Quartebacks are over/under rated

In My Humble Opinion
1

It is my position that the vast majority of quarterbacks in the NFL are either underrated or overrated. This is due to the fact that most of the performance of the quarterback is determined by the effectiveness of his supporting cast. This fact is acknowleged by many, but the significance is not fully appreciated. Due to the incredible complexity of the game of football, there is little real way to separate the performance of the quarterback alone, and thus little way to truly rate the effectiveness of his talent on it’s own.

I base this on the following:[list=A][li]Many “great” quarterbacks have understudies who perform just as well when put into the game due to injury (e.g. Frank Reich behind Jim Kelly, Mitchell behind Marino, all-sorts-of-guys in SF, Rodney Peete behind Aikman, etc.) These backups are commonly described as being “good enough to start on most other teams, but unfortunately not good enough to supplant the great so-and-so”. When these backups actually get starting jobs with other teams, they generally bomb.[/li]
[li]Many starting quarterbacks who are very succesful with good teams are signed with much hoopla by bad teams. Generally they have no impact and perform much like the “bad” quarterbacks that they replaced. (e.g. Boomer Esaison, Neal O’Donnell).[/li]
[li]Many “weak” quarterbacks suddenly become succesful simply by being given opportunities to start on good teams (e.g. the afformentioned Rodney Peete).[/list=A]I’ve seen many other examples of this over the years, where the team is the determinant of performance, but the one’s listed are the ones that come to mind offhand.[/li]
This is relevent to executives and coaches building teams, not to put too much of your eggs in the quarterback basket, but also to rotisserie football team owners drafting players. Base your expectations on the team’s performance, not the quarterback’s.

2

Your OP does not go far enough. It is not only QBs that get graded by the quality of their teammates, it is all players. Many people think that Barry Sanders couldn’t or wouldn’t hit a hole. They fail to realize that due to the poor run blocking by the offensive line rarely opened any holes.

You play well and your team wins then you get to the Probowl. Playing well on a losing team doesn’t bring the recognition. People doubt the player.

3

The Qb does have to be able to meet minimum performance standards. Especially in a timing concious offenses, like the West Coast (orignally the Niners offense). Not just any quarterback can be plugged in, accuracy, decision making and mobility are all factors. Still your OP does have some merit. A good QB doesn’t make a team, see Marino.

4

I can think of numerous teams that have won Super Bowls without good running backs (the 1980 Raiders, the 1981 49ers, the 1996 Packers…) but VERY few who didn’t have good quarterbacks. There’s a reason the Starrs, Staubachs, Grieses and Bradshaws have so many rings.

The worst quarterbacks ever to win a Super Bowl? DOug Williams, Jeff Hostetler and Mark Rypien, none of whom was terrible (and all of whom showed occasional signs of greatness… but just couldn’t sustain it over a career).

David Woodley was the only truly AWFUL quarterback to take a team to a Super Bowl, and that was an anomaly (the strike season, and all).

A great quarterback alone doesn’t insure a championship, but I’d hate to try to win a Super Bowl without one. MAYBE if you have a smothering defense, you can get by with a mediocre quarterback (Shaun King? Steve McNair?) and win a Super Bowl by a score of 9-6, but when you’re down by 2 TDs in the 4th, I want a REAL quarterback in there.

Now, GRANTED, a quarterback can’t do it all by himself. A mediocre quarterback can look damn good when he’s starting for a great team. Remember, it was Earl Morrall, not Bob Griese, who lead the Dolphins through almost their entire 17-0 season (but when Griese was healthy, there was NO doubt who the #1 qb would be). But a great quarterback always lifts his team significantly. A bad one can hold down the fort against the mediocre, regular season rivals, but if you think Cliff Stoudt could have stepped in for Terry Bradshaw and beaten the Cowboys in the Super Bowl, you’re crazy!

