QB THREAD - 2x quarterbacky award winner: Lamar Jackson

[dmxfury]

Peyton Manning will only play 9 games and will be probably still lead the league in INTs

Peyton can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants


Dude has earned it



How many times is the word 'narrative' used in this thread?

 

[CP1708]

Ryan missed the late throw on the run to Landry, and the dropped INT Stills broke up, but was solid otherwise. .

There goes that narrative again. Guys were dropping his passes hmmm, but you somehow forget the other 3 passes that should've been interceptions for the Giants. One was a force throw to Landry that he stared down the covered receiver. Another was an out pattern, when Tirico noted the ball came out late. Another was a forced slant throw that the DB (that white dude) missed. Ball was right to him. Nope, we don't mention that. Pathetic. You realllllly need to put the #%#$^$# cape away.

See, you think a DB is "near the ball" so its a pick. No.

The out had DRC break on ball, and knock it down with his inside hand, backwards. Pass breakup. Not a pick. That's you bein you tho.

The slant one, Landry cut short. Ryan threw to the spot, Landry didn't go thru his route. Kouffman even commented as such last night. Again, you just callin out "pick" cuz a DB was on the field next to the ball.

Two "picks" in your world, a total of one backhand touched the ball.

Stills broke up the legit chance at an INT. Which I mentioned.

 

[skurrtskurrt29]

Does Tannehill do anything wrong?

 

[CP1708]

Yes. He missed that throw to Landry at the end.
And he didn't check out of the play or bring a TE in on the blitz where he threw to DVP that only got 2 yards instead of 5.
And the Stills save of INT.

 

[skurrtskurrt29]

I mean overall, what are his weaknesses?

Because when I watch him play he's wildly inconsistent. I like that he's a duel threat and he genuinely can make plays with both his arm and feet, but then there's times where I see him make some of the dumbest decisions. Every Fins game I've watched this year that has been the case. Just inconsistency and some issues you wouldn't expect from a 4th year QB.

Also admittedly, I don't know very much about the Dolphins, so how much does team play effect him?

 

[Chester McFloppy]

Brock Osweilier has had 26 drives the last two games. Zero touchdowns. :x

 

[CP1708]

I mean overall, what are his weaknesses?

Because when I watch him play he's wildly inconsistent. I like that he's a duel threat and he genuinely can make plays with both his arm and feet, but then there's times where I see him make some of the dumbest decisions. Every Fins game I've watched this year that has been the case. Just inconsistency and some issues you wouldn't expect from a 4th year QB.

Also admittedly, I don't know very much about the Dolphins, so how much does team play effect him?

He's been coached by Joe Philbin, Bill Lazor, and Mike Sherman his whole career.

Dallas Thomas, Jason Fox and Billy Turner STARTED on his Oline last night.

Lamar Miller was at 9-85-2 TD's early in first half. Got 3 carries the rest of the game so Damien Williams could drop multiple passes. (?????????????)

I assure you, we do him no favors.

Hence my desire for a Harbaugh, Reid, Gace, Payton type coach or OC at least.

 

[mister friendly]

Ryan Tannehill missed at least 4 other throws last night.

He also had fairly clean pocket all game and a solid running game.

Other teams have started mediocre offensive lineman, the Dolphins aren't alone in that regard.

Mike Sherman wasn't a bad NFL coach by any stretch, been other this many times.

Dude acting like if you don't have a mix of Lombardi, Shula, Walsh coaching, with the 1990s Cowboys offensive line and 2000 Rams offensive weapons, your quarterback is getting screwed.

 

[dmxfury]

Jeez, bengals still going to get that #2 spot

 

[mister friendly]

He won't win MVP, but nobody is outplaying Russell Wilson

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14363989/russell-wilson-playing-best-qb-second-half-ot-season-nfl

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

At this point, it's pretty clear that Cam Newton is going to win his first MVP award, and deservedly so. The Panthers are 13-0 and have a 44.0 percent chance of finishing the regular season undefeated, per ESPN's Football Power Index. Newton has only gotten hotter as the season has progressed, having thrown 17 touchdowns against one interception in Carolina's past five games. With both Tom Brady and the Patriots slipping in recent weeks before Sunday night's victory over the Texans, it would take a dramatic collapse for Newton to give way in the MVP race.

