2021 NFL Season - Adults Arguing About Matt Stafford

[LMU]

1 hour ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

Would have to strongly agree here. Kurt Warner had...five great seasons was it? Just spitballing from memory without looking it up. GSOT Rams which then fizzled out badly for him in 2002, and which point he was basically a journeyman backup for the next several seasons or so before he suddenly popped up good again in Arizona, and even that ended up being only about 2.5 seasons before retiring. 

 

One of those guys who, when he was good, he was really good, and I have no problem at all with him being in the HOF because the F stands for "Fame" and you can't argue against how famous the late '90s/early '00s Rams were. He's not far away from being a 3x Super Bowl winning QB. And maybe as @Sec19Row53 also alludes to, the NFL is so much more pass happy these days so maybe I'm not being fair to Warner in that first paragraph. The GSOT Rams played like a team that was about 15 years ahead of their time, knowing how the modern NFL looks, and they were doing it at a time when defensive backs were still able to be much more physical on receivers. So if he got a bump thanks in part to that, he deserved it.

 

(This was a bit OT from your post. I do agree 100% with your claim. It's not Stafford's fault he was often surrounded by incompetence in Detroit. Him being a Super Bowl-winning QB is way overdue.)

And let's not kid ourselves here - Warner wouldn't have really even had a whiff of the field had Leinart not proven to be a complete bust.

[ManillaToad]

Yeah I'll take the guy with 2 MVPs, 2 First-team All Pros, SB MVP, 3 SB appearances, and multiple years leading in passing categories over the guy whose accolades are a ring, a single Pro Bowl selection, and volume stats in the post-Ty Law Rule era

 

[infrared41]

15 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

Yeah I'll take the guy with 2 MVPs, 2 First-team All Pros, SB MVP, 3 SB appearances, and multiple years leading in passing categories over the guy whose accolades are a ring, a single Pro Bowl selection, and volume stats in the post-Ty Law Rule era

 

 

Is there a rule that says we can't have both?

[LMU]

I mean, Namath got in so the QB bar isn't really as high as it should be.

[See Red]

Matthew Stafford is better than Ben Roethlisberger.  Would seem to me having great offensive lines, wide receivers, and defenses for the entirety of your career would be a bigger advantage than playing for an inept franchise that nobody cares about.

[SFGiants58]

Also, Stafford hasn’t wrecked any motorcycles, walked out on bar tabs, or did that other thing Ben was accused of doing.

[Sec19Row53]

14 minutes ago, LMU said:

I mean, Namath got in so the QB bar isn't really as high as it should be.

One of the weak points in HOF arguments is picking the worst player who is in. Not picking on you with this, but it was a reminder that this also comes up in this type of discussion. I guess Namath gets in on the 'tough to tell the merger story without him', even though the merger was a done deal by the time of the poolside guarantee. He was a big part of the salary war, though.

 

There's a book I really enjoy that talks about this sort of thing, along with cherry picking stats. Something along the lines of 'only Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Tony Oliva had 300+ HRs, 250+ 2Bs and batted at least .276' I'm making those numbers up - but when the case is made it trumps the guy on the outside, even though the numbers BY THEMSELVES mean nothing. And as is typical in these cases, if you bump one of those numbers, you lose the guy on the outside.

[ManillaToad]

16 minutes ago, Sec19Row53 said:

 I guess Namath gets in on the 'tough to tell the merger story without him', even though the merger was a done deal by the time of the poolside guarantee. He was a big part of the salary war, though.

 

 

Namath is in because of The Guarantee (the legacy of which is undersold more and more as the years go on), he won AFL MVP twice, SB MVP, ROTY, an NFL All Pro, 4 AFL All Pros, made the AFL All-Time Team, and threw for 4000 yards 12 years before anyone else.

Somehow his reputation over the years turned into "Dude sucked but said the Jets were gonna win the Super Bowl and he wore fur coats", I don't know why

[rams80]

4 hours ago, tBBP said:

 

*RRRING* That'd be Barry Sanders' representatives on Line 1. (Because you know Barry ain't gonna pump himself up.)

 

Also EL OH to the EL @ Matthew Stafford being a HoF QB...really? This is our metric now? Look, I like dude. I respected the heck out of him in Detroit when all he had had Calvin Johnson and barely anything else. Dude was a competitor. (And Lord knows Detroit hadn't had a franchise QB since...what, Bobby Layne for the short time he was there?) But cut it out with the HoF talk. Shoot, have a hard time ranking Ben Roethlisberger as a HoFer...had he had that career with any other team, ain't nobody thinking about him.  Don't get me started on Eli Manning...and that's about the class I put Stafford in.

 

I did need a laugh this morning...this fit that bill.

 

Look, we put Warner in the hall for 5 or 6 really good years and a good story, so...

[rams80]

14 minutes ago, ManillaToad said:

 

Namath is in because of The Guarantee (the legacy of which is undersold more and more as the years go on), he won AFL MVP twice, SB MVP, ROTY, an NFL All Pro, 4 AFL All Pros, made the AFL All-Time Team, and threw for 4000 yards 12 years before anyone else.

Somehow his reputation over the years turned into "Dude sucked but said the Jets were gonna win the Super Bowl and he wore fur coats", I don't know why

 

Because the NFL has decided that basically we're not going to talk about the AFL (aside from a few snickering references to the Heidi Game.)

[IceCap]

11 hours ago, rams80 said:

Kupp was deserving, Stafford wouldn't have been undeserving, I saw some line about how it's a shame you can't award it to the front seven of the Rams' defense, and that is true because they in their collectivity took over the second half.

