What's a Football take that has you like this?

[ET80]

4 minutes ago, FrantikRam said:

I'll also say that Watts 2014 season was better than any of ADs seasons, but when you factor in everything AD was the better player

Everything as in... What? Career?

I'll concede that Donald has more years of dominant play (mostly due to injury to Watt - two serious back injuries will do that) but from 2012 to 2015, JJ Watt had a four year run that can't be matched by Aaron Donald, by any possible metric.

 

[FrantikRam]

12 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Everything as in... What? Career?

I'll concede that Donald has more years of dominant play (mostly due to injury to Watt - two serious back injuries will do that) but from 2012 to 2015, JJ Watt had a four year run that can't be matched by Aaron Donald, by any possible metric.

 

 

They play two different positions, so I don't think you can conclude one way or another because of the double teams. I'd have to dig into both and look at the circumstances to really formulate a solid opinion. For example: Donald is doubled more and it's almost always a C/G or G/T - when Watt was double teamed, was it ever by a TE? That would be another difference that would have to be accounted for.

I haven't watched Watt as much as you have obviously, but I've never seen a defensive player as dominant as AD, and many people refer to him as the best overall player in the NFL, which has been rare for a defensive player.

But at the end of the day - I don't have the ammo go refute your claim so I'll just agree to disagree

[DontTazeMeBro]

Eric DeCosta so far has been an awful GM.

[INbengalfan]

On 4/10/2021 at 10:32 AM, BigTrav said:

I don't know how the GM and Head Coaches of The Browns, Bears, 49ers, Jags, Titans, Jets, Chargers, Panthers and Bengals kept their jobs beyond 2018

Marvin Lewis left after 2018.  The de-facto GM also is the owner.  So  you can eliminate the Bengals from that list

[Uncle Buck]

18 hours ago, Forge said:

In terms of career production dominance, there's hard to find anyone that is as dominant as Wayne. He was great and had the good fortune of health. That wasn't the case for Mario. @beekay414 and I could probably write you a book on how absurd Mario was. Wayne is the great one, Mario is the Magnificent One. 

Bottom line is, he was snakebit a little by the era, as the mid 90's and early 2000's ushered in new defensive hockey, better goalies and bigger goalie equipment. More importantly, Mario was just betrayed by his body, though I think he was every bit as good as Wayne. 

They said that by the end of his 4th season, he couldn't even tie his skates on his own any more (keep in mind, he was 22 at this point). He had to have multiple surgeries for herniated discs. By 25, he had developed Vertebral Osteomyelitis. By 28, he was diagnosed with Cancer in the middle of possibly the most dominant season in NHL history. Later in his career he developed an irregular heartbeat.  He once scored 45 points in 10 games and I can't even begin to put that into a comparison with football. At 37, he averaged 1.36 ppg. It was the second highest in the NHL lol. Even last year, that still would have been the 4th highest.  To do that at 37 was preposterous (there were 5 30 year olds who average 1 ppg last year, and non were older than 33 and only one averaged close to 1.36).  And he was doing that in an age .906 save percentages. The last time Wayne came close to that was age 35 in an era of .896 save percentages, and the last time he actually topped it was at 33, when the save percentage was .893. 

Hockey was robbed by not have a fully healthy Super Mario. 

I believe you, Forge.  As I said, I've heard a number of people who said similar things about Mario.  His story kind of reminds me of major league baseball pitcher Sandy Koufax.  He was truly dominant, but only for a short stretch of time, and I think health issues cut his career short too.  It's a shame the fans were robbed of so much with both of these guys. 

[Uncle Buck]

13 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

Last year, I basically said that I wasn't buying into Lamar's hype because it had only been one year and I gave my reasons for it, and I got absolutely bombarded by a few Ravens fans throwing themselves out the window because of it.

 

I don't want to be too hard on Ravens fans because they do have a point.  It seems like a lot of people are of the mindset that if a quarterback is great at running with the ball, he is probably not too good at passing.  I think the reason for it is because that has usually been the case throughout the history of the league.  About the only old school QB I can think of who was really capable in both areas was Randall Cunningham. 

It seems like people don't want to give guys like Lamar Jackson credit for being a competent passer unless they are the second coming of Patrick Mahomes with their arms.  I have to admit to being guilty of writing him off too early myself.  His passing wasn't as good as his rushing, so when he first got into the league, I just assumed that he was more of a Michael Vick type.  He has since proven to be better than that.  He isn't an elite passer by any means, and maybe Ravens fans are a little too sensitive when they hear that, but overall, Lamar is a VERY effective quarterback overall when you look at both aspects of his game.