Newton has been downright brilliant, and he may very well have been the best quarterback in football over the course of this season, but he's not the best one in the league right now. That title belongs to the king of the Pacific Northwest, and it might even be selling Russell Wilson short.

Seattle's star quarterback just put up what could be considered the best four-game stretch in modern NFL history.

Wilson was phenomenal during Sunday's blowout win over the Ravens, who managed to hold him to only five touchdown passes because tight end Luke Willson dropped what would have been Wilson's sixth while standing all alone in the end zone. Wilson's 97.2 QBR was one-tenth of one point behind Newton (97.3) for the best figure of the day and included 11 more pass attempts. It's also the fourth week in a row Wilson posted a QBR of 90 or more, the first time anybody has done that all season.

And even that undersells what Wilson is accomplishing. Since losing to the Cardinals in Week 10, Wilson's numbers are surreal. It would be unfair to call them video game numbers; they're video game numbers you might post against a particularly talented household pet. Over that four-game stretch, he has gone 89-for-118 for 1,171 passing yards. That's a staggering 75.4 percent completion percentage and an average of 9.9 yards per pass attempt. Even more impressively, he has thrown 16 touchdowns without a single interception.

It all adds up to a passer rating of 145.9. Pro-football-reference.com has game logs for quarterbacks going back through the 1960 season, 10 years before the AFL-NFL merger.

Do you know how many quarterbacks have thrown 100 or more attempts over a four-game stretch and posted a better passer rating over that span than Wilson? Zero. It has never happened before:

These numbers aren't adjusted for era, and so they're naturally biased toward recent years, when the rising tide of the modern game has helped inflate passing statistics. It is true that Wilson has faced a relatively easy slate of opponents during this run; the Ravens (26th in pass defense DVOA) are playing out the string, and the Steelers (14th), Vikings (16th) and 49ers (30th) are hardly dominant pass defenses. Even if those caveats cause you to push Wilson off of the loftiest pedestal, it's totally reasonable to say that Russell Wilson has just wrapped up one of the best quarter-seasons the league has ever seen.

And, of course, there are reasons to argue that Wilson has had it harder than most. He lost the guy who was nominally designed to be his top receiver, Jimmy Graham, to a season-ending injury halfway through this stretch. Wilson's top offensive weapon, Marshawn Lynch, hasn't been around for the entirety of this run, having last played against the Cardinals in Week 10. Wilson lost undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls to a broken ankle early Sunday. His receiving corps currently consists of two undrafted free-agent wide receivers, a rookie third-rounder who was the 10th wideout taken in this year's draft, a third-year tight end taken in the fifth round and a 34-year-old running back who was released in August. They're pedes ... they're adequate.

That's without getting to the offensive line, and when you want to understand why Wilson has turned the corner and played lights-out football for the past month, you can start there. The Seattle front five was, to put it charitably, a disaster for most of the campaign. That was a major disappointment for the Seahawks, who had high expectations for a unit that most expected to be a work in progress after the team traded star center Max Unger away in the Graham deal this offseason. Well-regarded offensive line coach Tom Cable suggested in August that this year's group could be the best unit he has had during his time with Seattle.

Wilson's style of play invariably lends itself to more hurries than most other passers, but a struggling offensive line simply didn't leave Wilson enough time to make it through his progressions and throw. After being pressured on a league-high 40.8 percent of his dropbacks during the 2014 season, Wilson remained under siege for most of the 2015 campaign. Through the loss to the Cardinals in Week 10, Wilson was being pressured on 40.9 percent of pass plays, the highest figure in the league by a notable margin, given that second-placed Colin Kaepernick was more than five percentage points away at 35.5 percent.

