Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

JOESAM,

You are on point with this. I don\'t think that Billy really gets your point.

Brooks isn\'t as good as he says he is. He should take a cue from the guys who are in fact better than he is: Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. They go do it on the field, and then are self deprecating to a fault.

Brooks certainly could learn something from them.

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Thank you SF. Seems you can\'t teach and old poster new tricks either. ;) My point exactly.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Some. But not all.

The one point I\'ve been pounding is the fact that when Brooks and the offense gets some decent defensive support, the team wins.

I see it like a really good pitcher whose record is poor due to a lack of run support. \"The guy must be a bum because his record is 6-19.\" But if all 6 wins were when his team gave him 3 runs and the 19 losses are when the team only scored 1 run or less, does that make the guy a bad pitcher because \"he doesn\'t deliver wins?\"

In the last 4 seasons, the 16 ranked team in defensive scoring has given up between 20 to 21 point. The Saints over those 4 years are 20-8 when the team holds the opposition to under 21 points. They win 70 percent of their games when the defense is average.

But our defense isn\'t average. So does that make the offense poor because they don\'t win games when the defense gives up a bunch of points?

Can you please put a stat on uninspired?

So it\'s OK for the receivers to put the ball on the carpet if they are \"inspired\"?

Or the false starts and holding penalties because the line is \"inspired\"?

Give me a stat. They are products of inpiration.

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Amen on that.
He should keep his yap shut. He doesn\'t seem to understand that no matter what the stats are, that the only true measure are wins, playoffs, and championships. And it doesn\'t matter where the deficieny lies on the team, that the wins and losses will be reflected upon you.

Outstanding post JOESAM.

SFIAH

[Edited on 20/2/2005 by SaintFanInATLHELL]

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Should AB shut the hell up? Yep!!

But, I love some of this stuff you guys are saying. Some of you are the most sensetive guys I know.

Yet, Joe Horn can sleep with Willy Roafs wife. Horn can tell the fans to shut the hell up. Horn can blame Haslett\'s lack of success on his teammates. Horn can pull a cell phone out on the field. But, that\'s just ol\' Joe being Joe.

Some of you need to check that saintly attitude...

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

i don\'t care if the player killed the president, as long as he can come in, do his job, and get us to the playoffs, then great... sfiah, i\'m not understanding your questions.... you are really just proving my point for me and by the way that comment wasn\'t directed to you anyway... but c\'est la vie.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

I know it wasn\'t directed at me. You stated that some players are inspired and others are not. I just want to know how do you objectively measure that?

Also being inspired is a part of the equation above. If a player does his job, and helps the team get to the playoffs, is it then OK not to be inspired?

If a QB can throw TDs and yards, and not give the ball away, then they can be asleep for all I care.

I\'m just trying to get a quantification of \"insipred\".

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

It\'s apples and gorillas. Joe needs to shut the hell up too.

The key difference also is that Joe isn\'t spouting off that he\'s the best WR in the league and that it\'s not his fault that his teammates can\'t keep up.

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Joe said that he\'s the best receiver in the NFL. Then he said it wasn\'t Haslett\'s fault for the Saints not making the playoffs. Joe Horn said it was the other players that were responsible for the Saints not succeeding.

Did you not read the article that I posted?

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Surprise,surprise,surprise, he is one of the best in the league. You like stats, look it up. Secondly, just who was Joe talking about in that statement, I don\'t know, do you? Unless we live in his mind we don\'t. He might have been talking about AB...............or maybe not.

[Edited on 20/2/2005 by JOESAM2002]

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

SF, I wonder if you researched how much Brooks contributes to teams getting over 20 points on the Saints. Case in point, Seattle game. Score 14-7 in the 3rd. AB throws an INT giving the Seattle offense the ball in their own red zone and then they make it 21-7, yet the defense had held them to 14 the whole game until AB\'s mistake. And we had 7 points while our defense had caused THREE TURNOVERS IN THE FIRST HALF. How many games are there like that? Did you research that? I doubt it. Hit me with those numbers. 20-3 Broncos, Brooks\' great under-handed pass makes it 27-3. That\'s over 20 then right? Nice to erase Brooks\' culpability in creating these very numbers you say we need to avoid.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

I\'m not trying o erase Brooks\' culpability. I\'ve said all along that Brooks needs to get his total turnovers under 15, which is something that he has never done in his career (along with never reaching the 60% completion percentage).

Also I\'ve been very careful to point out that when the team holds the opposition to under 21 points, not just the defense.

Last year I was concerned about the fact the Brooks had gone from throwing an INT once every 2 games or so, to routinely throwing 2 INTs per game. He threw 11 INTs in the last 7 games of the season, with only no INTs against TB and the last Carolina game.