5

All things being equal (which they of course never are) the QB is the most important player on a team’s offense. Great runners like Barry Sanders and O.J. Simpson can make up for a lot of the quarterback’s shortcomings, but how many SuperBowls have been won behind a great running back and a mediocre quarterback?

A great quarterback can get the ball to any of 5 or 6 weapons. A great running back is a singular weapon.
On a semi-related topic, one of my pet peeves is when I hear an announcer critique a play and say that the pass was incomplete because the ball was thrown too far when in actuality the ball got to the correct spot, it just got there too soon. (Any professional quarterback can throw a football 50 yards. The question is can he throw it 50 yards and have it arrive at a spot at the same time the receiver does.)

Although we no longer keep an official record for the 100 yard dash, it is (would be) around 9 seconds. Doing some simple math, a runner covers 33.3 feet/second to run 100 yards in 9 seconds. Put another way, the runner covers one foot in approximately 3/100th second.

The same bomb that is 6 inches beyond the receiver’s fingertips is a completion if it gets to the same spot 3/100 second later.

Overthrown indeed…

6

Dan Fouts was an awesome Quarterback. He had a cadre of receivers that are comparable to the track team that is called the ST. LOUIS RAMS. For a few years the Chargers had a fairly good defense as well. The thing they lacked in all the years the Fouts was tossing, a good quality running back that could balance the attack. (Marshall Faulk may not get the rushing yards of Walter Payton, but he is always a threat to break one… Loved to watch him at SDSU…)

Football is a team sport, and you need good players in each position. Then they also need to understand that it is a TEAM sport.

7

Sorry Navigator,

But for most of Dan Fouts tenure with the Chargers the team had (statistically) some of the worst defenses in the league. Fouts would throw for more than 400 yards in an afternoon and with 4 minutes to play it was still anybody’s game. Or worse, the Chargers were two touchdowns behind.

But DAMN I liked to watch that team throw the ball!!

8

I agree most years their defnese was horrid… the only time they reached the finals (I hate Maimi to this day…) was the year their defense was halfway adequate…

9

Everyone loves a leader, and it is to the leader go all the accolades and criticisms, be they what they may.

Someone has to be the leader, and on the field it is the QB. Marino indeed was outstanding, but he never brought home a SB ring. Was he overrated? Maybe not, but he made the whole team look good.

A few years ago I heard from several sources: I wanna see Farve get a ring. I thought: Why? What about the rest of the team? My only conclusion was that the QB identified the team.

Sean King does not yet identify the Bucs, in my perception, but he’s new. In time he will.

But you cannout doubt the records. Marino broke almost all of them while standing still his entire career. So, despite the fact that he never won the SB, he goes to the Hall of Fame. Who are the Dolphins now?

10

astorian

Another reason is because they played for great teams for most of their careers. All you can show by pointing to these players is that the teams that they played for got great production out of the quarterback position. My theory is that much of that production might be attributed to factors other than the quarterback’s skill (offensive line, recievers etc.)

Navigator

or he merely played for a great passing offence. I seem to recall when he missed about a half a season or more and they put a guy named Ed(?) Herrmann(?) in to replace him, and that guy performed just as well. What did Hermann do when not playing for the Chargers?

11

Another classic example. Kurt Warner comes out of nowhere to become one of the great quarterbacks of the era. OK, so he was “overlooked”. But then he was gets injured and his backup, Marc Bulger - an equally anonymous nobody - comes on and performs just as well if not better. What is the likelihood that the Rams just happened to have one of the top quarterbacks in the league - and also someone who had never done anything - warming the bench behind the great Warner? Obviously, neither Warner nor Bulger are as good as their performance would indicate - they are getting great numbers out of a team performance. So I predict that - following in the lead of backups to “great” quarterbacks everywhere, Bulger will eventually get a starting job somewhere with great expectations, and do nothing.

12

Clearly, you’re not going to get the the superbowl if the rest of the team sucks, no matter HOW phenomenally inredible the QB is. By the same token, if the QB habitually makes bad decisions, has rotten aim, or doesn’t inspire confidence, that’s not a big help either.