Despite Cable's preseason optimism, the need for change was clear. The Seahawks tried to make a shift at center by benching Drew Nowak for backup Patrick Lewis, but Lewis was injured during his first start in Week 6 and promptly missed the next two games. Once Lewis returned to health during Seattle's Week 9 bye, the franchise waived Nowak and returned the job to Lewis.

It's too simplistic to link Seattle's offensive success directly to Lewis, especially given that the line struggled during Lewis' return against Arizona in Week 10, but they've looked like a different unit from Week 11 on. Wilson has been pressured on just 24.8 percent of his dropbacks over that timespan, which is only 11th among starting quarterbacks. It's not exactly the turf cabana Andy Dalton enjoyed for most of this year, but it's a drastic change for the league's most-hurried passer.

If you want to see the impact of what that time in the pocket can do for Wilson, look no further than his five touchdown passes Sunday. Wilson had nearly four totally unmolested seconds in the pocket before finding a wide-open Tyler Lockett for his first touchdown. Later, he simply ignored a big blitz to find Lockett for a 49-yard score.

The offensive line's impact was even more obvious on Wilson's throws to Baldwin. After hitting the bottom of his dropback, Wilson required literally one step combined between his first, second and and third touchdown passes to Baldwin. It's incredible. Wilson barely budges and never has to even reset his eyes or feet. You know those 3-pointers where a guy is so wide-open that he gets to spin the ball onto his fingertips and take a deep breath before shooting? That was what Wilson got to do on these touchdown passes.

Watch the route combinations and you'll also see that this isn't especially complicated stuff from offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. The first two Baldwin touchdowns are combinations of crossing routes, and the third is a simple post route in which Baldwin juked Ravens cornerback Lardarius Webb so badly that Webb might still be picking pieces of his ankles out of the grass in Baltimore as you read this. These touchdown passes are all throws that look easy because Wilson's receivers have time to break into their routes and Wilson himself has time to run through his progressions.

As SB Nation's Danny Kelly wrote in a story before the Ravens game, Bevell has done a better job of creating opportunities for his receivers elsewhere on the field by building route combinations and pre-snap looks designed to manufacture quick throws and separation. He has had success stacking his receivers in recent weeks, and one of the touchdowns came out of a diamond set with Fred Jackson motioned out alongside wide receivers. On Sunday, the Seahawks repeatedly lined up Baldwin alongside Jermaine Kearse and went with a slant/flat route combination designed to create a natural, legal pick on Baltimore's overworked cornerbacks, producing a few easy first downs.

It's tempting to note the absence of Graham and suggest that the Seahawks are being more creative without their star tight end, but I'm skeptical. Even if Graham is capable of beating tighter coverage in a way that Kearse or Cooper Helfet simply aren't, it's not as if the Seahawks couldn't have made Graham's life easier by stacking him alongside Baldwin or running pick plays to free him up against man coverage. They ran those plays earlier in the year, too, but they've been more successful lately -- it's the blocking.

The other stunning thing here is how Wilson looks as a conventional quarterback. The naive, shortsighted knock on Wilson -- as much as you can knock a guy who has two Super Bowl trips in three chances -- has always been that he's a quarterback who has to rely on various gimmicks (such as the read-option), wild improvisational scrambles and a dominant running game to serve as an effective quarterback. At 5-foot-11, even after having proved himself as an elite quarterback, Wilson wasn't the sort of prototypical pocket passer the league feti****es as their platonic ideal of a quarterback.

Well, that's simply no longer the case. As Matt Bowen noted for ESPN Insider before the Ravens game, Wilson has been dominant in recent weeks without stepping foot outside the pocket. Those numbers are even more terrifying after adding the Ravens game to the mix. Inside the pocket over the past four weeks, Wilson is 81-for-96 (84.3 percent) for 1,094 yards with 15 touchdowns, zero interceptions and an absurd QBR of 98.5. He was 26th in QBR in the pocket (51.2) through the first 10 weeks of the year, in part out of sheer unfamiliarity, having thrown a league-high 22 percent of his passes outside of the pocket. That figure is now down to 16 percent after Week 10. Wilson is never going to be Drew Bledsoe, but he's finding the ideal balance of where to make his throws and ripping teams apart without needing to scramble into (or away from) danger.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Wilson managed to pull off another feat many thought him incapable of performing, given that it's basically his stock trade by now. The arguments suggesting he wasn't worth the massive contract he signed this offseason seem incredibly silly right now. As ESPN's Mina Kimes rightly noted on Twitter, the critics who suggested earlier in the year that Wilson was somehow being distracted by new girlfriend Ciara have mysteriously failed to comment on how Ciara's presence has helped Wilson during this hot streak, unsurprising for those who trotted out a tired, sexist trope.

