Robert and Cam are better than Tom and Peyton, but...

[Burgold]

[/COLOR]I would accept your conclusion if this same problem wasn't prevalent on all the threads in this forum. If it's too much trouble for you to read the OP, then don't post.

If you read Post 2, kleese understood me just fine. So did others.

Ah, so you're going with the "you're wrong" theory. I gave two possibilities for the mass disagreement. You were unclear or people think you're wrong. Since you dismiss the idea that you were unclear, clearly, people read your post and reasoning and disagree with it.

Truth is, your theory has a large gaping hole in it and as such can only be partially useful at best. It's looking at the gas consumption of a car without including the impact of wind, grade of the road, maintanance, how much weight the car is carrying, traffic density, etc. You're choosing the few categories that you can visibly see and disregarding everything that happens on the practice field, in the study room, or the even more ephemeral intangibles that occur on the field.

You even dismiss the notion that some qbs seem to be better at finishing off games or rallying their team... stating repeatedly that they actually aren't but that the behavior is just part of their average play and we just attribute it to end of the game, but that doesn't take into account that at the end of the game when the it's on the line the qb is liklier to take greater risks, concentrate harder, etc. Play isn't a constant and neither is effort.

Your rating system which you've admitted is incomplete is incomplete and that's why I and others so strenuously disagree with you. It's why sometimes more gifted quarterbacks perform worse on the same team with the same coaches under the same game conditions. The human element does count and needs to be factored in.

And perhaps that explains why the "athlete" qb has won so many fewer championships than the pocket passer.

[Captain Injury]

Addressing OP for hopefully useful clarity moving forward. For background, I am an educator, athletic trainer, and strength and conditioning specialist. I have trained athletes at the NFL level, and am used to academia where vetting assertions is common. I've used the Quotes to better format my input, but taken the name out of the quote because some of them are paraphrased.

{Metaphor = QB, Driver... Team, Car. Insinuates the team assists or hinders QBs ability to be evaluated.

It's a good metaphor

Statement: Quarterback rating is ineffective at measuring Quarterback play only.

[Good point.]

Statement: I grade QBs on the tangible evidence, the things I can see him do with his arm and his legs.

["Tangible Evidence" is drastically underdefined as such and this is leading to a lot of confusion. You need to present WHAT you mean and HOW is it to be judged and assessed. Remember that tangible things can be measured, but you've championed no measurements, so you've championed objective assessment versus subjective, but your definition of those objective measurables is subjective, which is rhetorically smart, but misleading.]

Paraphrased Statement: I ignore the intangibles because they can't be seen and graded with any accuracy. Furthermore, there are no impartial experts on the intangibles.

[Again, WHAT are the specific quarterbacking qualities you are discounting? You should list them for clarity in the OP. If you include an aspect of play in the "intangibles" category defined as such, you need to make sure they can't be 1) seen with accuracy, or 2) graded with accuracy, as you state. To do that, they must be at least listed clearly.]

Statement: Coaches and other affiliates are poor judges of subjective qualities because they are never impartial.

[Paraphrased. It's a great point.]

Statement: "Since I don't grade QBs on team accomplishments, I'm unimpressed by championships, MVPs, and I think the Hall of Fame is a crock. And, since I grade on tangible skill-sets and not on team accomplishments, I have Chad Pennington on a par with Bart Starr and Joe Montana -- all had very accurate but weak arms.

[At this point you need to clarifiy what a "tangible skill-set" is, which you haven't done besides the extremely vague "things i can see him do with his arms and legs." Your point that the supporting cast greatly affects the "success" of a QB is well stated and defined.]

Statement: I group QBs into "pocket passers" and "QB-athletes." Cam Newton and RG3 are QB-athletes. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are pocket passers. I rank the athletic QBs higher than pocket passers because they are more valuable weapons. They can beat you with both their arm and their legs. Against the same opponent, the pocket passers need more support to win.

[It would help to include a metric by which you decide who is an "athlete" and who is a "pocket passer." Also, "valuable" is a term that is not easily defined, or well defined here. Using your own metaphor, it is reasonable that a different type of driver is better for a different type of race vehicle. Defined as you have with "can beat you with both arm and legs" it would seem "versatile" is the term you meant, but versatility does not account for magnitude of effectiveness.]

