Around The NFL: Gameday Talk

[Danger]

31 minutes ago, BLick12 said:

Sure, that's valid.  But there are still 2 3rds and a 4th that we gave up as well.

 

To trade up for someone who genuinely you feel is a Franchise QB that's pennies on the dollar.

[BLick12]

10 minutes ago, Danger said:

To trade up for someone who genuinely you feel is a Franchise QB that's pennies on the dollar.

Obviously, but that's not my point. My point is that if we kept Sam Bradford we would have had those picks to try and add talent to the roster.

[Jroc04]

1 hour ago, BLick12 said:

I don't see how that is a bad throw, the guy underneath is chasing, he's not going to be able to turn his head and pick that, literally no way, if he turns his hips he's beat and it's an even easier throw.  That's an elite throw.

I said it was a good throw. Bad decision. A better defense picks that off. All that dude had to do was turn his head and put his hand up and that play is broken up. Turning his head wouldn't have slowed him down any. He was step for step with the receiver. Perfect coverage, bad execution. Sam had nowhere else to go so he threw a prayer. It turned out to be a perfect throw. But I've never argued his throwing. He throws the ball well. He always has. He's a 1st overall pick. He should. That's not the knock on him. Doesn't make him not average.

He was pressured 6 times last night. 6. 

Any QB can look that good without pressure. And again, as @Phire said, this is maybe his best game in his career. Let's relax please. He had one 300 yard 3 TD game last year. And only 2 300 yard games all last year. And he lost both games. So this is his first 300 yard game he's won since he was with us when we played, go figure, the Saints. And a quick stat check revealed he's only won 2 other games where he's thrown over 300 yards. Which leads me to believe he only puts up stats when he's losing and he HAS to pass. He never presses the defense on his own accord and constantly takes the safe pass. He'll never win this way. He's average. 

[BLick12]

8 minutes ago, Jroc04 said:

I said it was a good throw. Bad decision. A better defense picks that off. All that dude had to do was turn his head and put his hand up and that play is broken up. Turning his head wouldn't have slowed him down any. He was step for step with the receiver. Perfect coverage, bad execution. Sam had nowhere else to go so he threw a prayer. It turned out to be a perfect throw. But I've never argued his throwing. He throws the ball well. He always has. He's a 1st overall pick. He should. That's not the knock on him. Doesn't make him not average.

He was pressured 6 times last night. 6. 

Any QB can look that good without pressure. And again, as @Phire said, this is maybe his best game in his career. Let's relax please. He had one 300 yard 3 TD game last year. And only 2 300 yard games all last year. And he lost both games. So this is his first 300 yard game he's won since he was with us when we played, go figure, the Saints. And a quick stat check revealed he's only won 2 other games where he's thrown over 300 yards. Which leads me to believe he only puts up stats when he's losing and he HAS to pass. He never presses the defense on his own accord and constantly takes the safe pass. He'll never win this way. He's average. 

I'm arguing that it was not a bad decision. That defender has no way to turn and face the ball without losing his man.  He's literally running deadsprint trying to catch Diggs, there's no way he can contort his body to make a play on the ball without losing speed.  It's a perfect throw while getting hit as well, which is another thing people loved to knock him for and which, coincidentally, you do later in this post.

His first game against the Packers last year was more impressive, simply due to the amount of pressure he faced in that game, but he was sensational last night.

The last few sentences just simply aren't true.  The stats I provided to you in the other thread debunk this and show that he takes about the league average amount of chances down the field.   Considering how accurate and effective he is throwing the deepball, you would sure like to see him throw it more, but last year his offensive line hardly afforded any type of protection to let him take those chances.  Last night they did, and he was deadly accurate.  I don't know what is relevant about throwing for 300 yards and winning or losing, you can play a great game and throw for 290 and your team wins.  That just seems like some arbitrary cut off to determine importance without evaluating the game. 

 

 

[EaglesPeteC]

Honestly this series of trades worked out for all 3 sides involved IMO.

 

VIKINGS- Sam Bradford is a pretty good QB with the physical ability to be even better. After Teddy's injury they had to do something to stay competitive and give the rest of the team a chance to win. Sammy Sleeves provides that more than whoever they could have drafted at 14.