What might be a surprise, though, is how this could be a Seahawks team whose strength is its offense. Seattle's remarkable second-half runs in recent years have been paced by its defense, notably last season, when Bobby Wagner returned in Week 12 and the Seahawks promptly allowed an average of 6.5 points per game the rest of the way.

This year, it's the offense that appears to be spiking for Seattle. The Seahawks have scored 29 points or more in each of their past five games. They've averaged 34.6 points per game over that stretch, the first time they've pulled that off since Wilson's rookie season in 2012, and that was a run that included four return touchdowns. Seattle has only one in the past five weeks. Wilson's offense is clicking better than it ever has, even without its two biggest weapons. Even if Seattle can't win the NFC West, that's going to make them a wild-card team nobody wants to see in January. And even though Wilson isn't going to be league MVP, he has been the best quarterback on the planet over the past month.

 

[finnns2003]

Other teams have started mediocre offensive lineman, the Dolphins aren't alone in that regard.

Mike Sherman wasn't a bad NFL coach by any stretch, been other this many times.

Dude acting like if you don't have a mix of Lombardi, Shula, Walsh coaching, with the 1990s Cowboys offensive line and 2000 Rams offensive weapons, your quarterback is getting screwed.

Very true, I think the Pats are on their 9th string guys at this point

 

[100027]

He won't win MVP, but nobody is outplaying Russell Wilson

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14363989/russell-wilson-playing-best-qb-second-half-ot-season-nfl

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

At this point, it's pretty clear that Cam Newton is going to win his first MVP award, and deservedly so. The Panthers are 13-0 and have a 44.0 percent chance of finishing the regular season undefeated, per ESPN's Football Power Index. Newton has only gotten hotter as the season has progressed, having thrown 17 touchdowns against one interception in Carolina's past five games. With both Tom Brady and the Patriots slipping in recent weeks before Sunday night's victory over the Texans, it would take a dramatic collapse for Newton to give way in the MVP race.

Newton has been downright brilliant, and he may very well have been the best quarterback in football over the course of this season, but he's not the best one in the league right now. That title belongs to the king of the Pacific Northwest, and it might even be selling Russell Wilson short.

Seattle's star quarterback just put up what could be considered the best four-game stretch in modern NFL history.

Wilson was phenomenal during Sunday's blowout win over the Ravens, who managed to hold him to only five touchdown passes because tight end Luke Willson dropped what would have been Wilson's sixth while standing all alone in the end zone. Wilson's 97.2 QBR was one-tenth of one point behind Newton (97.3) for the best figure of the day and included 11 more pass attempts. It's also the fourth week in a row Wilson posted a QBR of 90 or more, the first time anybody has done that all season.

And even that undersells what Wilson is accomplishing. Since losing to the Cardinals in Week 10, Wilson's numbers are surreal. It would be unfair to call them video game numbers; they're video game numbers you might post against a particularly talented household pet. Over that four-game stretch, he has gone 89-for-118 for 1,171 passing yards. That's a staggering 75.4 percent completion percentage and an average of 9.9 yards per pass attempt. Even more impressively, he has thrown 16 touchdowns without a single interception.

It all adds up to a passer rating of 145.9. Pro-football-reference.com has game logs for quarterbacks going back through the 1960 season, 10 years before the AFL-NFL merger.