Statement: So, if the goal is to win championships, is it better to draft a pocket passer or an athlete quarterback? This is not an easy question to answer. I waver back and forth on it. Even though they have less value compared to the athletes, pocket passers can be found as draft bargains; they have much longer careers; leg injuries don't limit their effectiveness; and they miss fewer games because of injury.

[Statement is that OP wavers on whether he finds one style of QB more effective than another. As a Strength and Conditioning Specialist, I feel obligated to offer that leg injuries DO have profound effects on less mobile athletes' efficetiveness, but a metric for analyzing that would be needed from the OP for it to be arguable.]

Statement: There's a Catch 22 involved with the athletes. The more you use their legs in your scheme, the more they are worth. But, the more you use their legs, the greater the risk of injury.

[This is conceptually solid, but very vaguely stated because there is no metric, and unhelpful if posters are to referr back to the OP whenever you deem them incorrect.]

Oldfan, I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with your premise. In fact, it's very well done as a debate piece because it is defendable since you provide virtually no metric by which you request your points be judged or debated. The friction in this thread stems from the contradiciton between "only using tangibles and ignoring intangibles" and the lack of any chosen metrics in the OP. If you are to consistently refer opposing viewpoints to the OP there needs to be a better stated assertion IN THE OP. Again, it's a great conversation piece, but if you are to field arguments and refuse criticism, there has to be much more in the way of objective information and chosen measurables from the OP.

---------- Post added October-7th-2012 at 10:57 AM ----------

Interesting. He accuses me of being vague, but doesn't give examples or specifics.

I'll bet he can't.

That's antagonistic and pretty unnecessary.

[Oldfan]

Ah, so you're going with the "you're wrong" theory. I gave two possibilities for the mass disagreement. You were unclear or people think you're wrong. Since you dismiss the idea that you were unclear, clearly, people read your post and reasoning and disagree with it.

Truth is, your theory has a large gaping hole in it and as such can only be partially useful at best. It's looking at the gas consumption of a car without including the impact of wind, grade of the road, maintanance, how much weight the car is carrying, traffic density, etc. You're choosing the few categories that you can visibly see and disregarding everything that happens on the practice field, in the study room, or the even more ephemeral intangibles that occur on the field.

You even dismiss the notion that some qbs seem to be better at finishing off games or rallying their team... stating repeatedly that they actually aren't but that the behavior is just part of their average play and we just attribute it to end of the game, but that doesn't take into account that at the end of the game when the it's on the line the qb is liklier to take greater risks, concentrate harder, etc. Play isn't a constant and neither is effort.

Your rating system which you've admitted is incomplete is incomplete and that's why I and others so strenuously disagree with you. It's why sometimes more gifted quarterbacks perform worse on the same team with the same coaches under the same game conditions. The human element does count and needs to be factored in.

And perhaps that explains why the "athlete" qb has won so many fewer championships than the pocket passer.

1) I was not unclear about my position on intangibles. If I had said the intangibles don't matter, then throwing Jeff George out there would be relevant. From the OP:

I grade QBs on the tangible evidence, the things I can see him do with his arm and his legs. I ignore the intangibles because they can't be seen and graded with any accuracy.

Kleese understood. In Post 2, he said: "I understand your premise.... We can't "measure" leadership or toughness or clutchness like we can arm strength, speed, etc. so rather than "guess" let's focus on what we know."

2) That most disagree with me isn't surprising, but who gives a damn? Most fans haven't given much thought to the game. They jump on media-generated bandwagons for their opinions.

3) I have given you my reasoning on such things as being clutch in final drives. If you don't agree, that's fine.

[Captain Injury]

Interesting. He accuses me of being vague, but doesn't give examples or specifics.

I'll bet he can't.

Betting is fine. I've reviewd your OP above and it doesn't contain unnecessary assumptions on your ability. Please refrain.

