s their quarterback now and he’d have to do a lot more to make them change their plan, which would have him at QB for another 10 years or whatever.

7

:smack: By “should he be,” I thought you were asking if Roethlisberger should be unbenchable. You were probably asking if he should be Big Benched. I say they shouldn’t bench him.

8

I think Marley23 nailed it: Ben essentially had no off-season preparation, and is just getting into shape and getting his timing back. He smashed up his face and then had mid-torso surgery. Not the best way to prepare for a job that requires timing, agility, and strength.

Re: Bledsoe, I am an Iggles fan (born/raised) and thought that was the worst game I ever saw Bledsoe play. Sure, he was under an intense rush most of the day, but on that last pass, he had all the time in the world, and even if Witten had cut right instead of left, Sheppard was standing right there for the pick. Ad for Owens, he is a cancer to a team and I can’t wait to watch the Cowboys deal with his escalating antics.

9

In the past, I always liked Bledsoe, and ordinarily, I’m not one to call for a new quaterback every time a team goes into a slump.

However… the only argument for playing Bledsoe rather than Romo is that Bledsoe is a veteran and supposedly less likely to make dumb mistakes.

Well, it’s hard to imagine Tony Romo throwing more dumb interceptions than Bledsoe has been making lately. If you can’t count on solid, mistake-free play from your veteran QB, there’s absolutely no reason top leave a promising younger guy on the bench. Romo may well screw up just as badly as Bledoe, but the difference is, with a little exprience under his belt, Romo is liable to improve. With Bledsoe… sadly, this may be as good as it gets.

10

Bledsoe was atrocious. He can be counted on to throw a pic at the worst possible time. Saw it from years in New England. As as a Cowboy fan of long standing (a very low membership card number) I really believe that they are a pretty good but not necessarily great quarterback, think Brad Johnson, away from being a threat to win it all. Great defense, good running game, pretty good kicking game. But no one wants to win more than the Jerry Jones. And this is Bill’s last year as a head coach in his life. They are both smart guys, who see Romo and Bledsoe every day throw footballs. If they thought Romo was better, he’d be playing. 1,000% guaranteed. So Drew is the best they have, and he can’t get the job done.

R,

11

spifflog- my thoughts exactly. Put any decent quarterback who doesn’t make the big mistake ala Brad Johnson, Drew Brees, hell even Mark Brunell and the Cowboys would be challenging the Bears for the NFC title. Why you would build a Super Bowl type team around Bledsoe, without a decent backup, was a not so smart move. They still have time though, to get a decent QB though if they want to salvage the season.

12

I’ve argued in the past that rate stats are the be all end all of judging a passer, while others have argued that Ben’s early stats were somehow inflated by not having to throw very often.

Currently, they appear to have been more correct than me. Ben’s career numbers based grouped by number of attempts per game:


Attempts Gm Cmp Att Yrds TD In Rating
<20      10 107 164 1706 13  8 105.89
20-24    12 159 258 2234 15 10  92.75
25-29     7 123 187 1532 10  4  99.94
30-34     4  72 123  719  3  7  59.64
35-39     1  18  39  208  0  3  30.72
40+       1  29  41  386  3  3  94.16

20+ attempts: 401 of 648 (62%) for 5079 yards, 31 TDs 27 Ints. Rating: 84.90
25+ attempts: 242 of 390 (62%) for 2845 yards, 16 TDs 17 Ints. Rating: 79.70
30+ attempts: 119 of 203 (59%) for 1313 yards, 6 TDs 13 Ints. Rating: 61.05

It would appear that the more he throws, the worse he gets.

13

To me, Ben did last year what Steve McNair is doing this year- poor stats on a good team, which makes it look like the team is winning because of his play, when in reality, all they are doing is not crashing the car. An average game for Ben in the Super Bowl year was something like 14-23, 176 yards 2 td’s, zero picks- not great stats, but since they won the big one, it didn’t matter.

I am actually shocked that people who are paid NFL commentators are raving about the job McNair was doing with the 4-0 (now 4-1, soon to be 9-7) Ravens- what is Micheal Irvin smoking, specifically, when he says they are the best team in the NFL? McNair leads two comenacks in a row, sure, but with the defenses doing the stupidest thing of all time, playing prevent defense. And if he had played decently in those games, they wouldn’t have needed the friggin comebacks! Average stats and a piss poor QB rating wouldn’t matter if they win it all, but they won’t, the Ravens won’t be able to hold everybody to 10 points, and McNair, once very very good, will be shown to be no better than Kyle Boller and all the other sorry QB’s they have had since day one.