Do you know how many quarterbacks have thrown 100 or more attempts over a four-game stretch and posted a better passer rating over that span than Wilson? Zero. It has never happened before:

These numbers aren't adjusted for era, and so they're naturally biased toward recent years, when the rising tide of the modern game has helped inflate passing statistics. It is true that Wilson has faced a relatively easy slate of opponents during this run; the Ravens (26th in pass defense DVOA) are playing out the string, and the Steelers (14th), Vikings (16th) and 49ers (30th) are hardly dominant pass defenses. Even if those caveats cause you to push Wilson off of the loftiest pedestal, it's totally reasonable to say that Russell Wilson has just wrapped up one of the best quarter-seasons the league has ever seen.

And, of course, there are reasons to argue that Wilson has had it harder than most. He lost the guy who was nominally designed to be his top receiver, Jimmy Graham, to a season-ending injury halfway through this stretch. Wilson's top offensive weapon, Marshawn Lynch, hasn't been around for the entirety of this run, having last played against the Cardinals in Week 10. Wilson lost undrafted rookie Thomas Rawls to a broken ankle early Sunday. His receiving corps currently consists of two undrafted free-agent wide receivers, a rookie third-rounder who was the 10th wideout taken in this year's draft, a third-year tight end taken in the fifth round and a 34-year-old running back who was released in August. They're pedes ... they're adequate.

That's without getting to the offensive line, and when you want to understand why Wilson has turned the corner and played lights-out football for the past month, you can start there. The Seattle front five was, to put it charitably, a disaster for most of the campaign. That was a major disappointment for the Seahawks, who had high expectations for a unit that most expected to be a work in progress after the team traded star center Max Unger away in the Graham deal this offseason. Well-regarded offensive line coach Tom Cable suggested in August that this year's group could be the best unit he has had during his time with Seattle.

Wilson's style of play invariably lends itself to more hurries than most other passers, but a struggling offensive line simply didn't leave Wilson enough time to make it through his progressions and throw. After being pressured on a league-high 40.8 percent of his dropbacks during the 2014 season, Wilson remained under siege for most of the 2015 campaign. Through the loss to the Cardinals in Week 10, Wilson was being pressured on 40.9 percent of pass plays, the highest figure in the league by a notable margin, given that second-placed Colin Kaepernick was more than five percentage points away at 35.5 percent.

Despite Cable's preseason optimism, the need for change was clear. The Seahawks tried to make a shift at center by benching Drew Nowak for backup Patrick Lewis, but Lewis was injured during his first start in Week 6 and promptly missed the next two games. Once Lewis returned to health during Seattle's Week 9 bye, the franchise waived Nowak and returned the job to Lewis.

It's too simplistic to link Seattle's offensive success directly to Lewis, especially given that the line struggled during Lewis' return against Arizona in Week 10, but they've looked like a different unit from Week 11 on. Wilson has been pressured on just 24.8 percent of his dropbacks over that timespan, which is only 11th among starting quarterbacks. It's not exactly the turf cabana Andy Dalton enjoyed for most of this year, but it's a drastic change for the league's most-hurried passer.

If you want to see the impact of what that time in the pocket can do for Wilson, look no further than his five touchdown passes Sunday. Wilson had nearly four totally unmolested seconds in the pocket before finding a wide-open Tyler Lockett for his first touchdown. Later, he simply ignored a big blitz to find Lockett for a 49-yard score.

The offensive line's impact was even more obvious on Wilson's throws to Baldwin. After hitting the bottom of his dropback, Wilson required literally one step combined between his first, second and and third touchdown passes to Baldwin. It's incredible. Wilson barely budges and never has to even reset his eyes or feet. You know those 3-pointers where a guy is so wide-open that he gets to spin the ball onto his fingertips and take a deep breath before shooting? That was what Wilson got to do on these touchdown passes.

Watch the route combinations and you'll also see that this isn't especially complicated stuff from offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell. The first two Baldwin touchdowns are combinations of crossing routes, and the third is a simple post route in which Baldwin juked Ravens cornerback Lardarius Webb so badly that Webb might still be picking pieces of his ankles out of the grass in Baltimore as you read this. These touchdown passes are all throws that look easy because Wilson's receivers have time to break into their routes and Wilson himself has time to run through his progressions.

