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QB Debate: 3 Questions that need answers


Matts4313

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37 minutes ago, RandyMossIsBoss said:

Now we've seen how volatile QB play can be in this league, so this is FAR from an exact science.

Im curious if this is from being burned from Wentz or if you truly believe it. Obviously all positions have variance. But good QBs are normally good each year unless the rest of the team goes to crap. Bad QBs are normally bad each year unless they get surrounded by superstars. 

Hell, even mediocre players like Eli were the same for the most part every year. McNabb, Romo.... You knew exactly what you were getting. Right?

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Scenario 1: there were a lot of factors as to why it failed but I saw the Bills try this with Fitz and Tyrod. As talented as some of those teams were, it always came back to the QB and their inability to be consistent or do what’s necessary to win. 
 

I get the fear of paying a QB in the 8-14 range big money because there are several examples of it blowing up in a teams face. But unless that team is in a position to draft a replacement (which offers no guarantee) or there is a Peyton Manning/Tom Brady FA situation, I think you pay your guy. But that is a case by case basis IMO. 

The Bills should pay Allen but I also trust Beane to design the deal to have team friendly outs any certain points of the contract. 

Scenario 2: Buffalo was kind of stuck in the low end of this. The only time they were terrible enough to pick top 5 was after a Trent Edwards/Fitz season and the only QB worth a top selection went 1st overall to Carolina. So they kept chugging along with Fitz, then EJ/Kyle Orton got them to 9-7 and then the Tyrod era began. 
 

There’s enough solid QBs out there that in the right system or surrounded by enough talent or a great defense can get you to the playoffs. But very unlikely you ever get a championship.

Scenario 3: Wins are not a QB stat. But how a QB plays vs top competition vs lower competition is a good discussion to have and can be a direct correlation.
 

For Buffalo, Allen played well in 2019 against bad teams and okay teams. His worst games came against the better teams. It’s not a coincidence they lost most of his statistical bad games. But I don’t give Allen as much credit as I do the Bills defense for beating Pittsburgh in 2019 when Allen competed just 50% of his passes and the Bills had 4 INTs. That was a team win, even though it counts in Allen’s win-loss record overall.

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I wanted the Rams to NOT sign Goff. Keeping in mind that he was coming off a Super Bowl appearance.

It's an interesting question to be sure and it depends on what you want. For this question, you said Super Bowl. That means IMO there is only one QB worth a "QB contract" - Mahomes. But we'll see how it plays out.

The life cycle of a franchise QB typically goes like this:

Young player, good supporting cast

Peak winning/win Super Bowl

Get paid

Supporting cast/team gets worse

Team wins less

 

Case study: Russell Wilson - Seattle won more games per season before he became elite, prior to his contract. In his case though, they made the right move - their defense has been holding them back for years now and they have a defensive HC

 

Why I didn't want to sign Goff:

I'm a firm believer that an average QB with a great supporting cast will form a better team than a great QB with an average supporting cast. Brees and Rodgers have each made the Super Bowl ONE time, did not play in the same conference as Tom Brady, and never played each other in the playoffs. Which means that every playoff game they lost was to an inferior QB, likely with a better team. Jimmy Gs Niners DESTROYED the Packers last year. The last three years, the Saints have lost to Case Keenum, Jared Goff and Kirk Cousins in the playoffs - WOW. In the first two cases, the Vikings and Rams had better teams around their QBs. 

Now, those are HoF guys and from an owners perspective, having one of these is probably better than going through bad seasons, even if it means winning more Super Bowls - having these guys gets you playoff games, primetime games and merchandise sales.

So, the Rams - we were in a unique position. Prior to signing Goff, we had a top 5 OL and a top 5 WR group and a top 5 play caller - Cooks fell off and the WR group was no longer top 5, but again this is prior to signing him.

I wanted the Rams to be the first team to choose cast over QB - and when I say first team, that's right - so it's a good question: how do we know that it wouldn't work? Teams have always chosen the QB because they're so hard to find - but I would contend that theres a reason JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Haskins and the like were CONSENSUS first round picks. The Rams could have kept Rodger Saffold, bolstered the OL, signed more offensive talent in FA and could let Goff go after this year, and we would have been better off. That's obviously true now - but I believed it before he was signed.

For winning a Super Bowl, the other 52 guys are more important.

For consistent winning seasons, the QB is more important.

Edited by FrantikRam
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On 12/29/2020 at 9:12 PM, Matts4313 said:

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Scenario 1: Its better to pay a cheap QB and use the money to bolster your roster than to pay your top 10 QB top 5 money. 

