Utah_Saint

You don't often hear the term "game manager" and 4000 yard season in the same sentence.

And nobody's ever heard of 8+ yards per attempt at a game managing completion percentage 72%.

Game managing GOAT.

burningmetal

4,000 doesn't mean a whole lot anymore.

Who is considered the ultimate "game manager" in the NFL today? Alex Smith, right? Here are his stats this year:

CMP ATT YDS CMP% AVG TD LNG INT FUM QBR RAT
341 505 4,042 67.5 8.00 26 79 5 1 63.4 104.7

Here are Brees' stats:

CMP ATT YDS CMP% AVG TD LNG INT FUM QBR RAT
386 536 4,334 72.0 8.09 23 54 8 5 61.1 103.9

Does anyone consider Smith elite? From everything I know about this season, Brees has relied on his backs to make big plays out of check downs. High completion percentage does not indicate the opposite of a game manager, either. It's actually to be expected, because of the short passing game. I'm not suggesting this is a terrible thing, but I don't think Brees is playing at an elite level anymore. The guy who broke his previous record (Sam Bradford) is certainly not considered elite, and is at best a game manager. So what does that stat really mean in today's NFL? It's pretty hard to say anymore.

The close comparison to Alex Smith's numbers this season would seem to back up my point. If you want to pay top dollar for that kind of production, good luck to you. This is how the league has gotten to this point where the Andy Dalton's of the world are getting paid like franchise players. Severe over-valuing. And no, I'm not suggesting Drew has dipped to Dalton's level.

Just my observation.

(for some annoying reason, no matter what I do, the numbers will not line up correctly with the stat columns when I post it, but hopefully you can read it well enough.)

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.