---------- Post added October-7th-2012 at 11:13 AM ----------

So, Oldfan, for even more clarity on my part: the issue is that your OP doesn't include specific metrics for the conversation but that you ask people who disagree to be specific. Specific rebuttal to unspecific claim is a quagmire.

We need:

1) The specific measurables and metrics you consider to be tangbile and worthy.
2) The specific measurables and metrics you consider to be intangible and unworthy.
3) A Claim that is made based upon those specifics, I.E. "Arm strength, measured by maximum distance the ball can be thrown standing, and Speed, measured by 40-yard dash time, are better indicators of QB value, measured as WINS in a new QBs season versus WINS in the previous encumbant's last season (or whatever) than, say, Hall of Fame induction or Pro Bowl consideration.

Then, it can be researched and proven or disproven, rather than argued around.

---------- Post added October-7th-2012 at 11:32 AM ----------

Hey, so I haven't seen anything more on this thread in a while. I've got to go to the bar to watch the game. Keep in mind I was never arguing your premise. I think it's interesting. I'm trying to provide tools so that you can be understood more clearly and we can get out of the circular stuff.

Have a great afternoon guys! HTTR!

[jgbkab1]

In another thread, some posters ranked Robert as the number one QB in the league up to this point. However, Robert is only ranked number one in QB rushing yards (which is a RB stat). Poise, leadership, "IT" factor, etc are some of the reasons given. The same case that fans of other teams can give for their QB. If you use these factors as your measuring stick, you can't objectively prove the true number one.

I don't necessarily dismiss intangibles from the discussion, but added to tangible stats gives your argument a more solid foundation.

[Jumbo]

Excellent post in every way, shape, and form Capt Injury. That comment has zero to do with my own views on the topic. And whatever else they do, OF threads inevitably prompt some very meaty and worthwhile football discussion.

[Oldfan]

..."Tangible Evidence" is drastically underdefined as such and this is leading to a lot of confusion. You need to present WHAT you mean and HOW is it to be judged and assessed. Remember that tangible things can be measured, but you've championed no measurements, so you've championed objective assessment versus subjective, but your definition of those objective measurables is subjective, which is rhetorically smart, but misleading.

This comment would be fair if I were writing a scholarly article; but I wrote for an internet forum and members with a short attention span. Since this is a football forum, most readers are at least somewhat familiar with the way scouts evaluate the QB's tangibles. Furthermore, how I do it personally is not relevant to the argument I wanted to make.

Again, WHAT are the specific quarterbacking qualities you are discounting? You should list them for clarity in the OP. If you include an aspect of play in the "intangibles" category defined as such, you need to make sure they can't be 1) seen with accuracy, or 2) graded with accuracy, as you state. To do that, they must be at least listed clearly.

If I were writing an article, I would have done that. But, in a thread there's an opportunity to clarify such things during the discussion that follows. For example, I later clarified that intelligence was a measurable exception to my general statement.

At this point you need to clarifiy what a "tangible skill-set" is, which you haven't done besides the extremely vague "things i can see him do with his arms and legs."

Point taken. I should have done that.

It would help to include a metric by which you decide who is an "athlete" and who is a "pocket passer."

I thought the QB examples I gave made that clear.

Also, "valuable" is a term that is not easily defined, or well defined here. Using your own metaphor, it is reasonable that a different type of driver is better for a different type of race vehicle. Defined as you have with "can beat you with both arm and legs" it would seem "versatile" is the term you meant, but versatility does not account for magnitude of effectiveness.

I didn't mean "vesatile" but that line might have been worded better.

Statement is that OP wavers on whether he finds one style of QB more effective than another. As a Strength and Conditioning Specialist, I feel obligated to offer that leg injuries DO have profound effects on less mobile athletes' efficetiveness, but a metric for analyzing that would be needed from the OP for it to be arguable.

Why would a metric be needed when drawing a direct comparison between two types? Isn't it clear enough when I lead the reader to the common sense idea that the more a QB depends on his legs, the greater concern we have for the degradation of his performance from a leg injury?

Oldfan, I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with your premise. In fact, it's very well done as a debate piece because it is defendable since you provide virtually no metric by which you request your points be judged or debated.

