RolStoppable said:
amp316 said:
You might have something when it comes to defenses starting slowly due to the lockout. They looked awful at the begining of the year. How hard defenders are allowed to hit QBs does influence passing yards though. I will give the example of the NFC Championship game last year, since I know that you watched that one. The first two drives Aaron Rodgers wen right through the Bears like they weren't even there. He took a lick when scoring the second TD by Walt Harris and then another one from Julius Peppers starting the next drive. After that, Aaron Rodgers played woefully and the Packers didn't score another point because of him. Cooincidence? I think not. Bumps and bruises not only physically slow a guy down, but getting hit hit after or during a play HARD makes a QB think every time that he throws the ball. Also, it's not just after the ball is thrown. Now when a player sacks a QB, there are instructions on how to do it. Warren Sapp was demonstrating on I believe Inside the NFL ealier the season how this works. Now a defender cannot drive a QB to the ground backward forcefully or even land on top of him without being flagged. Now you have to grab the QB with two arms and roll sideways with your butt hitting first in order to cushion the blow.
The reason that the best QBs in the league are throwing for a ridiculous number of yards is the rule changes. Sorry Rol. Just a few years ago a QB couldn't drop back and throw every play without getting killed. Why? When a guy would drop back every play they would blitz the crap out of him and when he was brought down it didn't have to be like a carton of eggs. Football always has been a physical game and now it isn't for QBs and it's also getting that way for WRs. It used to be that if a WR went over the middle for a pass he had to fear for his life. Not so much anymore. Why? Now a defensive back has to worry about his helmet touching the WRs inadvertently which is an automatic 15 yards regardless of the intent. This causes them to let up. The only skill position that isn't protected now is the RB. It's pretty obvious that the NFL wants more scoring and doesn't care about defense anymore because the "casual" fan doesn't. Sad really.
I'll agree with you that the mediocre QBs are very mediocre. Why? Right now we have an overall crappy group of QBs, besides for the elite ones. Granted now the QBs overall are better than they were in the late 90's, but it's not even a comparison which group was better, now or the 80's. No disrespect to the four guys mentioned, but I'd take Marino, Elway, Montana, Fouts, and Moon (pick four of these five) as a group over them. Brady is an all time great QB that belongs with them and Brees is approaching that status, but Rodger is early in his career and still needs to play a lot longer to be an all time great and Eli Manning is very good (but that's about it). People were calling for his head up until this year. Could you imagine Dan Marino playing the 1984 season under these rules? The guy would have thrown for 6,000 yards. A comparison of the second tier of QBs between the 80s and present is laughable. Bernie Kosar, Neil Lomax, Dave Kreig, and Jim Kelly were all better than Matt Ryan or Matt Schaub. I could argue that one of the backups at the time (Steve Young) was as good as anyone playing now including Brady. So please don't give me that there are more great QBs playing now then ever. Sure, you show me stats that indicate otherwise but back then QBs were allowed to be hit and hit hard.
The rules have made this a pass happy league.
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Now that you mention it, I think I've briefly heard of that QB sacking rule in one of the previous weeks. Pretty much everything you say sounds convincing and I really can't draw a fair comparison between all those QBs, because I've never seen those old ones play. Well, I did see Marino and Elway when they were on their way out. Marino was already past his peak though, but Elway ended his career with two Super Bowl wins.
I wonder how Tebow would play when confronted with the rules of the '80s. He struggles to get to 50 % completion with the current rules...
Speaking of which, I checked the stats of Sunday's game at the end of the third quarter and Tebow was like 3/15. I guess you watched the entire game. Did you see some sort of divine intervention in the fourth quarter?
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Well Tebow is a lot more sturdy than some of these others QBs playing these days so the rules woudn't be completly at his disadvantage.
And to be fair, today's rules are a lot more applied when sacking Brady or Aaron Rodgers than others QBs. ( case in point, referee missing face mask on Vikings QB this week end).
Like someone already said, Denvers receivers dropped 4 pass in the first 3 quarters.
And by now everyone watching the Broncos or the Cowboys should know that the only meaninfull part of their game is in the 4th quarter...
No matter what happens the first 3 quarters, you know that if the game is close, the Broncos will win, and the Cowboys will loose...
