The Weird, Wacky and Awesome World of the NFL - General Banter thread V2

This post has been deleted.

Hulk Hands wrote: »

Finishes the season as PFFs highest graded player in football and the highest rated safety since their ratings began by a huge margin

Is that all safeties or specifically strong safeties? Still a hell an an achievement between the likes of Landon Collins, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, Eric Berry etc. Personally I prefer the latter two there but I've always had a thing for rangy safeties (always preferred Reed to Polamalu too, though they might be the best and second best safeties ever) but getting to play against Smith twice a season the guy is flat out ridiculous. Rhodes at CB is typically excellent too, at least whenever they play GB or whenever I see them.

The Vikings are probably the best overall defense across the last two years, and what Zimmer is doing with their offense despite being on their third string QB and their star rookie RB going down is pretty fantastic, I absolutely hate to admit. For my money, it's them or the Rams making it to the SB.

munstermagic11 wrote: »

And ranked terrible in yards at the same time when that includes bad QBs for the Bills, Jets and Fins (where I include Cutler). If you want to give the edge to Pats D, then ok. But Brady is MVP to help them out, which the Packers D have not had.

First off, the Bills don't count over the last two season as Taylor is a good QB - if we're including him, we might as well add all but 8-10 QBs in the entire league. Against the Jets and Dolphins over the last two seasons, NE have given up 244 passing yards per game. And it's not as if GB don't have that problem just as bad if not worse - we've given up 300 yard games to Trubisky, 2016 Blake Bortles and Matt Barkley. We gave up the second most passing yards in the entire league last year, only 72 off the Saints who were in 32nd while we were 30th in yards per attempt. This year we've given up less than you but that's largely down to us being out of so many games so early - we're giving up more per attempt, where we are 29th in the league (NE are 19th).

In terms of run defense, the Pats were better last year for yards and yards per carry, GB were better this year on both.

Last year only four teams were worse than us for opposing drives ending in scores... this year we were 31st ahead of only Oakland. By comparison the Pats were 8th best there this year, and #1 in 2016. That's the big difference over the last 2 years particularly - we're both trying to use 'bend but don't break' except while NE are doing a better job of it than maybe anyone in the league, GB do break... every single time. Over and over. It's routine... as a Packers fan you know 3rd down = 1st down if it's less than 15 yards. Red zone = touchdown. And this will happen good as every time.

Repeating from earlier here, but there simply is no comparison between the league's #1 scoring defense and the #28 scoring defense, especially when #28 is also 31st in TDs against, 31st in passer rating against, 30th in completion percentage, 30th in yards per attempt, and specifically from, 30th in Scoring Efficiency, 32nd in TD Efficiency, 32nd in RZ Scoring Efficiency, 31st in RZ TD Efficiency, 32nd(T) in 5 Minute Drives, 30th in 10 Play Drives.

Now obviously this year the biggest difference in each team has obviously been the QB position as GB were 5-1 when Rodgers went down, but there really is no comparison between the two defensive units whatsoever.

Yip, and that’s fine. Cause Brady IMO is GOAT based on stats, longevity, performances, regular season, playoff record, comebacks, SB appearances, SB wins, SB MVP....... He’s done it all and is still doing it.

I don’t think Rodgers is in that conversation when you have others like Manning, Montana, Elway. But he still has a number of years left before his legacy can be judged.

Brady has the longevity over anyone no question, he's right up there with anyone you could mention for performances, Rodgers has him beat on stats unless you meant bulk stats (think he's due to overtake Manning for some big ones next year too?), and the rest while he has played a pivotal role in he also has to thank the greatest coach of all time and his teammates for (who have gone 14-6 in games he has missed through his career, compared to GB who have gone 6-12-1 in games without Rodgers) which was largely my point.

munstermagic11 wrote: »

You thinking that doesn’t make it so.

Well then we need to add Keenum, Bridgewater, Bradford, Flacco, Dalton, Cousins, Winston, Palmer, Prescott, Eli, Mariota, Alex Smith, Jameis Winston and a host of others.

And Taylor hasn't exactly given the Patriots issues either - over those two seasons, he averages less than 200 yards a game, only one TD (and one pick), 5.8 yards per attempt, and a 73.3 passer rating. So I guess given how much better the Pats do against him than most teams, I could see why you think he's a bad QB. He has been sacked by New England NINE times in two games this season.

Brady has had some terrible Ds as well, where 3rd and long meant 1st down. Look at his weapons in 2013 and the injuries suffered. Made it to the AFC Championship game and lost by 10pts to that elite Denver offense. That winning mentality he has, a component of his greatness.

