FanPost

Evolving Our Understanding of the Game

DISCLAIMER: This post is not for dinosaurs, flat-earth-truthers, those who don't understand that the industrial revolution significantly impacted the global atmosphere and climate or anyone else who is too stuck in their ways to objectively evaluate their own beliefs and understanding. Also - this is not meant to directly relate to Dallas, though I would find your comments interesting whether you discuss in generalities or if you choose to apply these concepts to America's Team.

With that out of the way lets be frank: A team without a starting QB, MLB, & LT clinched their division, home field advantage, went on a playoff run and dethroned the Super Bowl champs - who were inarguably the greatest Coach & QB of all time (in the modern era if nothing else, that can be another discussion for another time). They were also missing their most important ST player/2nd RB. Please just re-read that again, digest it for a moment.

Over the next couple of months you'll hear talking heads tell you that QB & LT are 2 of the 3 most important positions in football, and that MLB is a key cog, qb'ing the defense. You'll hear this ad infinitum. "Football Guys" are not known from breaking conventional wisdom, even in the face of logic and fact. The thing about 'conventional wisdom' is that it is defined by being convenient, not by actually being wise. As fans we are given the option to go on bleating the typical platitudes around the 'Animal Farm' esque echo chambers or we can re-calibrate our opinions and understanding of the game we love. So my question is this: How will your thoughts change moving forward?

To me the concept of 'Needing a Franchise QB' has never held a ton of water. It is a great talking point for meatball fans and sports talk hosts but history has proven the mythical "Franchise QB" is not required to win a ring, can hamstring franchises - mire them in mediocrity, and the search for this unicorn has cost teams many years of competitive play. Jeff Hostetler, Doug Williams, Tom Brady, Joe Flacco, Nick Foles (off the top of my head) were not 'franchise qbs' when they earned rings for their teams. The Chargers "weren't sold" on Drew Brees and elected to cut him loose for Phil Rivers. A king's ransom was paid for RG3. I have long held the belief that I would rather suffer through a few years of losing while building a team's core and only looking to grab competent QBs that fall to you. Then go all-in on a QB you believe in as the final piece to the puzzle. They are just too expensive to take chances on - Jimmy G is either going to be a fantastic player for the next 5+ years or he will quickly become an albatross. There can be no in between due to the investment that was made.

As far as OL and Defense I think it's fair to say that units need to be evaluated as a whole rather than summing their individual parts. A few well coached, average skill level, players who have totally bought in will outperform a couple of superstars playing for themselves. Which leads me to my biggest take away from this season: Coaches are least, if not more, important than players.

Both teams that played on Sunday were dragged to that level of success by their coaching staffs. I already laid out the winning team's injuries, but look around that NE Defense too. Despite the lack of Defense in Sunday's game, both teams were top 10 in scoring defense without many marquee players. Honestly, the best player on each defense was probably their athletic-freak safeties which is a position conventionally thought of as "low priority".

My final take away is mixed feelings about the importance of WRs. Looking over the recent history of Super Bowl Champs, almost all have a good player at the 'x' (please don't use the phrase 'WR1', it's this year's 'war daddy' in that it's already been over-analyzed and debated without actually being a position on the football field) but it becomes obvious that you don't need a top-5 player at that position to win it all.

After about a week of rumination those are some of my take-aways from this season. Again, this is a conceptual conversation rather than digging into specifics. At this point in the year I think you can miss (or rationalize away) the forest by over-analyzing each tree. Do you agree? Has your understanding of the game evolved as a result of this season? Are you content with Conventional Wisdom?

Another user-created commentary provided by a BTB reader.