BROWNS- That team was/is so bad that Wentz probably gets destroyed. It was probably be best plan to stockpile, get as many real NFL players as they can and then search for the QB. If they find a real one is Kizer, even better.

 

EAGLES- After the Chip Kelly disaster, starting with a new coach and a reestablished Gm, all 3 (Doug, Howie and Jeff Laurie) all identified Wentz as a guy that they all believed in, so they went and got him. The organization is all pulling in the same direction behind Wentz and now they are tasked to develop him and build around him. Then trading Bradford to soften the blow and gain back draft capital to build around Wentz was a great counter move to the Wentz trade. Now there is unity in a direction among everyone in that building and everyone is clear that we are building a team around this guy. 

 

IMO, all 3 teams are better now and did the right thing for each organization for the situation they are in.

[Jroc04]

It's not Diggs, btw. I have no idea if we are watching the same clip. That dude is on his hip. How does coverage get better than that? And how does a QB assume that's a safe pass? It was Sam's only option and he threw it because he took the chance the defender wouldn't turn his head rather than take a sack. This is where FF discussions devolve because now I have to somehow explain why turning your head doesn't slow you down. The defender is on his hip. All he has to do is turn his head, locate the ball and stretch his arm out. I don't see how turning his head slows him down to the point of losing 3 ft (?) where his outstretched arm couldn't bat the ball away. But this is now ridiculous.  We'll just have to conceded we aren't getting the same impression from that small clip. 

Those stats you provided showed he was just average at best in downfield throws. They were clearly subjective as well. 

The 300 yards stat is a way to try and quantify his effectiveness as a QB when he actually has to throw the ball. Throwing the ball 300 yards and winning more proves his effectiveness. While throwing the ball 300 yards and losing proves his ineptness because he was most likely in a shootout or chasing a lead and was more likely forced to throw the ball. 

In comparison, Carr had 4 300 yard games in 2016 and won them all. My point is, is when Sam NEEDs to throw he fails. He can check down and take that sure completion but it doesn't win games. The reason why I bring up Carr is because their stats are so similar but there's a couple glaring differences. 

Carr 357-560 63.8% 3937 28Tds 6Ints

Bradford 395-552 71.6 3877 20Tds 5Ints

What's that mean? Well, even though Sammy is a large amount better at completing passes at a 8% clip, Carr is far more effective. If Carr completed as much as Bradford did, at the same rate of effectiveness, his stats would be more like 4400 yards and 32 TDs. 600 more yards and 12 more TDs. The exact stats are estimated but it's clear Carr is more effecient while being "worse" in completion percentage. Carr was 5 wins and 8 TDs better than Bradford with nearly identical attempts. For example, the Vikings lost 6 of 8 games by a total of 38 points. If Sammy could muster 8 more TDs out of that season, they could have won maybe 3-4 of those games? And that's the difference. 

 And it really doesn't matter the rebuttal. You are clearly a Sam believer somehow. So we can just take Sam, facevalue:

Sam Bradford: 30 years old, 3 teams (4 after this year) 33-45-1, 0 playoff births, 0 pro bowls. 

I can throw all these stats out to try and prove my point and Sam's worth but he's already doing it himself without my help. He's an average QB. He'll never win anything and will continue to thrive as a middle of the road player. Nothing more, nothing less. 

[BLick12]

58 minutes ago, Jroc04 said:

It's not Diggs, btw. I have no idea if we are watching the same clip. That dude is on his hip. How does coverage get better than that? And how does a QB assume that's a safe pass? It was Sam's only option and he threw it because he took the chance the defender wouldn't turn his head rather than take a sack. This is where FF discussions devolve because now I have to somehow explain why turning your head doesn't slow you down. The defender is on his hip. All he has to do is turn his head, locate the ball and stretch his arm out. I don't see how turning his head slows him down to the point of losing 3 ft (?) where his outstretched arm couldn't bat the ball away. But this is now ridiculous.  We'll just have to conceded we aren't getting the same impression from that small clip. 

Those stats you provided showed he was just average at best in downfield throws. They were clearly subjective as well. 