14

Crack.

15

Well, in fairness, ANY time you see that ANY quarterback threw 35 or more times, it probably means his team lost.

But what it USUALLY means is that the team has fallen way behind, and they HAVE to pass a lot more than they’d like to.

16

Increased attempts doesn’t seem to effect Eli, who is often compared (unfavorably) to Roethlisberger:


Attempts Gm Cmp Att Yrds TD In Rating
<20       3  17  45  206  0  5  13.06
20-24     5  57 115  871  6  5  74.22
25-29     4  61 107  690  7  2  90.48
30-34     6 102 194 1238  6  5  72.06
35-39     4  79 145  934  8  6  75.47
40-44     5 129 211 1493  9  6  84.88
45+       2  52 101  635  3  5  60.46

20+ attempts: 480 of 873 (55%) for 5861 yards, 39 TDs 29 Ints. Rating: 76.93
25+ attempts: 423 of 758 (56%) for 4990 yards, 33 TDs 24 Ints. Rating: 77.34
30+ attempts: 362 of 651 (56%) for 4300 yards, 26 TDs 22 Ints. Rating: 75.18
35+ attempts: 260 of 457 (57%) for 3062 yards, 20 TDs 17 Ints. Rating: 76.50
40+ attempts: 181 of 312 (58%) for 2128 yards, 12 TDs 11 Ints. Rating: 76.98

Eli seems to be exactly the same guy no matter how many times he passes.[sup]1[/sup] He seems to be the poster child for my contention that rate stats are the ultimate description of a passer. Also, when you say that passing 35+ times a game may be indicative of a blowout, I would counter that a blowout is when the passer is more likely to see softer, more conservative defenses. Or even the infamous prevent defense.

Of course, Eli seems to play best when he’s down by multiple touchdowns in the fourth quarter, so maybe he’s the outlier and Ben is the normal case. I tend to doubt that, though. I think Ben genuinely is not a pure passer; he’s simply not the kind of guy who can put a team on his shoulders. He looks to me like more of a system guy, where if he can’t hand off 12 times in a row to set up a play action bomb, he struggles.

[sup]1[/sup]The three games where Eli threw fewer than 20 attempts were his first ever start against the Eagles, his 5th start against the Ravens and the playoff debacle against the Panthers. I attribute his pathetic 13.06 rating in those three games to “deer in the headlights” syndrome against stellar defenses.

17

Because I’m curious by nature, and also because I already happen to have the entire pro-football-reference database ported into Access, I ran a quick breakdown on the entire database. It includes the stats for 7,245 individual games. So here’s the definitive answer to the question of how the passer rating is affected by number of attempts:


Attempts Games Complete Attempts           Yards    TDs   Ints  Rating
<20      1,730    8,826   15,602  57%    100,418  2,187    704  103.97
20-24      870   11,385   19,351  59%    140,433    937    622   84.10
25-29    1,310   20,876   35,474  59%    247,273  1,600  1,072   82.61
30-34    1,331   25,109   42,581  59%    293,336  1,748  1,241   81.47
35-39      985   21,271   36,264  59%    242,082  1,360  1,122   78.39
40-44      598   14,480   24,983  58%    162,906    861    815   75.45
45-49      266    7,282   12,395  59%     80,898    425    399   76.25
50+        155    4,826    8,319  58%     52,664    259    274   73.46

All      7,245  114,055  194,969  58%  1,320,010  9,377  6,249   81.72
20+      5,515  105,229  179,367  59%  1,219,592  7,190  5,545   79.78
25+      4,645   93,844  160,016  59%  1,079,159  6,253  4,923   79.26
30+      3,335   72,968  124,542  59%    831,886  4,653  3,851   78.31
35+      2,004   47,859   81,961  58%    538,550  2,905  2,610   76.67
40+      1,019   26,588   45,697  58%    296,468  1,545  1,488   75.30
50+        421   12,108   20,714  58%    133,562    684    673   75.13

It does appear that the more one throws, the lower the passer rating will be.

18

What he said is actually not only true in blowout losses; it seems to me that it should also be true in fairly close losses where you wouldn’t see a prevent defense. I think that would definitely damage a passer rating. Manning is considered a great late-game QB, and his stats only stay the same. I think that accounts for the stats in your most recent post.