Kupp was the right choice. He was basically their only option and he stepped up big when he had to, and caught the game winning TD twice. 

 

Also don't make me rename this thread "Adults Arguing about Matthew Stafford." 

[Rockstar Matt]

Still think Donald was robbed of the MVP. He was clearly the best player on the field, on either team. Had the two most absurd back-to-back plays I’ve ever seen from a defensive player, to seal the title no less. Unreal 
 

Kupp certainly wasn’t undeserving of it, he played brilliantly too, but he shares a field with the best defensive player since LT.

 

We always award brilliant offensive players over once in a generation defensive players as well. AD should have won DPOY again this season, and he should have had a regular season MVP too. 

[Indigo]

5 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

And nothing anyone does with the Lions matters.  It just doesn't.  Not a single pass he threw for them was in a pressure situation where the game mattered or there was any fan / media scrutiny.  So many yards that QBs like him have are racked up because they're always throwing because their teams are always losing.

 

He won a Super Bowl (again, playing a season in a place with no fan/media scrutiny) and maybe that validates his case, but it's not the Hall of Statistics, so a mostly anonymous player on a meaningless team doesn't count in my book.

 

If not for fantasy football, would people really even know who Matt Stafford was?  Not just picking on him exclusively, there's others in that category too.

This is f---ing Los Angeles! Did you not hear about how, all-season long, this team was touted as being "built for the Super Bowl" (ironically, just like their stadium)? How everyone started saying they were one-and-done when they bum-fumbled down the stretch? This is LA, the second biggest media market in the country. "No media scrutiny" (compared to Detroit) is a Skip Bayless-level hot take.

 

PS. I think Stafford gets in, but only because of gaudy numbers and the "beautiful story" the NFL created in the "2021 Super Bowl Champions, the hometown Los Angeles Rams". 

[MJWalker45]

2 hours ago, LMU said:

I mean, Namath got in so the QB bar isn't really as high as it should be.

I'd say the same anecdote for WRs applies to Lynn Swann. I showed the stats earlier for someone complaining about Cliff Branch. Branch had almost 2,000 more yards receiving than Swann over the same amount of time. John Stallworth actually has better stats than Swann, 3000 more yards but not as many touchdowns, and had to wait an extra year longer than Swann though that could be due to the limit on class sizes.

[BBTV]

19 minutes ago, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said:

 This is LA, the second biggest media market in the country. "No media scrutiny" (compared to Detroit) is a Skip Bayless-level hot take.

 

 

Is it though?  Are the Rams scrutinized in the media the way the NFL teams are in cities where they're the #1 thing in town?  Maybe they are - I don't follow LA sports - but I highly doubt that there's as much media pressure on the Rams as there would be for the Giants, Eagles, Steelers, etc.  Are the Rams even a top 5 sports team in LA?  I'm assuming it's Lakers, Dodgers, maybe soccer, Clippers, then Rams?  Again, I don't know.

 

But I don't think it's a hot take at all to say there's less pressure to play in LA.  Hell - half of "OUR HOUSE" isn't even their fans.

 

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

Also don't make me rename this thread "Adults Arguing about Matthew Stafford."

 

How many Matthew Stafford posts will it take to make this happen? Asking for...who am I kidding? I'm asking for me because I think it would be funny.

 

[dont care]

58 minutes ago, Rockstar Matt said:

Still think Donald was robbed of the MVP. He was clearly the best player on the field, on either team. Had the two most absurd back-to-back plays I’ve ever seen from a defensive player, to seal the title no less. Unreal 
 

Kupp certainly wasn’t undeserving of it, he played brilliantly too, but he shares a field with the best defensive player since LT.

 

We always award brilliant offensive players over once in a generation defensive players as well. AD should have won DPOY again this season, and he should have had a regular season MVP too. 

I don’t know how you can say he was “clearly the best player on the field” when I didn’t even notice him until the last 2 plays. Kupp made plays all game, and was the only option that last drive. He willed them to win.

[dont care]

24 minutes ago, BBTV said:

 

Is it though?  Are the Rams scrutinized in the media the way the NFL teams are in cities where they're the #1 thing in town?  Maybe they are - I don't follow LA sports - but I highly doubt that there's as much media pressure on the Rams as there would be for the Giants, Eagles, Steelers, etc.  Are the Rams even a top 5 sports team in LA?  I'm assuming it's Lakers, Dodgers, maybe soccer, Clippers, then Rams?  Again, I don't know.

 

But I don't think it's a hot take at all to say there's less pressure to play in LA.  Hell - half of "OUR HOUSE" isn't even their fans.

 

Agreed, unless you play for the lakers or the dodgers then there is no pressure to succeed in LA. You’re basically playing with house money on vacation.

[IceCap]

20 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

How many Matthew Stafford posts will it take to make this happen? Asking for...who am I kidding? I'm asking for me because I think it would be funny.

 

Well damn. That's all I needed. Done. 

[Luigi74]

51 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

I'd say the same anecdote for WRs applies to Lynn Swann. I showed the stats earlier for someone complaining about Cliff Branch. Branch had almost 2,000 more yards receiving than Swann over the same amount of time. John Stallworth actually has better stats than Swann, 3000 more yards but not as many touchdowns, and had to wait an extra year longer than Swann though that could be due to the limit on class sizes.

Swann and Stallworth not going in earlier or in the same class is due to the "voting" system the HOF uses. There was a bloc of writers who represented the Raiders, Cowboys, Dolphins, Vikings, and Packers, who weren't going to let more 70's Steelers in unless more of their guys went in.