In this context, “Not as good” is meaningless if you can’t quantify it.
So wait … by “crash and burn,” you mean “fail to turn one of the worst teams in the league into a champion?” :rolleyes:
The defense that went 4-12? The addition of a bunch of has-been RBs? Joe Montana in his prime wouldn’t win a ring with this rabble.
Ah … now we have a testable statement; two in fact.
I will wager $100 that at the end of the 2011 season, Donovan McNabb will still be starter in the NFL.
Additionally, I will wager $100 that he is still on an NFL roster at the end of the 2012 season.
The deal is null if McNabb has a career-ending injury or if he retires voluntarily while still an effective player. **Omni **or Hamlet or Ellis or NRATB can be arbiter.
Deal, or do you want to wimp out?
Your command of the obvious is breathtaking to behold.
It’s more than that. His career will be over, unless you think McNabb will bounce around the league as a backup. Crash and burn means he won’t be successful, and his career will end with little more than a puff of smoke.
<sigh> did you watch them last season? Their defense was very good.
If McNabb retires, doesn’t that tell us where his career is? Why that caveat? Why would I agree to this until after the draft? No thanks. I’ll “wimp out” :rolleyes:. I have nothing to prove. My opinion of McNabb is just that. An opinion. And his career performance to this point agrees with my assessment.
Plus, you are foaming at the mouth (or keyboard) defending McNabb. I don’t think I want to see what you will turn into if you have to admit he’s not anything special and never has been.
Amazing how my command of the obvious is breathtaking when it’s something you agree with, but when I point out the obvious about McNabb and his career, I’m out of my mind. Your man-love of McNabb is keeping you from seeing what kind of player he was and is.
Um, no. Lots of players retire when they are still playing well and could continue to.
Fine, wait until after the draft.
An opinion which you are unwilling to put any faith behind.
Horseshit; I’ve already said I was OK with him being traded away and that it was time for the Eagles to move on. You’re the one with the emotional investment, comparing a multi-pro bowler to Kordell-freaking-Stewart
Hey, I get it man. You started talking trash about a guy you dislike, and next thing you know you’re saying bullshit that you know in your gut that even you don’t really believe. I just called you on it, is all.
Of course, some of us are capable of saying “Huh, I guess I was exaggerating a bit there,” and some of us aren’t.
Um, no. You are saying McNabb will quit on his own, and there are still teams out there that want him to start? I am talking a time span of 3 years tops. This isn’t Barry Sanders tired of playing for a losing team and wanting to be paid what he’s worth.
Thanks!
Faith, yes. Money? I don’t bet on things I have an emotional investment in, why would I bet on something I don’t care about?
Kordell was a multiple pro-bowler too. Go back and read my explanation of the Stewart comparison. Many didn’t understand my point, and I admitted I didn’t explain it well. So I’m happy to toss that comparison out. I have no emotional investment in this. I don’t care. I’m just glad he’s out of Philly and I don’t have to see him every Sunday and the local sports scene being dominated by McNabb related stories during the football season. Other than that, I don’t care. No matter how much you piss and moan, McNabb never won a Super Bowl, and was 1-5 in NFC championship games. That record stinks.
Dude, it’s a message board. In my gut, I believe the guy is incapable of winning a Super Bowl. He’s a choke-artist. He’s over-rated. He has trouble hitting receivers in stride in the short-to-medium range game. I don’t feel “called” on my “bullshit”, and I am not upset that you disagree with me. I don’t care. I have no emotional investment in you, either. Why you care what I think about McNabb indicates you are the one with the emotional investment.
predicting that McNabb’s career will end in a similar fashion as Stewart’s isn’t exaggerating. It’s a prediction. Stewart was out of Chicago in two years. I think McNabb will be out of Washington in 2 years, and if he makes it to a third year, he will be a back-up. It will take some time to see how it plays out. If I’m wrong, I’ve already said I will eat crow.
Washington had a top 10 defense in 2009. This is the main reason I see them finishing with 7-9 wins. Their biggest problem was the OL, which is somewhat minimized by a guy like McNabb who can extend the play with his legs.
I thought this too, almost exactly. Then I looked it up. Washington was 10th in the NFL in yards allowed, so yes, technically top 10. They were even eighth in passing yards allowed per game! But they were 16th in rushing yards, 18th in points per game, and dead freaking last in takeaways. So unless you’re just measuring by yards per game, I’d venture to say they weren’t a top 10 defense, not factoring in all those aspects of defense.
As for McNabb? He was sacked 35 times in 14 games last season. Campbell? 43 times in 16 games. If you adjust for the two games McNabb missed, that would be another 5 sacks, or 40. And Campbell was a more effective runner than McNabb, too. So I’m not so sure McNabb will be any more effective behind Washington’s O-Line than Campbell was or would have been. I think the only measurable difference is that McNabb will make fewer critical mistakes and allow the Redskins more scoring opportunities on drives. A potentially big difference, though, which is why I also think they’ll improve to around 8-9 wins.
I do measure by yards allowed, for all the same reasons the NFL does.
If you need more evidence than yards allowed (I do not) then you might find DVOA more compelling. (I do not, so I won’t defend DVOA conclusions.) I can’t really read that chart too well, but it looks to me like Washington had either the 10th or 11th best defense in the league last year according to FootballOutsiders’ formulas. Close enough that “top 10” is a decent enough descriptor, IMO.
Just a nitpick, I consider this a failing of Campbell and a huge positive for McNabb, as most longtime doper Eagles fans may remember from past debates I’ve had about McNabb. IMO, anytime a QB runs it is a failure to be corrected.
EDIT: Though I don’t find DVOA particularly compelling, I do find a bit of satisfaction that it seems to support the simple yards allowed measure in this instance despite the reasonable-sounding objections you raised, which in general I do not buy into. For me it’s all about yards, and nothing but yards.
The purpose of a football defense is to minimize the number of points the opposing offense scores. So I’m personally gonna go with points per game to rank defenses, unless someone’s adjusted that number to exclude points scored off the the team’s offense (e.g. fumbles and interceptions returned for TDs), in which case I’d use that instead.
With respect to Campbell v. McNabb behind the Redskins’ line, my worry is that McNabb will be broken by some of the same hits that Campbell can withstand. Maybe he can dodge the hits better than Campbell, but his games-played stats don’t encourage me. Rushers were obviously catching up with McNabb often enough in Philly.
I can guarantee you that the O-line will be much improved. It’s almost a cert that they are going to draft either Okung or Williams at the tackle position. There’s still time to make moves and bring in some quality FAs if the holdovers don’t get the zone blocking system that Shanny is bringing to the team.
Campbell, as much as I liked him, seemed to have no pocket awareness. Yeah, he didn’t get much help from the line, but the guy was notorious for holding on to the ball one or two seconds too long, which typically resulted in a sack. Now McNabb is aware enough to toss the ball out of bounds, scramble for a few yards, or make a completion. That’s a huge upgrade and enough to win 2-3 more games based on the QB making good decisions.
So would “slightly above average.” (FWIW, total yards has a tendency to make bad teams look better since their opponents are winning and trying to run out the clock, whereas winning teams opponents are passing more). It was not some dominant unit that routinely throttled foes.
It was a very poor offense, and thus far, they’ve not addressed it besides McNabb and the parade of 2006 Pro-Bowl RBs. I’d expect another above-average defense and a just-average offense.
