2018 NFL Season

[See Red]

Your entire post disputes a point I'm not even trying to make.  Tom Brady is clearly great, he's just not the greatest.  The argument that Tom Brady is better than Aaron Rodgers seems to hinge on discounting the statistics, which suggest Aaron Rodgers is clearly the better of the two, in favor of "Tom Brady has more rings!"  The problem there is that both players control less than half of what happens in any game.  I'm not suggesting Tom Brady isn't the greatest because he had one game in a Super Bowl in his second season in which he didn't completely dominate, I'm suggesting the result of that one game shouldn't have such an outsized impact on whether he's better than another guy.  Basically, arguing one player is better than another because he has more rings is ridiculous and ignores that Tom Brady has been surrounded by better teams and significantly better coaching and the rings are a product of that.

[BBTV]

Put  Tom Brady on last year’s browns and he still wins the AFC championship... and loses to the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles.  

[Discrim]

I want whatever drugs you're on, man...so no Belichick, about 2 or 3 legitimate NFL starters, and a tougher division, and through the magic of somehow, the Michigan man drags the freaking Browns to not only a winning record, but to a Super Bowl.

 

Completely plausible 

[Brass]

7 hours ago, See Red said:

Your entire post disputes a point I'm not even trying to make.  Tom Brady is clearly great, he's just not the greatest.  The argument that Tom Brady is better than Aaron Rodgers seems to hinge on discounting the statistics, which suggest Aaron Rodgers is clearly the better of the two, in favor of "Tom Brady has more rings!"  The problem there is that both players control less than half of what happens in any game.  I'm not suggesting Tom Brady isn't the greatest because he had one game in a Super Bowl in his second season in which he didn't completely dominate, I'm suggesting the result of that one game shouldn't have such an outsized impact on whether he's better than another guy.  Basically, arguing one player is better than another because he has more rings is ridiculous and ignores that Tom Brady has been surrounded by better teams and significantly better coaching and the rings are a product of that.

 

I was not making the “more rings argument at all.” You said that Brady has relied on his defense to win him Super Bowls which isn’t remotely true. The majority of the time, Tom Brady is winning Super Bowls in spite of his defense and if it weren’t for his defense, he would have 2-3 more rings than he actually does.

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, Discrimihater said:

I want whatever drugs you're on, man...so no Belichick, about 2 or 3 legitimate NFL starters, and a tougher division, and through the magic of somehow, the Michigan man drags the freaking Browns to not only a winning record, but to a Super Bowl.

 

Completely plausible 

 

I never said he had a tough division - though is the NFC central really tough other than maybe the Vikings (and not ever year)?  I'm not dissing Aaron Rogers in any way, and if I'm running 30 of the NFL's teams, I'd take him on any one of them - I just happen to think that Tom Brady is the GOAT, and the only arguments against him are all speculation-based (what if he didn't have Belichick, what if he didn't have a great defense (well, he didn't), what if... what if... what if...)  We'll never answer the what ifs, and can only go by what's happened, and he's performed exceptionally well in many high-profile games, be it AFCCGs or SBs, and Rodgers hasn't had as many opportunities to do so.  Maybe he'd show as well, but we'll never know.

 

EDIT: not sure why you're taking the suggestion that some people think that another QB is better than you're favorite team's QB (who nobody is actually dissing) so personally.  It doesn't matter, bro.

[leopard88]

The biggest thing working against Tom Brady in these arguments is Matt Cassel.  When Brady was hurt in 2008, the Patriots still went 11-5 with Matt Cassel as the starter.  Other than his 10-6 season with the Chiefs in 2010, Matt Cassel hasn't exactly spent the rest of his career lighting the NFL on fire, which lends credence to the argument that Brady is just a product of the system and/or Belichick's mad genius.

 

I'm not saying I agree with that argument.  However, the 2008 season certainly strengthens it.

[BBTV]

1 hour ago, leopard88 said:

The biggest thing working against Tom Brady in these arguments is Matt Cassel.  When Brady was hurt in 2008, the Patriots still went 11-5 with Matt Cassel as the starter.  Other than his 10-6 season with the Chiefs in 2010, Matt Cassel hasn't exactly spent the rest of his career lighting the NFL on fire, which lends credence to the argument that Brady is just a product of the system and/or Belichick's mad genius.

 

I'm not saying I agree with that argument.  However, the 2008 season certainly strengthens it.

 

And the biggest argument against the system argument is that nobody else can do it. None of the OCs, none of the coaches working 30-hour days, nobody. It’s football, not chemistry. Belichick didn’t discover a way to make some new element that Earth has never seen and can’t be replicated. He’s a football coach. That’s it. Not to demean football coaches, but let’s be real, calling them “geniuses” is silly. Everyone is a genius when they have great players. Doug Pederson “called the single greatest game that any play caller could” in the SB. If Foles drops the Philly Special, he looks like an idiot. If Foles doesn’t execute better-than-perfectly ok every play, he looks like an idiot. 

 

Nick Foles looked like the greatest QB in the history of the game during the NFCCG and SB last year. Is that an indictment of Carson Wentz? Anyone who says they’d rather have Nick Foles than Wentz should have their balls either surgically removed or forcibly ripped off their body so the can’t introduce their dummy genes into the gene pool.  In the right environment (a winning one) guys have confidence and can play over their heads. 

 

 

[See Red]

7 hours ago, Brass said:

I was not making the “more rings argument at all.” You said that Brady has relied on his defense to win him Super Bowls which isn’t remotely true. The majority of the time, Tom Brady is winning Super Bowls in spite of his defense and if it weren’t for his defense, he would have 2-3 more rings than he actually does.

 

 

I said that about his first few Super Bowls, and it's not wrong.  He wasn't particularly good in any of those first three Super Bowl seasons playoffs save for the Super Bowl against Carolina.  I don't think it's unfair to say if the defense had been significantly worse in 2001 (#6, but what they did against St. Louis speaks for itself), 2003 (#2), and 2004 (#1), the likelihood he wins those three Super Bowls drops significantly and that he more than likely doesn't.  You can say "if Asante Samuel hadn't dropped an interception..." but you can't blame the defense for a loss in which the offense only had two scoring drives, one of which started at midfield.  But yeah, let's talk about how the defense costed him that Super Bowl by giving up a whopping 17 points while the Packers defense averages 36 PPG against them in Aaron Rodgers playoff losses.

 

But whatever, I don't think it diminishes his greatness to say if he's in different circumstances, he doesn't win as many Super Bowls.  Just that team accomplishments aren't an accurate measure of individual greatness.

[Discrim]

One thing I can say about this year's NFC North: I won't be shocked if last place finishes 8-8.  Hell, I think the Bears will work the kinks out and surprise a lot of people.

[Lights Out]

Just my opinion, but there's no way I'm ever taking Brady over Rodgers, even if they were the same age. Rodgers makes plays that no other QB could dream of pulling off. It's not his fault that the Packers have decided that they don't need a defense or a real coach. 

[Kramerica Industries]

On 9/12/2018 at 8:21 AM, leopard88 said:

The biggest thing working against Tom Brady in these arguments is Matt Cassel.  When Brady was hurt in 2008, the Patriots still went 11-5 with Matt Cassel as the starter.  Other than his 10-6 season with the Chiefs in 2010, Matt Cassel hasn't exactly spent the rest of his career lighting the NFL on fire, which lends credence to the argument that Brady is just a product of the system and/or Belichick's mad genius.

 

I'm not saying I agree with that argument.  However, the 2008 season certainly strengthens it.

 

I've said many times that, if we took the MVP award by its literal acronym, Peyton Manning should've been the NFL MVP in 2011. We saw how the Patriots survived when Brady missed an entire season; they won 11 games and are I think the only 11-win team this century to miss the playoffs. The Colts lost Manning and ended up going 2-14 after being a playoff team the year before. There's no knocks to make against Brady but his Patriots teams were always better than Manning's Colts teams. The best teams Peyton played on in his career were in Denver, but midway through his third season there he was washed up so it was a very limited run of success for him there.

[See Red]

1 hour ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I've said many times that, if we took the MVP award by its literal acronym, Peyton Manning should've been the NFL MVP in 2011. We saw how the Patriots survived when Brady missed an entire season; they won 11 games and are I think the only 11-win team this century to miss the playoffs. The Colts lost Manning and ended up going 2-14 after being a playoff team the year before. There's no knocks to make against Brady but his Patriots teams were always better than Manning's Colts teams. The best teams Peyton played on in his career were in Denver, but midway through his third season there he was washed up so it was a very limited run of success for him there.

 

It just so happened to have been, out of the 17 seasons Tom Brady has been the starter in New England, one of the three times an AFC East team not named the Patriots won 11 or more games.  And really, all of the AFC East teams were decent that year.  Had the Matt Cassel season happened a year earlier (when New England went 16-0), the Cassel-led Patriots probably would have won 14 games and cruised to the playoffs since the rest of the division won 12 games combined.

[dfwabel]

So Josh Gordon will be a Cowboy by Tuesday night, right?

 

Dez was with Jerry at the concert for nothing.

[dont care]

Cleveland is so inept. Cutting a guy because he pulls a hamstring during a promo after practice. Not saying there weren’t other times he should have been cut. But to finally cut him for that is mind boggling 

[Crabcake]

5 hours ago, dont care said:

Cleveland is so inept. Cutting a guy because he pulls a hamstring during a promo after practice. Not saying there weren’t other times he should have been cut. But to finally cut him for that is mind boggling 

My first thought when I saw the story was “he’s about to get busted for weed again”. Why cut him now when you’ve stuck by him for so long?

 

Anyway, if he does get traded somewhere or signs with someone else, I’m putting my money on Dallas. 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

The Browns tie the Steelers and all of a sudden think they can do Patriot moves.

 

Speaking of, you know Corey Coleman is going to so good things in New England. Not only is he a Browns cast-off, but he also came from New England's well-turned farm team: the Buffalo Bills.

[Cosmic]

No matter how many points they're getting, DO NOT pick the Bills this year.

 

[BBTV]

Was listening to the SBCPEagles vs Bucs game in the radio for a few mins and it seemed like another game dominated by the referees throwing unnecessary flags for non-existent crack backs, blocks in the back, and a hold by a receiver on the opposite side of a running play. It was the radio I couldn’t see, but the eagles announcers are absolutely not homers when it comes to this stuff. It sounded egregious, unnecessary, and potentially game impacting since Long returns and first downs were unnecessarily taken away. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to prepare and coach when you don’t know what the rules will be that day. 

[dont care]

1 minute ago, BringBackTheVet said:

Was listening to the SBCPEagles vs Bucs game in the radio for a few mins and it seemed like another game dominated by the referees throwing unnecessary flags for non-existent crack backs, blocks in the back, and a hold by a receiver on the opposite side of a running play. It was the radio I couldn’t see, but the eagles announcers are absolutely not homers when it comes to this stuff. It sounded egregious, unnecessary, and potentially game impacting since Long returns and first downs were unnecessarily taken away. I’m not sure how you’re supposed to prepare and coach when you don’t know what the rules will be that day. 

Your team is being outplayed, it’s not the refs.

[Dalcowboyfan92]

Don't worry Buffalo. Maybe you'll make the playoffs again in another 18 years.