[Billy86]

In the same way that QBs of the last 15-20 years shoukd be handicapped when looking at GOATs in a position, the reverse should be true for DBs. Charles Woodson, Ed Reed, Polamalu and Champ Bailey are all probably top 5-8 all time DBs. 

[DannyB]

I understand that the top-end talent gets all of the attention, and rightfully so, but championship teams are just as much, if not moreso, about how not-sucky your worst players (that still see regular playing time)/depth pieces are than how good your best players are.

Which leads me to a take I've had for a decade, which I've never been disproven on, but can also never be proven:

Atlanta trading up to get Julio Jones on draft day wasn't worth it.

It has nothing to do with Julio, who I absolutely adore and would be my choice for best WR of the '10s, but I think they missed a chance to fill out their roster and raise the overall water level of talent on the team. If Matt Ryan is/was as good as Falcons fans said he was, then a true, elite, apex WR like that is a luxury. If they instead had added depth or another pretty good starter or two instead, and upgraded a couple bottom pieces from "dreadfully terrible" to "not great but kinda semi-okay at least", it may have changed their fortunes.

I get that this is completely theoretical or hypothetical or whatever. I'm not trying to change any Falcons fan's mind because when you get a pretty that freaking good, you happily go with it, and lord knows that FO had plenty of other opportunities to improve in other areas.

That said...it's still something I believe.

[RayLew52]

6 hours ago, DontTazeMeBro said:

Eric DeCosta so far has been an awful GM.

That's bait!! I'm not taking it 😁

[Bucketheadsdad]

Gonna catch a lot of heat for this.

While I love my Cleveland Browns, I think Australian Rules Football is a superior game.  

A combination of Am. Football, rugby, soccer, volleyball, cross-country running, mixed-martial arts, gymnastics and calculus.  

.....and I've been a Browns fan for over half a century.

 

[JAF-N72EX]

On 4/11/2021 at 6:29 PM, Uncle Buck said:

I don't want to be too hard on Ravens fans because they do have a point.  It seems like a lot of people are of the mindset that if a quarterback is great at running with the ball, he is probably not too good at passing.  I think the reason for it is because that has usually been the case throughout the history of the league.  About the only old school QB I can think of who was really capable in both areas was Randall Cunningham. 

It seems like people don't want to give guys like Lamar Jackson credit for being a competent passer unless they are the second coming of Patrick Mahomes with their arms.  I have to admit to being guilty of writing him off too early myself.  His passing wasn't as good as his rushing, so when he first got into the league, I just assumed that he was more of a Michael Vick type.  He has since proven to be better than that.  He isn't an elite passer by any means, and maybe Ravens fans are a little too sensitive when they hear that, but overall, Lamar is a VERY effective quarterback overall when you look at both aspects of his game.

Well I can't speak for others, but that's not my mindset at all.  But I do get your point because the notion that Lamar is only a RB has damn near became a meme at this point.

My mindset has nothing to do with the past. My mindset is that it generally takes more than one good year from a QB to convince me that he's the real deal (just like it takes more than 1 bad year).  Unless they are undeniably good/bad on either end of the spectrum then I generally give them 3 years before truly judging them. And you can call it old school or whatever, but I still believe in giving QBs 5 years to truly see what they can do but only IF they give me a reason to after the first 3 years.  Now admittedly that may be an outdated thought process, but it is what is. 

There have been far too many examples of fans/media anointing players (especially QBs) after one good year only for them fall back down to earth, and that's all I was saying in that same thread I posted.  I wasn't holding Lamar to any other standard than I do with any other QB in the league but Ravens fans took it as total disrespect just because I wasn't immediately sold on him and that's the point I was making.

It seems like you can't say ANYTHING about Lamar unless you're grovelling at his feet without getting unwarranted backlash for it and that's when it gets annoying.  See that AngusBeefMartyMcFly's response, or whatever his name, as an example.  All I did was post an example as to what I was referring to and here come the Ravens fan out the woodwork to tell me I'm stupid for saying anything negative.  Hell, you can't even say anything neutral about Lamar.  The example thread I gave on the last page is another perfect example of this.

I said, verbatim, in that same thread I posted earlier;
--it's even more garbage to claim that I am somehow downplaying Lamar when this is literally the very first time I have ever commented about him whatsoever on here in the last 2 years. And the only negative thing I said was that he was a trash QB last year, and even said the situation wasn't the best either.

https://forums.footballsfuture.com/topic/22992-is-lamar-jackson-already-better-than-atlanta-vick-ever-was/?do=findComment&comment=2575760

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not only singling out Ravens fans here because every fan base have these same type of homers who do the very same crap. Every fan base have these 5 types of fans;

• Overly Optimistic: (Homers--Their team does nothing wrong and are SB bound every year)
• Optimistic:  (Will try to see the good in everything)
• Neutral:  (Balanced type who sees both good and bad and has no problem pointing either out)
• Pessimist:  (Will only see the good in something when they have no choice but to accept it)

Overly Pessimistic: (Nothing the organization can do will ever make these people happy)

If you're a fan of the team/player being discussed then you have to be able to separate the differences between criticism and "haters" and have the ability to weed out them out.  Just the same as neutral fans have to be able to learn to separate the differences between who is being a homer and who isn't when it comes to opinions.