He bears some of the blame. 3 INTs in Denver didn\'t help. But Brooks wasn\'t the primary reason the team was down 20-3 when that bonehead play occured:

From the drive chart here:

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/playby...0041121_DEN@NO

Deuce didn\'t get a positive yardage play until the score was 20-0.

The defense gave up a 51 yd TD run, a 33 yard penalty, and a 37 yd TD pass all in the 1st quarter.

Every Saints drive except for 1 up until the interception had a penalty.

But from what you write above it seems you want to pin the whole thing on Brooks because of 1 bad play that made it worse.

Let\'s throw that play out and talk about everything leading up to it.

Why was the team down 20-3? How much of that 1st quarter and a half was directly attributable to Brooks? How much to Deuce? How much to Michael Lewis? How much to the defense? How much to the coaching?

The whole team sucked that day.

Yet every time anything from that day is discussed, it\'s the Brooks underhanded interception to Al Wilson.

Whodi, let\'s change the discussion. We\'re clear about how each other feels. You feel that Brooks\' mistakes makes him too much of a liability to keep. I say that while Brooks makes mistakes, that fixing other areas of the team has a higher priority.

I don\'t think anything is going to change there.

So trun the discussion back to other QBs. I think almost everyone here is in agreement that getting in another veteran QB for competition and possibly a backup would be a good thing. Being pushed certainly helped Brees for example. And Bouman has been like the Vice President.

We\'ve seen all of the usual suspects: Warner, Fiedler, Bledsoe, Garcia. McMahon has also been thrown out there.

Considering last years performances from these guys and the Saints offensive situaltion, especially the offensive line, could any of them really be successful? Or what support would they need to be successful?

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

I think McMahon could be successful and Garrard from Jacksonville could be brought in to challenge. I don\'t want Garcia, Bledsoe, or Fiedler. I could be persuaded into Warner, but ONLY if we ran a quick strike offense like the Rams did. MEaning he gets rid of the ball in two or three steps. But we don\'t run that kind of offense. I would trade AB and his lower contract to San D for Brees, and throw in Darren Howard or a pick. That would solve several problems as I see them at the same time. What say you?

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Horn backs up his quirkiness.......he produces week in and week out. I hate his shenanigan\'s but he at least comes to play.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Aaron Brooks 18 total turnovers
Tom Brady 3 rings

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

2004 Regular Season Scoring Defense.

Pats 2nd at 16.2
Saints 28th at 25.3

2003 Regular Season Scoring Defense

Pats 1st at 14.9
Saints 16th at 20.4

2001 Regular Season Scoring Defense

Pats 6th at 17.0
Saints 28th @ 25.6

You can\'t effectively compare individual stats (total turnovers) to team stats (3 SB rings). There\'s a reason that the Pats have 3 SB rings and the Saints simply couldn\'t. You\'re looking at it above.

Quick name the last SB champion that finished the regular season outside of the top 10 in scoring defense? You already have 3 of the last 4. TB and Baltimore were both the #1 scoring defense the year that they won. The Rams were in the top ten in 1999.

In fact using http://www.pro-football-reference.com I went back and looked up the scoring defensing rank of the last 16 SB winners. Each and every one was in the top 10 and the vast majority were in the top 5.

As JKool has said all along, football is a team game. An outstanding defense can make a QB look like a genius (Trent Dilfer for example) while a bad defense can make an outstanding QB look like a he can\'t win (Peyton Manning for example).

I\'m not saying that Brooks is a SB caliber QB. But Brady\'s defense is a big part of why he\'s a SB winning QB.

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

I think the issues on the defensive size of the ball are important enough to put into my sig. Just testing it out.

SFIAH

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

SFIAH, this is funny. I pointed out to you TWO cases where Brooks directly led to our defense giving up more than 20 points, and you jump back on our defense. I wonder if you could look up the QB rating of those last 16 Superbowl teams and see if their QB led the league in A) lost fumbles or B) red zone turnovers. I asked before for you to qualify the numbers you found and seem to post often about us winning when the defense holds a team under 20 by finding out how many MORE games than what I pointed out AB was DIRECTLY responsible for it going over 20. SO then you divert the convo, I answer that, and you jump off on the defense tangent at first opportunity. So I will reinstate my initial request and the second request since you like throwing defensive numbers at us.

A) Please tell me how many times AB led directly to the team giving up over 20 points in the record you pointed out(I already gave you two).

B) Find out how many times in the last 16 Superbowls you pointed out the QB led the league in lost fumbles, or red zone turnovers. I know we have had a better running game the past few years than some Superbowl teams(Pats definitely except this year and the Bucs ), so find those stats please. Since your aim seemed to be to divert me from asking these kinds of questions, I will ask them again.

