Count me among those who think Jeff Smardzija made Quinn look a lot better at Notre Dame than he actually is.
Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I don’t hate Quinn. I thought he was going to be a good quarterback, especially in his rookie year. I just hate the blind allegiance that quarterbacks inspire, because everyone wants him to be the great new hope. Especially young, first round draft pick, hometown hero (sort of), gq model quarterbacks.
I had to suffer through excuses for bad quarterback play because no one could admit their guy wasn’t The Answer, having people tell me about how if we just get hall of fame talent on every other position on offense then we can get by with someone bad at quarterback, and how everyone was at fault, blah blah. I have no problem with Quinn and I’d certainly like to see him flourish since it’d mean we have a quarterback, I just can’t stand the fanboyism.
It still makes me chuckle every time Mike & Mike do the “I can be your hero baby” thing.
This seems to be a common misperception amongst casual fans in my experience.
“What do you mean we can’t afford to pay superstars at every position? What’s a salary cap?”
Maybe its just fans of traditionally bad teams (Bengals, Browns, etc).
Well, in fairness, franchise quarterbacks cost so much money that you can free up enough cap space to sign two or three top-flight players at most other positions for the cost of a QB.
When Peyton Manning signed his current deal in 2004 he cost the Colts $15 million per year, or slightly over 15% of the salary cap then in place ($98 million). His contract is now practically peanuts - top five draft picks get more.
By contrast, Michael Turner got the biggest free-agent deal last year and it was for $6.1 million per year.
I think it’s just… they get an emotional attachment to their guy even if he sucks, so they think a reasonable course of action is to, instead of replacing the one guy that sucks at the most important position, point out flukes like when Dilfer took the Ravens to the superbowl. “If you can only create arguably the greatest defense of all time around him, and put in one of the greats at running back with a great o-line, you may be able to squeak by enough on offense to win anyway. Therefore let’s keep this shitty QB forever!”
Brad Johnson?
Yeah, that’s another example. Me, I tend to think that if you have a bad QB, attempting to replace him with a good one is a high priority type of deal. It’s easier to get something adequate there than to attempt to get hall of famers at every other position just so you don’t have to give up your dream of faily mcfailsalot becoming a real NFL qb.
Agreed completely. Just look at Detroit for a cautionary tale on what happens when you try to build from the skill positions inward.
QB => OL/DL => skill positions (RB/TE/WR/LB/CB/S)
That said, it takes several years to determine if the QB is a keeper or not. That’s why drafting a bust QB high in the first round is said to set your franchise back by five years. A couple years to figure out he’s a bust, then a couple more years to try another one.
EDIT: For clarification, those groups between the arrows aren’t in order. IOW, I’m not saying RB is the most important skill position. Actually, I think RB is the least important skill position in that there are tons of good RBs you can use, and aside from the occasional Adrian Peterson I think drafting a RB in the first round is a tremendous waste. I’ll take Leon Washington in the 5th over Reggie Bush in the 1st any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Just missed. But another win. Stafford’s shoulder is dislocated. Just when we were getting to be friends. Calvin is supposed to be hurt again. Thankgiving will show you the football definition of Turkey.
Johnson wasn’t exactly a franchise quarterback, but he was a pretty big signing when we got him. He’d thrown for 4,000 yards with the Redskins back when that was still difficult to do, and it wasn’t exactly as though the Buccaneers were loaded with talent on offense around him. Obviously, having the league’s best defense was still the key to the Super Bowl win, of course.
I generally equate Brad Johson with Kerry Collins.
That’s about right, although Johnson never quite put up Collins’ stats, and Collins doesn’t have a ring. I think we can throw Drew Bledsoe in there too as another big white stiff (yes, I know Bledsoe was a statistical dynamo early in his career).
So the defense does a pretty good job of shutting down the Ravens and Bengals, but the offense is putrid against either. The offense shows some life against the Lions, but suddenly the defense can’t stop that unstoppable juggernaught.
A new low - the Browns are 1-10 for the first time in franchise history. This team is worse than the intentionally crippled 1999 team, and every other team in the 58 seasons of the franchise.
I think the NFL should award Shaun Rogers with some sort of lifetime achievement award and grant him release from his contract. A talent like that shouldn’t be wasted by having his entire career be on terrible teams.
They might want to consider him for a special award for “dumb play of the day” for horse-collaring Carson Palmer as he was about to run out of bounds on the last play of the first half that gave the Bengals a 53-yard FG with no clock, too.
'Course, that doesn’t mean that Rogers isn’t a freaking beast. He is. But he should have known better than to do what he did.
The NFL can’t spot a team decent ownership. 
Nobody made him sign a 6-year extension. That said, the Browns will probably need the money they’ll recoup to sign Charlie Weis as their new head coach.
They can, actually, since they were the one that chose between multiple bidding parties on who to grant the franchise to.
LOL.
Of course that’s the next logical step for this franchise.
Randy Lerner has billions, so there’s no risk of that. People praise having an owner with big pockets, but it barely matters, given that there’s a salary cap and floor. The area where a rich owner really can influence things is to do something like get Parcells over here as president for some crazy salary he can’t refuse. If Lerner did that, I’d finally be impressed with his financial muscle.