 

 

[JAF-N72EX]

On 4/11/2021 at 11:49 AM, AngusMcFife said:

The issue with Lamar haters is that their football analysis is so bad, its probable that there's something else going on that is driving their opinion. Because honestly I don't know if people can be that stupid. 

So your personal opinion about Lamar is the only one that's correct and anyone who offers a different opinion is stupid because you don't agree with it. Gotcha.

Since opinions from us plebs are not worthy of your reading time then I'll be sure to alert the media and tell them to defer to AngusBeefMartyMcFly from now on.

On 4/11/2021 at 11:49 AM, AngusMcFife said:

its probable that there's something else going on that is driving their opinion.

Kind of like you being a Ravens is not driving YOUR opinion...

So back to the original point.

Quote

Ravens fans tend to be a little overly sensitive when it comes to their quarterback. 

Congratulations Angus, you only further proved our point here. Great job.

What's a Football take that has you like this?

 

Edited April 13, 2021 by JAF-N72EX

[ThatJaxxenGuy]

10 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

 

It seems like you can't say ANYTHING about Lamar unless you're grovelling at his feet without getting unwarranted backlash for it and that's when it gets annoying.  
 

Hell, you can't even say anything neutral about Lamar.

 

 

I get what you’re saying about getting your opinion disparaged as stupid because unfortunately that approach to different opiniions rears it’s head all over this website and really takes away from discussion, however this part I’ve quoted here is really disingenuous when it takes 5 posts into this topic to play FF’s favourite game: “Lamar Bad”.

However I’m of the opinion that it’s not Ravens fans that are are too sensitive about Lamar, it’s that sports fans in general like to correct takes they disagree with especially when it pertains to their team. The reason you see so many Ravens fan come out of the woodwork so often is simply because Lamar is on the Ravens and discussions about him are framed as him being terrible more often than any other star player in the league. 

my main issue is that the take that “Lamar is terrible” is so common on FF and in NFL media that it really doesn’t belong in this thread. you can think he’s not good, I don’t really care about that beside feeling bad for people who get their panties in a knot over incredibly entertaining football, but just don’t pretend it’s some brave and unpopular take because the “trololol Lamar can’t throw” kids are overwhelmingly the loudest voice in any discussion on Lamar Jackson and should be the source of the blame for derailing any thoughtful conversation rather than Ravens fans who wish to counter it.
 

also you’ve raised  Ravens fans who want “grovelling at the feet” which is a major stretch for what I see as most of my discussions about Lamar on this site boil down to me saying “I actually don’t think he’s objectively terrible”. I’ve never seen anyone say Lamar needs to be worshipped I just see a lot of impatience with lazy “he’s trash no further comment” takes. (ALthough you will see in other threads that Ranking Lamar worse than nobodies like Joe Burrow is admittedly a trigger for Ravens fans, because after years of hearing our guy isn't good because he might get injured it stings when a guy who couldn't even survive a whole season is somehow better than a unanimous mvp)
 

we can all disagree, but to frame this as being about Ravens fans who want grovelling at the feet of Lamar because we consistently share that we disagree with “lol he’s turrible and trash” is pretty disingenuous. 

Edited April 13, 2021 by ThatJaxxenGuy

[Coffee & Contemplation]

Payton's surprise on-side kick after halftime was not this crazy, insane, super risky play.

They were only down by 4, and they wagered going down by 7 or 11 vs. stealing a possession against a team that would not have predicted the play at all. Even down by 11, you're not out of the game at all if there's still almost a full half to play.

I'm not saying there was no risk; it was a gamble. But I think that play gets more credit because of the stage it was on, and the fact that they won.

[CKSteeler]

4 hours ago, Coffee & Contemplation said:

Payton's surprise on-side kick after halftime was not this crazy, insane, super risky play.

They were only down by 4, and they wagered going down by 7 or 11 vs. stealing a possession against a team that would not have predicted the play at all. Even down by 11, you're not out of the game at all if there's still almost a full half to play.

I'm not saying there was no risk; it was a gamble. But I think that play gets more credit because of the stage it was on, and the fact that they won.

Payton ripped off Bill Cowher with that, anyway. Cowher was the king of trick plays in his day.