[Edited on 22/2/2005 by saintswhodi]

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Aaron Brooks total turnovers: 18- Record: 8-8
Tom Brady total turnovers: 19 - Super Bowl Champ

2004 Regular Season Scoring Defense.

Pats 2nd at 16.2
Saints 28th at 25.3

I\'ve always wanted to say this: Nuff Said!!

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Not quite, IMO. The Pats had an avereage time of possession of 31.22 minutes/game while the Saints had 28.18. From these numbers couldn\'t you make a case for the defense by saying that if the offense were on the field longer the defense might be giving up less points. Just a thought. Of course, I know that the response will be that if the defense could get off the field, then maybe the offense could have the ball longer. Either could be the case, I suppose.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Saint_LB-

I was only joking when I said \"nuff said\". I hate when folks tell me that.. \'cause I\'ve always got plenty to say on just about every subject... ;)

How quickly we forget just how awful our defense was for the first 12-games. It was on pace to be the worst defense in over 40-years. Quite frankly, I cannot remember seeing a defense that was any worse.

We can debate how the offfense affected the defense.

What\'s not debateable is the ONLY time our defense was effective is when it was on the bench!!

Just think back to the first 12 games. How did you feel when our defense was trying to stop the run? Warrick Dunn? Emmit Smith? ANYBODY?

How did you feel in the first 12 games when we faced Culpepper, Brees, Haselbeck, ANYBODY?

I can remember EXACTLY how I felt!!

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Just remember that during these games the offense was failing miseably during the first quarter. This can cause early fatigue in the defense, and it is demoralizing...possibly giving the defense the attitude of \"what\'s the point.\" There is no doubt that the statements you made were valid, I am only questioning whether the reason was a talent issue, or more an issue of fatigue and attitude. I certainly don\'t pretend to know which is the case, I just find it strange that the same personnel can look like two different teams from the first 12 games to the last 4.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

I don\'t know which way to fall on this issue. the D didn\'t look good, but it\'s hard to say exactly how much the Offense caused some problems. I can\'t say that the first qtr thing really makes much of a difference since in the last 4 games the Offense still didn\'t do any better in the 1st qtr but the D played better overall. That would seem to indicate that the Offense not scoring in the 1st qtr had little to do with the D throughout the game.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

In at least 2 of the last 4 games Scotty the special teams scored in the first quarter. That was a difference the defense had not seen all year. The main difference in the team was special teams and D stepped up, and stopped waiting for the offense to get it done. Weak opponents didn\'t hurt this either.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

How quickly we forget just how ineffective Deuce was the first part of the season.

Deuce game by game:

Seattle L- 16 for 57yds -
San Francisco W 3 for-1yd - Deuce got injured.
@Arizona L - Did Not Play
Tampa Bay L -21 for 102- fumbled twice and one was run back or a TD.
Minnesota 18 for 78yds
Oakland W 24 for 42 - Averaged 1.8 yards on 24 carries
San Diego L 17 for 43yds.
Denver L 13 for 42yds.
Carolina 7 for 22
Dallas W 30 for 83yds - Averaged 2.8 yards on 30 carries.
Tampa Bay W 25 for 89yds - Averaged 3.5 yards on 25 carries.

After that game Deuce got healthy and we went 4-1 during that stretch. The only loss during the last 5 games was to the Falcons. Brooks and the offense drove the length of the field for a TD leaving Vick under 2 minutes and they scored a TD at the end of the game to win.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

So, by your own admission, it wasn\'t until the offense stepped up their game that the defense became better, unless I am reading this wrong.

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Whodi,

That requires research on individual plays. I\'ve never seen a stat in the NFL of how turnovers leads directly to points, like in basketball.

The only way to get a true measure is to swap the players and see what happens. But this isn\'t Madden.

I know you think I\'m just trying to get Brooks off the hook. I\'m not. However scoring defense, in whatever form, is a clear indicator of playoff success.

As an example take a look at the Giants last year. They were 5-1 not because of Warner, but because of the defense and the running game. When the defense was decimated, the team fell apart.

The OP in this thread stated that Brooks has 18 TOs and Brady has 3 rings. Am I saying that Brooks is a better QB? No. Am I even saying that Brooks is a SB caliber QB? No. (I in fact stated that in my last post).

All I\'m saying is that Brady is on a team with a better defense. And it\'s clear that you have to have defense to be successful, regardless of your QB.

The Colts have shown that the last 2 years.

And in parting I want to make sure that I grant you your point. Brooks and the offense does take some of the blame for the defensive play. They have too many turnovers, insufficient time of posession, and way to many stalled drives. This leads to the defense being on the field too much and in bad field position.