The 300 yards stat is a way to try and quantify his effectiveness as a QB when he actually has to throw the ball. Throwing the ball 300 yards and winning more proves his effectiveness. While throwing the ball 300 yards and losing proves his ineptness because he was most likely in a shootout or chasing a lead and was more likely forced to throw the ball. 

In comparison, Carr had 4 300 yard games in 2016 and won them all. My point is, is when Sam NEEDs to throw he fails. He can check down and take that sure completion but it doesn't win games. The reason why I bring up Carr is because their stats are so similar but there's a couple glaring differences. 

Carr 357-560 63.8% 3937 28Tds 6Ints

Bradford 395-552 71.6 3877 20Tds 5Ints

What's that mean? Well, even though Sammy is a large amount better at completing passes at a 8% clip, Carr is far more effective. If Carr completed as much as Bradford did, at the same rate of effectiveness, his stats would be more like 4400 yards and 32 TDs. 600 more yards and 12 more TDs. The exact stats are estimated but it's clear Carr is more effecient while being "worse" in completion percentage. Carr was 5 wins and 8 TDs better than Bradford with nearly identical attempts. For example, the Vikings lost 6 of 8 games by a total of 38 points. If Sammy could muster 8 more TDs out of that season, they could have won maybe 3-4 of those games? And that's the difference. 

 And it really doesn't matter the rebuttal. You are clearly a Sam believer somehow. So we can just take Sam, facevalue:

Sam Bradford: 30 years old, 3 teams (4 after this year) 33-45-1, 0 playoff births, 0 pro bowls. 

I can throw all these stats out to try and prove my point and Sam's worth but he's already doing it himself without my help. He's an average QB. He'll never win anything and will continue to thrive as a middle of the road player. Nothing more, nothing less. 

You're right it's not Diggs, my mistake.  It is great coverage in the sense that he's marking him well, but it's not good technique because he's facing the complete opposite direction of the QB and face guarding the receiver, thus making a throw like this possible and making it very hard for him to turn and make a play for the ball.  We see this every single week with Jalen Mills, it's not good technique and it isn't as simple as just turning around and playing the ball (generally, when that happens a receiver comes back for the ball and draws a PI call because now the defender doesn't know where the receiver is in that space).  It's literally impossible to run full speed as he is doing in this clip and turn and face the ball without giving up something.  We don't need to argue back and forth on this, at the end of the day, he made a perfect throw and threw it behind the ear of a defender, who wasn't facing him or aware that a throw was being made due to bad positioning.  

Those stats I provided proved he's exceptionally accurate throwing a deep ball.  You disputed the source and evaluation behind it, which fine, whatever, but what you can't dispute is the number of attempts.  His number of attempts is average for the NFL.

How is 300 yards a way to quantify effectiveness?  It's just an arbitrary number. Just looking at his stats, there were a number of games where he threw for 290 yards and won.  Does that really matter?   I don't think every franchise QB needs to be Drew Brees and throw for 500 yards regularly in order for his team to win a game.

You're also conveniently neglecting the biggest difference between Derek Carr and Sam Bradford and that is that Carr played behind one of the best o-line's in football whereas Bradford played behind the worst.  For reference, Carr was sacked 16 times... Bradford 37.  It's pretty amazing that a guy that gets the ball out right away and checks it down all the time could get sacked that many times.  Also, Bradford NEEDED to throw in every game last year, did you see the Vikings rushing offense?  They averaged a league worst 3.2 YPC.  In spite of all that, he still had a solid season.  

I'm a believer in Bradford, because I don't believe in quantifying QB performance strictly by statistics and by wins and losses.  I think you have to factor in every part of the equation.  It's why we as Eagles fans feel good about Wentz from last year, nothing about our record or his stats would make us right, but we saw how many balls the receivers dropped, how bad our o-line play was after LJ got suspended, etc.  Bradford's career has been more than anything an unfortunate case of really bad luck with his injuries, some lackluster surrounding talent and no consistency with coaches and OCs.  The talent is most certainly there and his story is not done.

