LKelley67

there has been good discussion of the role the qb plays and to what degree it is necessary to have a legitimate stud there to win big. i think this list of 9 sb winning qb's in the past 20 yrs confims that you can win with a serviceable journeyman on a talented team-
86- jim mcmahon, bears, wacky flash in the pan
87- phil simms, giants, good but had many bland years
88- doug williams, skins, under 50% comp career
91- hostetler, giants, definition of journeyman
92- mark rypien, skins, who?
00- warner, rams, now confirmed flash in the pan
01- trent dilfer, ravens, a career apex
02- brady, now a stud but then unknown 199th pick rookie
03- brad johnson, bucs, now they cant get rid of him

Tobias-Reiper

..quick couple of comments here...

... you need to define \"stud QB\".. if by \"stud QB \" you mean raw physycal talent, and racking up stats, no you don\'t need that... but you do need someone who understands the position. Like a Dilfer, or a Simms, or a Hostetler, or a Johnson... these guys are/were good QB\'s

...Jim McMahon got hurt. He wasn\'t really healthy during the Bears SB year, and after that, he never was healthy...

..so did Warner, who was never the same after his hand injury...

LKelley67

yes, understanding and performance are essential regardless of the numbers is my point. there have been plenty of hall of fame sb qb\'s also. what billick asked of dilfer was literally \"don\'t lose games for us\". parcells has stuck with vinny cuz he has that quality even as his skills erode. this i relate in a saints forum because as much talent as there may be and however good the stats have been at qb, i think many of the (36-36 record as a starter) losses are from failure there. another debate can be had who might serve better for cheaper from kitna to mcmahon to garcia to holcombe, etc.

Tobias-Reiper

aahh... now I see your point..

I said it once, and I would say it again.. I would love to see what Trent Dilfer could do here... may be that I\'m just daydreamimg of screen passes to Deuce... who knows..

SaintFanInATLHELL

You\'re looking at the wrong side of the ball in this conversation.

Winning championships has a real simple formula:

1) Run the ball.
2) Stop the run.
3) Control the clock.
4) Limit big plays.

You cannot do these things without defense.

I challenge anyone out there to find a NFL, AFL, or Superbowl championship team whose scoring or total defense was in the bottom 10 of the league.

You won\'t find it.

Dilfer and McMahon, and Warner too, all won because they had top 3 defenses that could dominate a game, and a HOF running back that could dominate a game.

Both the Pats and the Eagles this year were in the top 3 in scoring defense.

Funny how that works.

SFIAH

Super Bowl Championships: New Orleans Saints:1, Carolina:0, Atlanta Chokers: STILL ZERO

Only Atlanta choked in an unchokable situation... Life is definitely good.

LKelley67

agreed totally. i think better results would come from a journeyman qb, take the 3mil or so saved there, the 8mil from howard, and the 3mil from pathon gone and sign an impact player or two on defense. would the prospects of say just 2 of 3 of corey simon, edgerton hartwell, and donovan darius be exciting? add 2 more high draft picks to the defense and i think it could be a dramatic turnaround on d and better results overall.

JKool

LK,

Interesting post.

I\'d like to go back to this \"don\'t lose the game QB\" idea. How do we identify such a QB? Intuition? Sure that appears to be how Dilfer played in Baltimore, but his career stats suggest that he is a just plain poor QB.

Overall passer rating: 70.6
TD-INT: 95-106
Career Completion %: 55.2 (and never once over 60)

Sure, he didn\'t fumble all that often, etc., but I\'m starting to think that while he \"managed the game\" for a year or two, he pretty well just sucked the rest of the time.

It is going to be hard for me to find stats for the others (unless someone has some tips on where to find these), and people find stats pretty dull anyway, so I\'ll assume that at least a couple of these other guys are like Dilfer.

Thus, I have two things:
(1) All those guys who want \"a Dilfer\", I say think again. He sucks. He had a marginally solid year and the rest of the team carreid him. The rest of the time (except maybe \'98), he would have been hell to watch, frustrating as all get out, and so on.
(2) On a team where the passing game is asked to win some games, would you really want \"a Dilfer\"? \"Manager QBs\" are not asked to win games - everyone agrees on that. Could we be such a team? I think we could, but we are FAR away from that right now.

There is more to say here, I\'m sure, but there is some food for thought.

SFIAH, nice point.

[Edited on 10/2/2005 by JKool]

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

JKool

Also some food for though on \"Manager QBs\":

23 of the 39 Super Bowl MVPs have been QBs (the next most is RBs with 7).

Those MVPs were:
Brady
Warner
Elway
Young
Aikman
Rypien
Montana
Williams
Simms
Plunkett
Bradshaw
and
Staubach

How many of those QBs were just \"managers\"?

If you want to win a SB, you need a good defense and a good running game (maybe even one of those has to be excellent), but QB is critical. In roughly 23 of the 39 Super Bowls, the QB was the guy who got it done. \"Manager QBs\" don\'t win games, they don\'t lose them.

I don\'t like our odds with a \"manager\".

For all his faults, our current guy, who shall remain nameless, at least has the tools to be a guy who can win games (not just manage them), even if according to most he hasn\'t won very many yet.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks