Thoughts from around the league after Sunday...

Look at Brady. He’s played much less aggressively in New England’s home playoff games where the elements were a factor than he’s played in their Super Bowls and been much more free-wheeling.

Different system or not, if you’re suggesting Eli’s numbers are hurt by playing in a scaled back less aggressive more ball-control oriented system; shouldn’t Eli’s turnover totals be much less than those two guys? In the oh-so-magical ’07 season, Eli had 23 TD passes and 27 turnovers (playing behind the best O-line in football.) Just for comparison, in ’06 Suckosaurus Rex had 23 TD passes but only 25 turnovers.

As for “people on this board” I’d say I’m pretty far from a Romo apologist or a guy who feels the need to crap on other QB’s all for the sake of pumping up Romo. Personally, I just feel that if you put Philip Rivers (for one) in Eli’s place the Giants would have at least another Super Bowl appearance if not another title. But that’s just me. So far Eli’s a sometimes brilliant often times erratic player who had one very “efficient” playoff run. If you think he’d put up far greater numbers in a different system, I counter that by saying his turnovers would see the same increase.

But you spout what I consider to be garbage since you think QBs aren’t a significant factor in wins and losses. Of course, you also think that Romo doesn’t play worse in December, despite the fact that stats don’t lie as you have stated. Since stats don’t lie, I guess that come December, Romo is one of the worst QBs in the league. Stats don’t lie, so I guess you are now conceding how badly Romo played in the playoff loss to the Giants. Is that correct?

As a matter of fact, Eli is on the Giants, so if they won, he won. And he was also the Most Valuable Player of that game. He won that, you see. So when the team won, he was considered the most important reason. His QB rating in the 2007 playoffs was 95.7, including 132.4 against the Cowboys.

Don’t you also say that Roethlisberger is not as good as Romo either? I can’t remember, but I think I remember you saying that. I know you said that Hinze Ward is not as good as Roy Williams, despite all of the statistical evidence.

That 150 yard performance by Eli against us when we lost still makes me sick to my stomach.

Of course it’s your right to call out whomever you want, but it’s also my right to defend those same people. I think I’ve done a good job of showing why they would make those predictions regarding Green Bay, and rather than offer anything up about why those predictions are “half-assed” other than that you don’t like them, you have resorted to trying to dismiss my points without addressing them. You downplayed Rodgers, Manning, and several other QBs, so I think a discussion about QBs is absolutely relevant. Likewise, a discussion about the Packers.

I brought up Romo because of the high opinion of him on this board. If someone were to suggest that Romo will be the league MVP this year, would that have been half-assed? What about Roethlisberger? Because Rodgers had better stats last year than both of them. I think your real problem with the media, based on your post, is that you just don’t agree with them. As I stated, I think a lot of that is you not giving credit to stars on other teams.

Romo plays poorly in December and the Cowboys lose. That’s how it goes. He did it last year, he did it the year before, and he did it the year before that. Until he does otherwise, regardless of the opponent, it makes no sense to claim victories against teams they didn’t even play. Rodgers played better than Romo in December. I would say that his better rating for the year is largely because of how each of them played in December, actually. Make whatever argument you like, but Rodgers had better numbers than Romo last year.

I’ve learned a thousand times more from reading Raf’s stuff than I have from those mugs.

If you tune in to find out what they think, why does what they think bother you? For example, you learned that Aaron Rodgers had a pretty good year last year and analysts expect him to do even better last year. Some even expect him to be the MVP.

You also learned that for some reason, the guy who led the NFL in rushing last year is considered a pretty good running back.

But all too often, it’s just regurgitated soundbites and revisionist history, and it’s annoying as hell.

Where are the original thinkers, the contrarian opinions? We get the same stories over and over, because it is safe to stay with the consensus opinion – after all, if you’re wrong, everybody else is too.

That’s obviously not discounting that the overhyped stories may be true, but they also don’t get any more true by being repeated ad nauseam.

QBs make the numbers. What do I win??

No, individual numbers are not definitive because there are so many dependencies (scheme, receivers, o-line), but they certainly are strong indicators of ability, better fir example than wins and losses which have a much stronger team component. I would wager (with Terry’s paycheck of course) that Brees or Romo on another team would produce just as well as they do in their current teams.

The only numbers you could really use to make Favre’s case as a great QB are his aggregate stats. And most people recognize that aggregate stats don’t point to necessarily the quality of the play, but more reflect the length of time played and the average stats put up in that time.

In fact if you look at the most indicative stats (in my opinion they are QB rating, % completion, yards per attempt, and TD/INT ratio), he really isn’t quite all he is cracked up to be.

QB rating = 85.5
% completion = 61.6%
YPA = 7.01
TD/INT ratio = 1.5

So no, I don’t think that you can use numbers to really make the assertion that Brett Favre is a great QB. That is why the media so often references intangible things such as “his love for the game.”

So honestly, I think that Terry has a pretty convincing case since we measure players like Ware on his individual stats and not some convoluted mix of wins, numbers, and intangibles.

Romo never crapped the bed in the post season, he threw one INT which was a desparation throw with seconds left. Prior to that he threw a perefect pass to Crayton who didn’t run his route correctly.

In the Seattle game, Parcells reined him in too much that game, he allows Tony to be Tony, the fumbled snap is meaningless because we beat them easily.

I am guessing that was the genesis of the pre-season discussion about conditioning adjustments. I even suspect that the over-hyped “bottom heavy” comment was meant in the sense of remaining quick and agile toward the end of the season, something Romo admitted that with the injuries he could not maintain.

that is consistently performing at a high level IMO. Every qb is going to have a stinker now and then.

I agree wholeheartedly, which is why Brady is recognized as the best QB in the game right now, and Montana is considered the best of all time by many people.

It really bugs me when people don’t give players on other teams their due. Roethlisberger consistently makes big plays in the 4th quarter and in big games. At some point, that outweighs his QB Rating.