Example: Paying Cam Newton or Andy Dalton less than $3m, so that you can use the other $35m on free agents.

Question 1: If it was your team, do you believe your team would be better off not extending your QB and using the money on free agents? With the goal being a superbowl.

 

I'd say that in all but the rarest of circumstances, your chances of winning a Super Bowl with a QB like these are extremely remote.

If it was my team, I'd get my checkbook out and pay a guy like Dak/Cousins etc.  A couple of free agents aren't going to take up enough slack to make up for a mediocre QB like current Cam Newton or Andy Dalton.

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Scenario 2: "QBs are a dime a dozen" - in todays NFL its easy to find a franchise QB in the draft.

Example: Your team consistently has mid-round (~#16ish) picks with fluke years that are drastically higher/lower. 

Question 2: Do you think you can replace your QB every ~5ish years in the draft and eventually get to a superbowl? 

Re: Question 2:  I think you can do this.  Then again, I also think it's possible to win the powerball.

 

 

On 12/29/2020 at 9:12 PM, Matts4313 said:

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Scenario 3: QBs should be judge on the their record.

Example: Franchise QB plays a good playoff team and loses. Lesser QB plays a terrible team and wins. Both QBs play well, lets say a 300/2td/0int game.

Question: Do you judge QBs by the quality of their individual play with context? Or do you judge it on if the team wins/loses? 

It's pretty obvious that if you want to be fair, you should judge quarterbacks on how they play.  At the same time, wins and losses are what matter.  Kirk Cousins is the personification of this.  If you look at his stat line without watching the games, you would think he is probably a very good quarterback.  He IS good in a lot of ways.  The problem is that he has historically had a real problem in clutch situations.  To be fair, he has had a couple of 4th quarter comebacks in 2020, but instances of that happening have been few and far between - too few and far between when you look at what he is being paid.  This is a limitation that makes it very hard to get all the way to the top of the mountain.  

At the end of the day, you have a choice:

Option 1:  A cheap quarterback who isn't good enough to get you to the promised land, even though his low salary enables you to afford a couple more free agents.

Option 2:  A good, but not elite quarterback who is not good enough to get you to the promised land because his salary doesn't allow you to put a good enough supporting cast around him.

Options 1 & 2 both lead to the same destination - mediocrity.  There are MANY franchises who have been mired in this mediocrity of years and even decades.  This leads us to the third and final option.

Option 3:  Clean house and start over.  Get rid of all the older veterans who are expensive and also those who have any draft value.  It will cost your franchise a year (or maybe even two) of losing almost all of your games.  This is something I've been calling for the Vikings to do for literally years, because they haven't had a true franchise quarterback for over four decades when Fran Tarkenton retired.  It became obvious to me that they were NEVER going to do this, so I identified another team who was employing this strategy - the Jacksonville Jaguars.  After 50 YEARS of being a fan of the Vikings, I decided that I had spent enough time watching them spin their wheels, hoping to get lucky and strike gold in the later rounds on a guy like Tom Brady.  I have made the decision to quit following the Vikings as "my team," and have made the Jaguars "my team" moving forward.  Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but in my opinion, they are at least trying something that will give them a shot.  This is not to say that the first two options can never work.  It's possible that they can.  The only problem is that after 50 years of hoping to get lucky, I decided that the odds of it happening with the years I have left are not in my favor.

 

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22 hours ago, Matts4313 said:

Im curious if this is from being burned from Vick, Foles and Wentz or if you truly believe it. Obviously all positions have variance. But good QBs are normally good each year unless the rest of the team goes to crap. Bad QBs are normally bad each year unless they get surrounded by superstars. 

Hell, even mediocre players like Eli were the same for the most part every year. McNabb, Romo.... You knew exactly what you were getting. Right?

FIFY and probably...

In hindsight it doesn’t seem so volatile, but in the moment it has been. Cam or Matt Ryan have MVP campaigns and the consensus is that they evolved as players, but in hindsight you see everything just clicked for them. Goff has great 2nd and 3rd year, and looks to be a guy that will easily be in top 10 convo, but in hindsight he was just carried by amazing cast/offense.

 

There’s a top 10 QB thread in comparison forum, and I bet when that same thread in is made in 2 years it will carry wildly different sentiments even for current QBs between 24 and 36. 

 

Maybe my point is more that opinion/perception of QB position is volatile rather than actual play, but that’s what counts when deciding to extend a QB, your perception of them.

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9 hours ago, Uncle Buck said:

Re: Question 2:  I think you can do this.  Then again, I also think it's possible to win the powerball.