I don't know what you mean by providing a metric. I presented an argument. Readers were able to debate the premises and the conclusion. Could you provide an example of what you are calling a "metric."

That's antagonistic and pretty unnecessary.

I thought it was necessary to provoke you into challenging me as you have rather than dropping one citical paragraph and running. Your contribution has made this a better thread.

---------- Post added October-7th-2012 at 12:48 PM ----------

...So, Oldfan, for even more clarity on my part: the issue is that your OP doesn't include specific metrics for the conversation but that you ask people who disagree to be specific. Specific rebuttal to unspecific claim is a quagmire.

My claim is that Robert and Cam are better than Tom and Peyton. Why do I need to specify metrics for you to debate that?


The premises are as follows:

From the OP: Cam Newton and RG3 are QB-athletes. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are pocket passers. I rank the athletic QBs higher than pocket passers because they are more valuable weapons. They can beat you with both their arm and their legs. Against the same opponent, the pocket passers need more support to win.

It's a logical argument which can be countered by attacking the logic. That's all there is to it.

[zoony]

Peyton is running the same scheme he's used for 15 years. It's designed to put up useless numbers. I doubt he will win as many games as Tebow did in Denver.

[Oldfan]

After 186 strikeouts, my moderator-stalker, who is seldom wrong on a prediction because he seldom sticks his neck out to make a prediction finally connects! Give him a hand for this bump, guys!

[Oldfan]

duplicate post

[Burgold]

Simple question.

You have to build a team for this year. After the year, the league folds. No more team. Which quarterback do you want leading your team, Peyton, Brady, or Newton? For homeristic reasons, I'll exclude RGIII.

Right now, I think for one game or one season almost no one would choose Cam. There are many reasons why Montana was better than Pennington. Intangibles matter. Work-study habits matter. Leadership matters. Field vision matters. On the field, coaching and aligning of your team matters. Your peers faith in you and desire to fight for you and rally with you matter. That's why Robert McCune and Sultan McCullough aren't in the NFL and Alfred Morris is. Physical attributes matter, but they are but one component.

[Oldfan]

Simple question.

You have to build a team for this year. After the year, the league folds. No more team. Which quarterback do you want leading your team, Peyton, Brady, or Newton? For homeristic reasons, I'll exclude RGIII.

I take Cam because he's more of a threat to defenses than Brady or Peyton who require more help to win.

Right now, I think for one game or one season almost no one would choose Cam.

That's probably true, but all that means is that most fans follow the media opinions like lemmings.

There are many reasons why Montana was better than Pennington. Intangibles matter.

Intangibles do matter, but we don't have any way to fairly grade them.

You have ASSUMED that Montana had better intangibles than Pennington because Montana's team won championships and Pennington's didn't. You can't logically make that assumption. If Pennington had been the 49ers QB and Montana had gone to the Jets, you would be arguing that Pennington had the edge on the intangibles and that everybody agrees with you that Pennington was superior to Montana.

[stevemcqueen1]

OF I think you can get a sense of intangibles from watching QBs play. I doubt you could objectively quantify them or get much more specific than, "wow, he's really good," or "man, he just doesn't have it." But you can sense when someone is special, especially over long periods of observation.

You can also review the little things which speak to an intangible makeup if you watch specifically for them. Like mechanics and discipline for instance. One of the things that makes Peyton and Montana and Brady special is how staggeringly consistent their mechanics are. That speaks to having rare discipline to me. Peyton and Montana have such good footwork as drop back pocket passers. Montana threw his WCO route trees as well as you can because he had such great footwork and was so perfect with his head movement and timing. I think a player has to be intangibly superior to be that skillful and consistent.

I think you can also get a sense of the level of anticipation a player plays with from viewing them over a long period of time. Eventually it just sort of becomes clear the player is elite at reading coverages pre-snap when he consistently finds the right man quick seemingly on his first read and gets the ball out on time and makes the play over and over again. More evidence is in the huge frequency of big passing plays that you see with Brady and Manning despite the fact they don't have superior physical talent. Manning will throw wobbly 30 yard TD passes that end up beating the coverage anyway with perfect placement and timing because he just anticipates how the events on the field will shake down at such a superior level.

