You underestimate the Patriots defense. They were the 5th best scoring defense in the league last year. You know how many Super Bowls Brady has won without a defense that ranked in the top 10 of scoring in the NFL for the season? None. Note: I’m not saying Brady isn’t elite, he clearly is, and possibly the best QB of all time. But the Patriots have generally been one of the best scoring defensive teams in the league.
So many teams thing to think so. Which explains why so much money, so many high draft picks, and so much focus on getting even just average NFL QB’s.
And if he excels and has a Pro Bowl year they are still getting more than their money’s worth. I think the Niners really came out on top with that deal.
Richard is a really smart guy. REALLY smart, the guy used to tutor people at Stanford. He’s very intelligent. But a player shouldn’t represent himself no matter how smart he is, an agent does that sort of thing for a living and you leave that to a professional who knows what they’re doing. But Sherm is gonna do what he wants.
To be fair, Nick played what was undoubtedly the best game of his career. He didn’t resemble Nick Foles in that game. He was superb.
I’ve been planning on Rodgers getting ~$30 million a year, and this pretty much solidifies that. The only questions now are how many years, what kind of guarantees are built in, and how it’s structured.
The fully-guaranteed part is questionable, to me. As much as I dislike it, NFL teams don’t fully guarantee contracts for a reason, especially of this size. If Cousins goes down or stinks up the joint, this could be an albatross for a couple years.
Nick Foles was ridiculously elite in the playoffs.
72.3% Comp; 323.7 yd/gm; 6/1 TD/Int; 115.7 Rat
Wentz was elite to get them there.
Case Keenum was Case Keenum in the playoffs and that’s why the Vikings just paid Cousins. Without a above average-to-elite QB you’re roadkill in the post-season.
This year is a awful example of the “don’t need a elite QB to win” trope.
Finding and keeping an elite QB is hard, but it sustains you for 10+ seasons when you succeed. Building a transcendent defense that can overcome a decrepit Peyton Manning is harder…and impossible to sustain for more than a couple seasons.
Burton is getting a eye-popping 4 years, $32M. Supposedly it’s incentive laden, and it better be since there’s no way he’s worth $8M/year based on his track record. Still, Eagles fans rave about him and seem uncommonly positive about him; they keep patting Bears fans on the back.
Gabriel’s is also a 4 year deal, but no dollars being reported yet. I like Gabriel and the signing, but this implies that Kendall Wright probably won’t be back which is disappointing. Gabriel is probably a little better and definitely faster, but Wright and Trubisky had some chemistry and I value continuity for a young QB’s development.
Nothing like after-the-fact determinations of elitism, eh? Would you have said Nick Foles was elite before this playoff run? Do you think he’s going to be elite after this run? Yes, Foles played extremely well, even elite if you want to call it that, for those games. But the point is that any team could have had him on their team, and short bursts of outstanding play does not make a QB “elite”. Look at Flacco or Eli. Two guys with Super Bowl rings, who played extremely well for short periods, and pretty much meh outside of that.
Sure, when you get to determine elitism after the performance is in and you ignore games like Super Bowl 50 (Manning’s 141 yards passing and 56.6 passer rating), I suppose so. That’s what makes this easy on you, you just get to determine which QB is elite AFTER they play the game.
Of course finding and keeping an elite QB is the best way to build sustainable success. I don’t think many people disagree with that. But there are many QB’s, like Foles, Manning, and Flacco, who can win Super Bowls with their teams by being very good for a short period of time. When you decide to define every QB who can (or has, with your amazing hindsight) do that as “elite”, the term loses all meaning.
No shit. The point is that you almost always need elite QB play to win in the postseason. Foles being great was basically a totally random event. No team can plan for that outcome, it was basically great luck. Using Foles as an excuse to simply be “good enough” at QB is misleading.
Foles was like Popeye eating his spinach. He was briefly superhuman. To me he was a non- elite QB who briefly played like an elite QB when his team needed him to.
I want to know what he ate for breakfast that last month of the season…