Rodgers having terrible defenses on this kind of stuff is standard for the several years of his career - even when they're doing OK for point, we're always right near the bottom on third down.

2013 is a great example actually of what I was talking about, when Brady and the offense struggled NE's defense nearly always comes to the rescue... what was it, giving up just 15 points per game over that first half of the year, averaging two turnovers per game and getting a defensive touchdown in there too. That's not comparable with the GB defense giving up 23.88 points per game when Rodgers was struggling for 8 games in late 2015/early 2016.

If Brady is struggling, he's got the best coach of all time to dig him out, and typically a very competent defense too. This is a luxury Rodgers has not had for a long, long time.

If the Packers have poor backup QBs, then they’ll lose games without their starter.

As for stats, the big games are in the post season where Brady excels. And those 5 rings (with two more appearances) to Rodgers 1 win and appearance is a key stat.

Five rings is a great thing, and as I said if he played on a team with a terrible defense and ineptitude in coaching he wouldn't have them. Just look at last year's SB vs NFC championship for an excellent example, again to repeat myself. Look at the year previous where Rodgers did the unthinkable with back to back hail marys with 0 seconds left... only for his defense to immediately give up a 3 play, 80 yard TD drive in overtime. Look at the year before that, GB's defense gives up 2 TDs in the last 2 minutes of the game without Rodgers getting a single touch of it in between, he gets it back with a minute left and ties the game... in OT his defense immediately go and give up the TD to lose the game.

Let's roll things back a minute... if you don't rate Tyrod Taylor, then you surely don't rate Kaepernick. Now imagine Kaepernick passing for 265 yards and scrambling for another 181 against NE. While his RB gets another 120... Kaepernick got 450 yards and 4 TDs on us. The next year he had another 98 scrambling and 250 in the air. The year before that 37 points were given up against the Giants. The year before that we won the Superbow, and the year before that Rodgers got the honour of being the QB for the team to get the most points in a playoff loss at 45.

I'd need to go back over it, but as of about 2014 the Packers defense on average conceded a full 10 points more per game than the Pats in playoff games with Brady/Rodgers. They had also managed to squander more fourth quarter comebacks from Rodgers than had happened to Manning and Brady in their careers combined (despite those two combined probably having 4-5 times the number of games of Rodgers at the time). Brady doesn't win Superbowls with this kind of crap, nobody does - a perfect hybrid of Manning's reading, Brady's poise, Rodgers' improvisation, Favre's arm and Michael Vick's legs would not win with that.

I can't imagine you've watched too much of Green Bay, because outside of Cleveland they are probably the worst defense in the league over the last two years, and have been very poor for several seasons before that. The Packers have been around since 1919, and yet 7 of our worst 10 ever defensive playoff performances have come under Dom Capers in the 8 years he has been in the playoffs with GB.

Like I said, there is no comparison whatsoever there with what Brady haso n defense vs what Rodgers has whatsoever. You're trying to say a top 5-8 unit is not really much different to a bottom 2-3 unit, which is of course simpyl incorrect.

John Fox gone from Chicago if it hasn't already been mentioned
Marv Lewis now saying he wants to coach Bengals in 18... obviously looking for a pay out to go

Edit : Lewis out of contract so no pay out

munstermagic11 wrote: »

No no. You can add. It’s your opinion, nothing more, nothing less (same applies to me).

Brady has gotten it done when it counts. Rodgers hadn’t done it often enough. It’s what places the like of Brady, Manning, Montana, Elway.. above Rodgers in any GOAT discussion.

Thankfully the “it’s all Dom Capers” will be at an end, so that’ll be one excuse less. If you want to include Rodgers in a GOAT discussion, then he has to over come the odds and the issues and be great.

I’d put Rodgers above Eli with his body of work. But Eli manned up when it counted for his two earned rings when it came to the playoffs.

You can try to ignore the fact that quarterbacks don't play defense all you like, but here's the fact of the matter in the playoffs.