As SB Nation's Danny Kelly wrote in a story before the Ravens game, Bevell has done a better job of creating opportunities for his receivers elsewhere on the field by building route combinations and pre-snap looks designed to manufacture quick throws and separation. He has had success stacking his receivers in recent weeks, and one of the touchdowns came out of a diamond set with Fred Jackson motioned out alongside wide receivers. On Sunday, the Seahawks repeatedly lined up Baldwin alongside Jermaine Kearse and went with a slant/flat route combination designed to create a natural, legal pick on Baltimore's overworked cornerbacks, producing a few easy first downs.

It's tempting to note the absence of Graham and suggest that the Seahawks are being more creative without their star tight end, but I'm skeptical. Even if Graham is capable of beating tighter coverage in a way that Kearse or Cooper Helfet simply aren't, it's not as if the Seahawks couldn't have made Graham's life easier by stacking him alongside Baldwin or running pick plays to free him up against man coverage. They ran those plays earlier in the year, too, but they've been more successful lately -- it's the blocking.

The other stunning thing here is how Wilson looks as a conventional quarterback. The naive, shortsighted knock on Wilson -- as much as you can knock a guy who has two Super Bowl trips in three chances -- has always been that he's a quarterback who has to rely on various gimmicks (such as the read-option), wild improvisational scrambles and a dominant running game to serve as an effective quarterback. At 5-foot-11, even after having proved himself as an elite quarterback, Wilson wasn't the sort of prototypical pocket passer the league feti****es as their platonic ideal of a quarterback.

Well, that's simply no longer the case. As Matt Bowen noted for ESPN Insider before the Ravens game, Wilson has been dominant in recent weeks without stepping foot outside the pocket. Those numbers are even more terrifying after adding the Ravens game to the mix. Inside the pocket over the past four weeks, Wilson is 81-for-96 (84.3 percent) for 1,094 yards with 15 touchdowns, zero interceptions and an absurd QBR of 98.5. He was 26th in QBR in the pocket (51.2) through the first 10 weeks of the year, in part out of sheer unfamiliarity, having thrown a league-high 22 percent of his passes outside of the pocket. That figure is now down to 16 percent after Week 10. Wilson is never going to be Drew Bledsoe, but he's finding the ideal balance of where to make his throws and ripping teams apart without needing to scramble into (or away from) danger.

It shouldn't be a surprise that Wilson managed to pull off another feat many thought him incapable of performing, given that it's basically his stock trade by now. The arguments suggesting he wasn't worth the massive contract he signed this offseason seem incredibly silly right now. As ESPN's Mina Kimes rightly noted on Twitter, the critics who suggested earlier in the year that Wilson was somehow being distracted by new girlfriend Ciara have mysteriously failed to comment on how Ciara's presence has helped Wilson during this hot streak, unsurprising for those who trotted out a tired, sexist trope.

What might be a surprise, though, is how this could be a Seahawks team whose strength is its offense. Seattle's remarkable second-half runs in recent years have been paced by its defense, notably last season, when Bobby Wagner returned in Week 12 and the Seahawks promptly allowed an average of 6.5 points per game the rest of the way.

This year, it's the offense that appears to be spiking for Seattle. The Seahawks have scored 29 points or more in each of their past five games. They've averaged 34.6 points per game over that stretch, the first time they've pulled that off since Wilson's rookie season in 2012, and that was a run that included four return touchdowns. Seattle has only one in the past five weeks. Wilson's offense is clicking better than it ever has, even without its two biggest weapons. Even if Seattle can't win the NFC West, that's going to make them a wild-card team nobody wants to see in January. And even though Wilson isn't going to be league MVP, he has been the best quarterback on the planet over the past month.

There we go, Barnwell *golfclap*

 

[CP1708]

It's right there in the article, right?

Line plays better, Russ has more time.

Bevell has switched up routes and created better spacing, add the time, and Russ can deliver to open receivers.