But ask yourself in all honesty if we replace Brooks with another veteran QB would the defense we had the first 12 games of last year have been a top 15 defense? Does Brooks get so much of the blame of the defensive play that replacing him would have gotten the defensive scoring average down 6 points a game? That Brooks is personally responsible for giving up 80 to 100 points to the opposition?

It\'s an open question. And no I\'m not going to take the time to analyze individual plays to determine the number of points Brooks personally gave up.

But I feel reasonably sure it isn\'t 80 to 100.

I point to the end of Minnesota game as an example. The offense scored on each of its last 3 drives. But so did Minnesota\'s. The defense had to only make 1 stop in the second half. They didn\'t.

Brooks is also culpable in that game. He threw a red zone interception that led to a 60 yard runback. Then Culpepper threw a 43 yard TD to Moss on the resulting drive.

Both units screwed up, not just Brooks who threw the INT, but the defense too who gave up the TD.

The 1st Atlanta game was another example of blame distribution. We all could see that with 3 minutes left all the Saints offense had to do was make a 1st down and win the game. McCarthy runs Deuce into the line twice, then Brooks couldn\'t convert the 3rd down play (a dumpoff according to the play by play here: http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/playby...0041128_NO@ATL)

The offense couldn\'t make one stinking first down.

But the team is up by 4 and the Falcons were 50 yards away from the end zone. The defense only needed to make one stop to win the game. We all know what happened.

So was that loss Brooks fault? Deuce\'s? McCarthy\'s? The defense?

I know that you and I see it differently. In the above case I\'d put the majority of the blame on the defense. Bracket Crumpler and make Vick throw the ball to someone (anyone) else.

But I have a suspicion that someone else may think that somehow the offense not making that first down is the reason that the 7 point were given up.

My thesis is simple: Even with the 3 and outs, even with Brooks bonehead plays, even with Deuce\'s dropping YPC, even with no tight end production, even with the receiver drops, even with the penalties, and even with the turnovers, that if the defense had played like they did the last 4 games, the Saints would have had a successful 2004 season. When the defense played better, the team won plain and simple.

I really do hear you when you say that Brooks\' play influences the performance of the defense. But you can\'t convince me that influence results in 5-6 PPG. And if the defense improved by 5-6 PPG, this team would be a force.

SFIAH


[Edited on 24/2/2005 by SaintFanInATLHELL]

Brooks turnovers. How does he stack up?
 

Nice breakdown SF, but my point is this. We only needed ONE more win to make the playoffs. Not a 5-6 point swing in average given up, but one more game. Now I posted in another thread how our defense held teams to minimal points in the first quarter repeatedly, for an average through all games of 7.3 points given up in the first quarter. Know what our average scoring was for our offense in the first quarter? Less than 3 points. I even gave drive charts from two different games. In the Arizona game, the Saints DID NOT SCORE on 10 of 11 possessions. TEN OF ELEVEN?!?!?!?!?!? That is horrendous. Against winless Arizona? In the Seattle game, The defense gave them the ball 3 times in the first half and only had given up 14 points by the half. Know how many we had? 7 points. Two games where had the offense done ANYTHING we could have and should have won. But they didn\'t. I am not gonna place it all on Brooks, although a good bit of it should be since in the AZ game he had another red zone TO, this one in the first quarter. It\'s on the whole offense. McCarthy, Brooks, Deuce, the line. We can want a top 10 D all our life but we don\'t have the talent to be. WE DO have the talent to be DECENT, if not for an anemic more often than not offense. That was my point. So when you pointed out your numbers, I just wanted to know how much culpability was on Brooks AND the offense for giving up those points. You don\'t have to research it even though it would have been interesting to know since I know two specific instances this year alone. A better offense would have equaled a better defense, no doubt in my mind. But ti\'s all good.

Also, to answer your question about another vet QB, I don\'t know. I think a good bit of the blame should fall on McCarthy and that stupid two tight end offense, which Deuce openly complained about before the season. They should have stuck to what they know. I do feel over the course of the season a vet QB who doesn\'t committ Brooks\' mistakes could have gotten us that one more win to make the playoffs though. I think we could have gotten that kind of difference. Look at the Minn game. The D held them to 7 points in the 1st quarter. Our O, ZERO POINTS. So while people want to balem the D for not holding them late, how about the O for not taking advantage of Minny\'s poor defense early?

I think this is where we mainly part ways though. Look how nonchalantly you are able to brush off another red zone turnover. If you are sitting on the sideline, and you watch your offense take advantage after you DID stop an opposing team, only yo see them give the ball up with no points AGAIN, how pumped are you gonna be to go back on the field? That red zone turnover takes 3 or 7 points off the board for our TEAM, and it would not have been the first time our D had seen that this season. They do not have the talent or drive to repeatedly cover these mistakes. Which is what is being asked of them and in my opinion, is WAY too much.