Pats when Brady's rating is under 100: 12-10
Pack when Rodgers rating is under 100: 2-6

Pats when Brady's record is over 90: 15-2
Pack when Rodgers record is over 90: 8-4

Pats record when scoring over 20: 23-2
Pack record when scoring over 20: 9-7

Pats record when scoring under 20: 2-7
Pack record when scoring under 20: 0-0, never happened to Rodgers in the playoffs

Pats record when conceding over 30: 0-2
Pack record when conceding over 30: 1-4

Pats average points scored per game: 26.44
Pack average points scored per game: 28.94

Pats average points conceded per game: 20.18
Pack average points conceded per game: 26.44

It's almost as if one guy's team quite consistently concedes more points somehow, causing them to have given up 30 points more than five times as frequently as the other QB's. You'd almost get the impression that one team can still win more than half their games where their QB is not necessarily playing out of his skin, while the other's team is going to lose far more often in that instance... and it would also seem as if a solid game all but guarantees a win for one guy's team, yet the same from the other is less than a quarter as likely.

It's almost as if there were some external element outside of the QB position? Nah, Rodgers is just going to really needs to improve on his defensive play, I guess.

The gas thing is, for all the playoff success that Brady and the Patriots have had through the years, they've still not been able to score more points on average than Dom Capers' Packers defenses concede.

I am getting a bit thick here I'll admit, but that's because there is simply no comparing what each guy has one the other side of the ball.

eagle eye wrote: »

He wasn't at his usual standard against Atlanta or against Dallas last season. The year before he played poor against the Cards and not so great against the Redskins iirc. I remember a couple of awful games he had against the 49ers when they were under Harbaugh and probably his worst performance was a couple of years back against Seattle.

He has torched a couple of teams but those performances are rare for him in the playoffs, we see more of the lesser performances from him. I've said this before about him, he is so entertaining to watch and if he were to get it together in the playoffs and win another couple of rings I think he would at the very least be in an argument for GOAT but he needs so show the same form in the postseason or that is never going to happen.

That's not true either, there's a reason GB score just a shade under 30 points on average in the playoffs with him and why he has the highest passer rating in playoff history. The problem is, he has what has to be one of the worst average defenses any QB with 10+ playoff appearances has ever had. [/quote]Against Dallas? He had 355 yards, 8.26 per attempt, and made the most ridiculous throw to Cook that set up the winning FG and was it was roundly as an excellent performance despite a lot of injuries across the line and at WR.

Against Atlanta the injuries were worse again (quite sure I remember us having to play defensive linemen on the offensive line for crying out loud) and Rodgers was ill all week, which showed from early and even. It wasn't a great first half from him but when he got it going better with three straight TD drives in the second, his defense responded with... allowing three TDs in return. Wouldn't have, and didn't, happen against the Pats.

Against the Bears in 2010 he was very poor and he struggled a lot against the Seahawks in 2014 true, other than that he has been pedestrian in two or three games and otherwise very good. The problem is, pedestrian can be enough for many teams and QBs, but it isn't for Rodgers with that defense.

As for the SF games where he was 'awful' - in one we put up 31 points, he had 255 yards and another 30 on the ground, 2 TDs and a pick, another where he had 180 yards and a TD, both games with a 6.8 average. That's not amazing by any stretch but it's certainly not awful against what was the best defense in the league at the time along with Seattle. Brady has had plenty of games about as productive as those, and the Patriots very often win them, but then again that's because Brady to my knowledge has never had to deal with a team rushing for 300 yards while passing for 250 more and putting up 45 points on them in the playoffs. Brady has also had some utter stinkers too, Chargers in the mid 2000s, Baltimore a few times around 2009-12ish, Denver last year to name some... yet the Patriots have won probably more than half of those games.

It's because he's got Belichick and a usually pretty solid defense. That's hardly a bad thing ot have.

Here are a couple of differences between him and Tom Brady. If Brady sees the sack coming he starts going to ground to protect himself and that's the reason he has only had one serious injury. Rodgers tries to avoid it even when it's nailed on a lot and he is going to get injured more often because of that as he gets older. The other thing is that Brady is clinical in the playoffs, he will dump it off for a 5 year gain and keep the drive alive a lot more than Rodgers who seems to check his deeper options first too often against quality D's and as a result he loses the option to complete the pass.

It is true re the sacks, part of why Rodgers makes plays nobody else can but also why he gets injured more often - I wonder if he'll be more pragmatic in that sense next season as he'll be 34 after his second big injury.

Rodgers does take the get out options quite often too, he's actually more accurate than Brady in the playoffs with more yards per attempt, though Brady is more likely to.

So anything else going on today other than Brady and Rodgers ....
Bruce arians retiring apparently

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Dom Capers out at Green Bay too

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Fox not a surpise.
Not sure it matters who Denver hire/keep unless they get a QB.

This post has been deleted.

Some interesting names we may be linked with, no idea if we'd have gone for him but personally I would have loved Dorsey to still be available.