 

 

It's pretty obvious that if you want to be fair, you should judge quarterbacks on how they play.  At the same time, wins and losses are what matter.  Kirk Cousins is the personification of this.  If you look at his stat line without watching the games, you would think he is probably a very good quarterback.  He IS good in a lot of ways.  The problem is that he has historically had a real problem in clutch situations.  To be fair, he has had a couple of 4th quarter comebacks in 2020, but instances of that happening have been few and far between - too few and far between when you look at what he is being paid.  This is a limitation that makes it very hard to get all the way to the top of the mountain.  

At the end of the day, you have a choice:

Option 1:  A cheap quarterback who isn't good enough to get you to the promised land, even though his low salary enables you to afford a couple more free agents.

Option 2:  A good, but not elite quarterback who is not good enough to get you to the promised land because his salary doesn't allow you to put a good enough supporting cast around him.

Options 1 & 2 both lead to the same destination - mediocrity.  There are MANY franchises who have been mired in this mediocrity of years and even decades.  This leads us to the third and final option.

Option 3:  Clean house and start over.  Get rid of all the older veterans who are expensive and also those who have any draft value.  It will cost your franchise a year (or maybe even two) of losing almost all of your games.  This is something I've been calling for the Vikings to do for literally years, because they haven't had a true franchise quarterback for over four decades when Fran Tarkenton retired.  It became obvious to me that they were NEVER going to do this, so I identified another team who was employing this strategy - the Jacksonville Jaguars.  After 50 YEARS of being a fan of the Vikings, I decided that I had spent enough time watching them spin their wheels, hoping to get lucky and strike gold in the later rounds on a guy like Tom Brady.  I have made the decision to quit following the Vikings as "my team," and have made the Jaguars "my team" moving forward.  Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't, but in my opinion, they are at least trying something that will give them a shot.  This is not to say that the first two options can never work.  It's possible that they can.  The only problem is that after 50 years of hoping to get lucky, I decided that the odds of it happening with the years I have left are not in my favor.

 

 

 

This is another great point and an issue I had with Goff too. Even in his best season, he and the offense failed to finish games and left it to the defense. I am not a fan of 4th quarter comebacks as a QB stat - Goff got one for leading the Rams to a FG against the Packers who subsequently fumbled the kickoff - had they not fumbled, we may have lost because we couldn't score a TD against a bad Packers d in crunch time.

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On 12/29/2020 at 10:12 PM, Matts4313 said:

 

Scenario 2: "QBs are a dime a dozen" - in todays NFL its easy to find a franchise QB in the draft.

Example: Your team consistently has mid-round (~#16ish) picks with fluke years that are drastically higher/lower. 

Question 2: Do you think you can replace your QB every ~5ish years in the draft and eventually get to a superbowl? 

 

This scenario is a thing? 

Sincerely,

Washington Football Team fan.

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It's a weird position. Especially look at Washington. More than likely, the best QB we've had in the last 25+ years is Kirk Cousins. As awful as that is, and the perspective of what he has done for the Chargers, you're almost thinking "well it's a good thing you didn't pay him". Yeah well, we went out and paid Alex Smith similarly. And statistically, he wasn't great (even if he has been winning more often than not - scenario 3). We've had bust after bust of drafted QBs and also had has beens come through who have been anywhere from awful to serviceable but never good enough (Keenum, Brunell, McNabb, George, etc). If you truly believe you have a franchise QB on your hands, you have to pay him. Is/was that Cousins? No. Should we have paid him though? I can't say. I do believe we would have waltzed into the playoffs in the East this year with him though with hindsight being what it is. 

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The formula to Superbowl success in the NFL for the last 10 years is pretty well documented.

Option 1 - find a franchise QB in the draft you pay peanuts to.  Spend the rest of the money to build a championship team around him.  You have about a 3 year window before the bill comes due.

Option 2 - have a transcendent talent at QB that you are paying boatloads of cash eat up 15+% of your cap space.  Be able to draft well enough consistently enough that you are only paying 3 or 4 other guys on the team market value.  Much longer overall window but everything really has to break right in a given year to have a real shot at winning it all, bc you lack continuity on the rest of the team with all the moving parts.

 

What's tricky is when option 1 becomes option 2.  You have to figure out if that guy is capable of consistently winning when the rest of the team is in flux.  There are probably 5 or 6 guys who the answer is yes.  At some point soon, some smart GM is going to figure that out and stop paying QBs and just keep finding new ones in the draft to keep the window open longer.  My hunch is we will see baltimore be the first to let their franchise guy walk after the 5th year.

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