That said, basically, I agree that too much emphasis is put on the quarterback, when it’s the team as a whole that matters, but I think there is another issue to consider : team psychology–

The quarterback plays an important psycho-social role in the team. It is vital to have leadership, if you want a good offense, because it makes for an organized and concerted attack. That’s not to say that he necessarily makes or breaks every game, but the QB’s position is a significant one, if only for the mental cohesion of the team.

But all in all, Izzy, you make a good point. The quarterback’s by no means the only guy on the team, though sometimes you would think so - especially listening to TV commentary.

13

Underrated,Over paid!

14

Kn*ckers,

I am not trying to deny the importance of the quarterback position. What I am saying is that it is difficult if not impossible in most cases to isolate the impact of a particular quarterback on a particular team. Were Steve Bono & Elvis Grbac doing great jobs in SF? Boomer Esiason in Cincinnati? None of these men could duplicate their performance elsewhere. My point about Kurt Warner would be that in this case too, it is difficult to assess whether he is doing a great job in STL or is merely an OK quarterback who is the beneficiary of being at the center of a great offence. And the same would apply to the understudy Bulger as well. Difference would manifest itself if you took either of these guys and put them on another team to replace a “mediocre” quarterback - these guys might turn out to be every bit as mediocre.

Ironically, you might make a case that Jay Feidler is a great quarterback, based not on the job he did in Miami but on the job Lucas did in replacement. Feidler might just be a great quarterback doing a heroic job with a lousy offence.

15

Obviously, a quarterback doesn’t work miracles single-handedly, but come on now! Did Tony Banks and Trent Green ever put up numbers as good as Kurt Warner’s when they were quarterbacking the Rams? Did Jamie Martin put up big numbers when HE filled in for Warner? No! (If he had, we’d never have seen Bulger play.)

16

I don’t think you can compare players from different years. There were other impact players who came to the Rams the same year as Warner, most notably Marshall Faulk (also Torry Holt. Maybe others). The whole point I’m making is that an improved offence helps out the quarterback’s numbers even beyond the actual impact that he has.

As for Martin, fact is that he performed as well as Warner was doing at the time he replaced him. Unless you are trying to make the case that Warner is a lot worse than Bulger, you can’t make that claim about Martin. If you accept that Warner performed badly at the beginning of the season because the team underperformed, Martin gets off the hook as well.

17

If the vast majority of QBs are over/under rated, as the OP suggest, then in what order and by what method should they be rated? The NFL’s advanced calculus method? The old yards per pass play method, which worked just about as well? What about running QBs, like McNabb, or for us old guys, Staubach?

My two cents:

Current great QBs: Farve, McNabb, Warner, Bledsoe, Garcia, Oakland’s guy who’s name escapes me.

Current average QBs: Brady, Brees, Bulger, Fiedler, Maddox, Griese, Brooks, Collins, Pennington, Manning, Vick, Culpepper, Harrington, Peete, Houston’s guy before he gets sacked to death.

Current poor (except in the bank account) QBs: Couch, Stewart, Kitna, whoever’s playing for Baltimore, Washington, Dallas, Chicago and Tampa Bay.

Historically, in no particular order

Great QBs: Staubach, Montana, Young, Tarkenton, Stabler, Unitas, Kelly,

Overrated: Elway, Griese, Fouts, Bradshaw, Aikmann, Kosar, K. Anderson, Testaverde

Underrated: Otto Graham, Bart Starr, Sonny Jurgenson,

With apologies to whomever I overlooked or mispelled

18

Trent Dilfer, Ravens…

19

Michael Vick will be the best QB ever in a year or two. Id consider labeling him as “Great” now. He just needs to get a better team around him. Too bad thats not going to happen with his salary crampin a teams salary cap.

20

I stand corrected, and I think you’re right (assuming the specific quarterback in question is neither Superman nor a lobotomized octogenarian squid).