[Jroc04]

There's stats upon stats about how Bradford throws and why he's not more successful if he's completing 70% of his throws. That should obviously scream something to you. Rodgers had a much worse D, bad OL and below average running game. Both got sacked around the same rate. But GB had more success. Sam's 26th in yards per attempt on third downs. And 22nd on third downs when trailing teams by 1-8 pts. He rarely throws downfield or even in the 11-20 yard range when teams run 2 high safeties, apparently something that hinders him. Driving his good INT rate down but very much limiting his success because he refuses to throw challenging balls. He's risk adverse while other, better QBs make plays to extend drives, win games while Sam would rather take the easy way out. It's the reason he won't win. 

This has obviously run its course. You're not changing my mind, and I'm not changing yours. We can keep track of Sam and we can talk about it week to week. It always comes out in the wash eventually. I'm confident you'll see the light. Or just keep making excuses for the guy like everyone has done his whole career. 

[Danger]

So depending on his asking price. I'd LOVE to go after Allen Robinson next off season. He had a couple of great seasons last year before Blake Bortles regressed and now he got injured. He'll have plenty of time to recover and he's a monster when things go right. 

Yes I'm Penn State biased, but oh my lord he's so much fun to watch.

[BLick12]

15 hours ago, Jroc04 said:

There's stats upon stats about how Bradford throws and why he's not more successful if he's completing 70% of his throws. That should obviously scream something to you. Rodgers had a much worse D, bad OL and below average running game. Both got sacked around the same rate. But GB had more success. Sam's 26th in yards per attempt on third downs. And 22nd on third downs when trailing teams by 1-8 pts. He rarely throws downfield or even in the 11-20 yard range when teams run 2 high safeties, apparently something that hinders him. Driving his good INT rate down but very much limiting his success because he refuses to throw challenging balls. He's risk adverse while other, better QBs make plays to extend drives, win games while Sam would rather take the easy way out. It's the reason he won't win. 

This has obviously run its course. You're not changing my mind, and I'm not changing yours. We can keep track of Sam and we can talk about it week to week. It always comes out in the wash eventually. I'm confident you'll see the light. Or just keep making excuses for the guy like everyone has done his whole career. 

Alright, well, Aaron Rodgers is arguably a top 5 QB of all time and the best QB in the NFL right now.  

Again, o-line play is a big factor in how often someone can throw the ball downfield.  Rodgers might've been sacked at the same rate, but a fair amount of the time it is because he's scrambling around trying to make a play.  Bradford doesn't have that ability and so if his guys are getting beat quickly and regularly he's got to get the ball out to compensate.  Give him some semblance of time to throw and  better down and distances with some semblance of a run game and he'll be more far effective.   Also, you can be risk averse and still play QB pretty well.  Donovan McNabb did it for a whole lot of years here in Philly, Alex Smith might not be a great QB but he protects the ball and with that caliber of defense you don't need a gunslinger, there's plenty of instances where that mentality can be an asset to a team and help them win.  I'd argue with the Eagles caliber of defense we'd benefit from a QB that protects the football more than anything.  

But yeah, clearly we're not going to change each other's minds. We'll see how things play out this year. I think if the Vikings o-line is better than last year's which shouldn't be a stretch, that Bradford could have a pretty damn good season with their weapons.  Then I guess we'll see if opinions change either way.

[Jroc04]

McNabbs risk averse was the worm balls we were all so fond of. He didn't throw a lot of picks though. But also never threw his receivers open. He needed them to be WIDE open. Everyone except TO. 

[ninjapirate]

2 hours ago, Jroc04 said:

McNabbs risk averse was the worm balls we were all so fond of. He didn't throw a lot of picks though. But also never threw his receivers open. He needed them to be WIDE open. Everyone except TO. 

I dont think the worm balls were him trying to not throw interceptions just that his bad throws didn't really result in any turnovers. 

[BLick12]

1 hour ago, ninjapirate said:

I dont think the worm balls were him trying to not throw interceptions just that his bad throws didn't really result in any turnovers. 

In fact, I feel like most of the time his guys were wide open when he threw those. I don't think I've ever seen a QB that has had that problem, I suppose it is better than sailing balls, but god damn it was frustrating to watch.

[Phire]

12 minutes ago, BLick12 said:

I suppose it is better than sailing balls, but god damn it was frustrating to watch.

Well imagine being the worms...

[ninjapirate]

another crappy Thursday night game tonight. NFL needs to just scrap this idea it doesn't work.