NFL 2010

[jon abbey]

Sorry, I just don't understand what you're saying here.

Jericho Cotchery is your oldest skill player on offense at 28. Edwards, Holmes, Keller, and Sanchez are all younger than that.

Your secondary is one of the youngest, and most talented in the league. Comartie is the grandfather of that crew at 26. Revis and Pool are both younger than that, and from what little I saw of Wilson this year he shows a lot of promise.

The front seven is older, but how old was the front seven of the Pats when they finally won it all?

I suppose you're being a little bit harder on the team because you're a fan, but it seems as though you're missing the bigger picture here. This is indeed a young and promising team.

Edwards/Holmes/Cromartie are all free agents as I said, let's see how many of them are actually back. and Wilson looked more like a bust than a potential quality starter, I'm pretty sure Drew Coleman is still ahead of him on the depth chart.

[Mo Noyz]

Whoever they don't keep will only serve to free up cap money for the Jets to replace them with a comparable player.

They were very aggressive this last off season, I have no reason to believe they won't continue to be.

Don't be so down on them, jon. A team that is already this close isn't going to just piss it all away.

[jon abbey]

the thing is they've put themselves in a difficult cap position, that's my point. I'm not down on them at all, I'm just saying we have no idea which of all of those guys will be back, let's see who they actually manage to find the money to pay. anyway, I started an offseason thread.

[Mo Noyz]

And to think, four months ago I claimed the Jets would go 10-6 and miss the playoffs and you were good with that.

I thought they'd take a step backwards, and you agreed.

They didn't.

Now look, I'm left talking you off the ledge...

[jon abbey]

I'm not on any ledge, look at the facts in the other thread. that's what I'm talking about.

[Enforcer]

Packers are 3 pt favorites, which seems about right.

Not to me. I think Pittsburgh is more likely to win it.

[crawjo]

Btw fuck Jay Cutler; unless he had a torn ACL/MCL he's a choking dog.

The guy got hit/sacked more than just about any QB in the league, and he kept coming back all season. I'm pretty confident that the reason he wasn't on the field was a torn MCL. ESPN Radio just had on a former player who had a torn MCL, and he said when you have that injury, icing it doesn't do any good, and you don't need crutches, so all you can do is stand there and watch. I'm with Gordon in that I hate this macho attitude that NFL players have where they think they should be out on the field regardless of their physical condition. Hanie almost certainly gave the Bears the best chance to win that game. Cutler going back out there in order to protect his reputation and to look as tough as possible would have been the most selfish thing he could have possibly done.

[crawjo]

I don't think Roethlisberger is one of the best three QBs in the game, but he's ideal for the style of play Pittsburgh has.

[Mo Noyz]

I don't think there's any question left that he is. He does what is asked of him, he's possibly the best in the pocket I've ever seen, is just short of having gone to the Superbowl for 50% of his career, has the second best playoff winning% of all time behind only Bart Starr, and in two weeks could possibly have three times the rings Peyton Manning Does.

He's not flashy, and his stats are mundane at best, but he wins.

Period.

He makes the most incredible play at the exact moment he needs to.

Montana never had to carry the team on his back and never had gaudy numbers either. And he had a far superior cast around him.

Where do we rank him?

[blackandlow]

[crawjo]

I don't think there's any question left that he is. He does what is asked of him, he's possibly the best in the pocket I've ever seen, is just short of having gone to the Superbowl for 50% of his career, has the second best playoff winning% of all time behind only Bart Starr, and in two weeks could possibly have three times the rings Peyton Manning Does.

He's not flashy, and his stats are mundane at best, but he wins.

Period.

He makes the most incredible play at the exact moment he needs to.

Montana never had to carry the team on his back and never had gaudy numbers either. And he had a far superior cast around him.

Where do we rank him?