It's almost like.......coaching, Oline play and having better spacing/open receivers can have an impact on a quarterback. I can't even imagine that's possible.......

I truly wonder what it's like to have coaches adjust, and create opportunities and attack mismatches or weaknesses on the other team......


Russ has been fire the past month. But I'm fairly positive that article just agreed with every detail I've pointed too for the past several months in an indirect way. (not about Russ, about the position itself)

 

[100027]

It's right there in the article, right?

Line plays better, Russ has more time.
 

We all know that, and said as much.

Also, having the worst line in the league for the first half of the season makes it hard to complete passes, which we all complained about vociferously.

This is the cleanest pocket Russell has had in years and clearly he is benefitting.

 

[mister friendly]

Now dude is sitting here mentioning all the difficulties Russell Wilson had to deal with but wasn't saying **** back when.

It was just

" they don't value him, they paid everybody but him"

"25 other quarterbacks can do what Russell Wilson does"

"Marshawn Lynch makes him"

He's just using this as a way to cape for average *** Ryan Tannehill.

 

[rolaholic]

Russ rose above all the slander

 

[elpablo21]

Russ rose above all the slander

Breaking the Ciara curse alone might make him the GOAT 

 

[a55a5in11]

 

[dland24]

Don't post in here often...but...have thrown this question around two years ago, last year, and now this year...

9ers fans...ya'll want Alex Smith back? Or still wanna roll with Kaepernick?

While there is no doubt in my mind that Alex Smith is currently a better QB than Colin Kaepernick....no problem admitting that.

However, I still wholeheartedly believe the switch was the correct move, and I don't for one second want Alex Smith back. I know he is having some success with KC, but I have no desire to want ANY quarterback who cannot put his team on his back and win games for them. In all honesty, I would rather have no quarterbacks at all, than a QB like Alex Smith. Being stuck in mediocrity is far worse than not having a QB. Alex is just good enough to trick feeble minded front offices that he is good enough to not search for a new QB.

I love KC's defense. WIth that defense and a better QB, they would be able to challenge for a SB spot in that weak *** AFC. But with Alex, I cant imagine they go very far. I don't want my team to be held back by QB play. Sans 2012 and 2013, I have been reading that book since Jeff Garcia was my team's QB.

 

[elpablo21]

[h1]Cam Newton has a clear statistical case for MVP[/h1]sec-marg-insec-marg-outpost-header
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BEGIN THEIA POST SLIDER

There’s a general buzz about how Cam Newton is the quarterback of an undefeated NFL team, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be MVP. And, to be fair, when the Miami Dolphins went undefeated in 1972, it was a Washington *******, Larry Brown, who was honored with the title. The narrative goes that Newton is riding his defense and unspectacular passer ratings to his MVP. The problem with that narrative is it requires cherry-picking to get there.

Let’s set aside everything else for a moment and consider one fact that is virtually undeniable: If Cam Newton went down, this would not even be a playoff team. Being the difference between watching the postseason at home and potentially going undefeated is a pretty hefty bonus in the “Value” column, but perhaps you want more objective evidence. Maybe you’re buying into this hype about the defense being what is winning his games.

IS THE DEFENSE WINNING MORE THAN THE OTHER CANDIDATES?

First, let’s look at how the defense has performed when Newton wins compared to what the other two top candidates, Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and Carson Palmer of the Arizona Cardinals are getting from theirs:



Well, there’s a pretty big blow to the narrative. It’s not just a distortion of the truth; it’s a factual misrepresentation of it. The Panthers have surrendered more  points in their wins than the Patriots or Cardinals have, but where’s the conversation about how Brady and Palmer are just getting by on their defense? And remember, this is just a comparison of what they have in wins–of which Newton has two more of at present.

Factually, Newton has to do more to win than his counterparts do. Strike one for the narrative.

NEWTON’S PASSING NUMBERS AREN’T MVP WORTHY

This argument is a classic case of begging the question, in that it assumes a premise that a quarterback’s true value is always represented by his passing numbers. That, however, is not always the case, particularly when you’re talking about a non-traditional, dual-threat quarterback like Newton. And it’s not like quarterback rating is the quintessential way of measuring the status of a signal caller either. It’s a way, and it has its strengths, but it’s not the only way.

When you factor in both his running and passing, Newton has factored into his team’s success just as much as Brady and Palmer have. First here’s a look at Touchdowns:



And here’s a look at yards:



Newton has accounted for 81.4 percent of his team’s touchdowns, either through the air or on the ground. Compare that with Brady (78.3 percent) or Palmer (74.4 percent). Furthermore, in spite of the fact that, by design, the Cardinals and Patriots are much more pass-oriented offenses, the percentage of yards coming from Newton (71.66 percent) is comparable with Palmer’s (72.45 percent) and Brady’s (78.34 percent). When you look at the three candidates based on what they offer their teams combining what they do on the ground with what they do through the air, there isn’t quite the chasm of separation.

At a minimum, Newton has nearly as much to do with getting his team down the field and more than the other two with getting them into the end zone.

Narrative, strike two.

ALL RECEIVERS AREN’T EQUAL

The other problem with comparing passing numbers is it assumes that the guys catching the ball have nothing to do with the end result. And people want to give all the credit to Greg Olsen, as though, he’s suddenly the best tight-end in the league. Yet, Rob Gronkowski doesn’t seem to be a reason to take away votes from Brady.

For starters, not all receivers are as likely to catch the ball. And here, let’s focus on each QB’s top three receivers based on targets. For the Patriots, that means Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman and Gronkowski. For the Cardinals, that’s Larry Fitzgerald, Josh Brown and Michael Floyd. And for the Panthers, it’s Olsen, Tedd Gin Jr. and Devin Funchess. First, look how much more likely the Panthers’ trio are to drop passes:



Furthermore, the career accomplishments of the Panthers’ trio coming in was far short of what the other two tiros have accomplished:



Cam Newton has had far less accomplished receivers who are dropping the ball more–literally. Narrative strike three. You’re out.

Objectively speaking, Newton is every bit as much in the MVP conversation. He’s doing as much, with less, and leading his teams to more wins in the process.

If people have a reason for him not being MVP, maybe it’s not football related.

 

[mister friendly]

Damn that's a pretty strong case for Cam being the MVP.

 

[100027]

While there is no doubt in my mind that Alex Smith is currently a better QB than Colin Kaepernick....no problem admitting that.

However, I still wholeheartedly believe the switch was the correct move, and I don't for one second want Alex Smith back. I know he is having some success with KC, but I have no desire to want ANY quarterback who cannot put his team on his back and win games for them. In all honesty, I would rather have no quarterbacks at all, than a QB like Alex Smith. Being stuck in mediocrity is far worse than not having a QB. Alex is just good enough to trick feeble minded front offices that he is good enough to not search for a new QB.

I love KC's defense. WIth that defense and a better QB, they would be able to challenge for a SB spot in that weak *** AFC. But with Alex, I cant imagine they go very far. I don't want my team to be held back by QB play. Sans 2012 and 2013, I have been reading that book since Jeff Garcia was my team's QB.

I agree with this take.  I also don't think Alex Smith gets them as close as they were to a SB.  And if things fall just a little different...

 

[CP1708]

Alex Smith was a punt return away from a Super Bowl tho.......

 

[100027]

Alex Smith was a punt return away from a Super Bowl tho.......

That's true, but Colin was a throw away from one and a throw away from winning another one.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

 Quest for Six

 

[finnns2003]

Now dude is sitting here mentioning all the difficulties Russell Wilson had to deal with but wasn't saying **** back when.

It was just

" they don't value him, they paid everybody but him"

"25 other quarterbacks can do what Russell Wilson does"

"Marshawn Lynch makes him"

He's just using this as a way to cape for average *** Ryan Tannehill.

Well ya know, we don't have the Chiefs line of the 2000's, Walter Payton, and Vince Lombardi on the sidelines, so...