So then which out of Manning, Brady, and Rodgers (not to mention Brees and Rivers) is he better than? I just don't agree because he's always had very, very good defenses playing the other side of the ball for him, and he's always had a strong running game. You know way more about this than I do, but the reason he's able to make all those plays at the end of games is because the defense holds up its end of the bargain. In the second half yesterday the Steelers put up zero points, when one more touchdown likely would have iced it. If the Jets just run the ball up the gut three times when they had it at the 1-yard line in the 4th quarter, we might be having a very different conversation. But instead they tried some pass plays, the defense stopped the Jets on fourth down, and the Jets weren't able to get enough possessions to come back.

I don't deny that he's able to make plays when he needs to, but as I remember it Montana came up huge in the biggest games of his life. Blowout win over the Dolphins and Broncos in the Super Bowl. I've never seen that kind of dominance from Roethlisberger.

[Mo Noyz]

Dominance? What does that matter?

If I've got a QB leading my team with three rings, I'm pretty fucking happy.

What about Brady's dominance? He didn't kick all of those clutch field goals, did he?

Look, all this time weren't we lead to believe Montana was the superior QB over Marino? Well, how many 4,000+ yd seasons did he have? How many records did he break? and he played with the best WR in the history of the game. I guess everyone has their own way of measuring the greatness of a QB, but give me a cat that is 10-2 when it really counts.

BTW, you talk about coming up big when it counts? Compare number of rings, and playoff winning % between Roethlisberger and all those other QBs you mentioned.

Also, if great defenses were the only requirement for QBs to win rings, then folks like Steve DeBerg, the Ravens QB du jour, Philip Rivers, etc. would have lots of them.

The 49ers had dominating defenses during their run, but we never talk about that.

There's a lot that goes into winning it all. Mediocre QBs aren't one of them. Aside from Dilfer I can't think of another mediocre QB that ever won it all. Especially multiple times.

[Mo Noyz]

Oh, and to answer your original question from that post, I'd put Roethlisberger along side Brady and Manning. Each being on that level for different reasons.

Rodgers and Rivers would be the next tier down. Both are really good, but haven't proven anything yet.

[Captain Hate]

Comparing individuals in a team game is an exercise in failure. They're all part of a system and no matter how well they play within it are still subject to how well the system works. Rapethisfurburger looked pretty terrible in the second half yesterday (particularly on the Poole interception which Simms witlessly tried to take him off the hook for) but he still came up with a clutch third down play to ice the game. Sanchez did a good job of coming back from a first half in which all his teammates played horribly but couldn't make it all the way back and was hampered by some absolutely witless playcalling by Brian Schottenheimer; the same Schottenheimer that was pretty fucking good in the second half otherwise.

Maybe I've been too rough on Cutler yesterday but he was just terrible; there's no getting around some of the overthrows when Hester was wide open are not what wins games. Maybe that's partially due to the conditions but that's what fuckheads Tagliabue and Goodell have brought us and how players, rightly or otherwise, are evaluated on.

[Mo Noyz]

Comparing individuals in a team game is an exercise in failure.

Yeah, but it's a lot of fun though.

[Harold Baines]

My perception is that Forte isn't a strong runner, but he looked very good out of the backfield today.

C'mon. The guy had 1,600 combined yards -- after not being used much at all the first six games -- and he's hard to take down. 547 receiving yards.

[Mo Noyz]

He did finally bring his average up this year. But, he broke the century mark on the ground three whole times this year. I love him as a receiver out of the backfield, but he's an average runner out of the backfield.

Still a dangerous weapon, no question. But, more in the mold of, say, Marshall Faulk. The time he spends between the tackles should be limited.

[Harold Baines]

Sprained MCL for Cutler. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/f ... index.html

[Mo Noyz]

Things just went from bad to worse for that cat.

I definitely wouldn't defend the players who have been trashing him because if I got a fucking splinter in my finger I'd take my uniform off and go home and whine the rest of the night. But, a lot of players have played with sprained MCLs before.

From all accounts it was a decision made by the trainers and medical staff to keep him out of the rest of the game. Either way, he's not going to hear the end of this for a long time.

[surfer]

That was an awful performance by Cutler in the first half, like Alex Smith level bad. If I was a Bears fan, I'd be happy he got knocked out / took himself out / was taken out. As DuPre fils said, "We shouldve started Hanie." Even if he was healthy, he didnt look like he had "it".