It's my subjective opinion based on watching Tom Brady for so many years that he anticipates the game better than any QB I've ever seen. Can't back it up objectively, but I believe it's true and I'm not really out to spin it for one QB or another. I'm trying to be football honest and would change my opinion if I saw another QB that seemed to do it better.

Spontaneous genius is another important intangible quality you can pick up from viewing but can't really quantify. The ability to consistently go off the script when things break down and turn a negative into a positive. Joe Montana was one of the best ever at this IMO. RGIII is an absolutely breath taking spontaneous genius, and every skins fan watching him this year has noticed it. It's what the people arguing for Luck for ROTY over him who haven't watched RGIII play are missing. I think it's his most special quality. You can't really quantify it to people who aren't viewing it first hand because to them it seems like that brilliant spontaneous play would seem like just another 8 yard completion, etc. But you can see it hidden a bit in his numbers if the guy is incredibly efficient, moves the offense down field despite not having that great of surrounding talent/frequently beats superior teams on paper, has a lot of dramatic come back wins and fourth qtr moments, etc. Things go wrong for everybody. Being consistent and efficient often means you were able to cope with them at a special level.

But the rub is you can only really sense most of these kinds of things in seeing them done first hand over a large sample size.

[Burgold]

Yup, there's that, Steve. There's also how often they sucessfully change the play and how well they manipulate the defense. That's fairly easily seen. It may even be quantifiable. You can measure how safeties and linebackers respond to pump fakes or play action for instance. You can see when a qb audibles into a successful play.

These things count. You can look not just at the throw, but at the ball placement of the throw.

[Oldfan]

OF I think you can get a sense of intangibles from watching QBs play. I doubt you could objectively quantify them or get much more specific than, "wow, he's really good," or "man, he just doesn't have it." But you can sense when someone is special, especially over long periods of observation.

You and I could intelligently discuss or debate QB mechanics, but it's doubtful that either of us would have been able to say, "Wow, he's really good" about Steve Young when he played for Tampa Bay because we would be watching inferior performances caused by a lack of support. Even his Tampa Bay coaches couldn't do it. We know that because he was traded away for a couple of mid-round picks. Now, try to imagine the chances of typical football fans, who know far less than you do, being able to do it.

You can also review the little things which speak to an intangible makeup if you watch specifically for them. Like mechanics and discipline for instance. One of the things that makes Peyton and Montana and Brady special is how staggeringly consistent their mechanics are. That speaks to having rare discipline to me. Peyton and Montana have such good footwork as drop back pocket passers. Montana threw his WCO route trees as well as you can because he had such great footwork and was so perfect with his head movement and timing. I think a player has to be intangibly superior to be that skillful and consistent.

Let's use Brady as an example. His mechanics are tangible. They can be seen. He has excellent mechanics for a pocket passer who isn't asked to move much. But, he has always been inconsistent with stepping into his throws. Jay Cutler can get away with not stepping into his throws under pressure, but Brady can't. His ball floats high. Brady's mechanics appear to be more consistent because his scheme has him throwing more passes from the shotgun and because he gets good protection. Now, how are you going to fairly judge his consistency when comparing him to QBs who are asked to throw on the move and aren't protected as well?

I think you can also get a sense of the level of anticipation a player plays with from viewing them over a long period of time. Eventually it just sort of becomes clear the player is elite at reading coverages pre-snap when he consistently finds the right man quick seemingly on his first read and gets the ball out on time and makes the play over and over again. More evidence is in the huge frequency of big passing plays that you see with Brady and Manning despite the fact they don't have superior physical talent. Manning will throw wobbly 30 yard TD passes that end up beating the coverage anyway with perfect placement and timing because he just anticipates how the events on the field will shake down at such a superior level.

You can mask any QB's inaccuracy if you have him spend X time practicing 20 plays while his competitors are spending X time on 100.

ANY pocket passer would look better if they ran this scheme for 15 years:

http://smartfootball.com/offense/pey...-colts-offense

It's my subjective opinion based on watching Tom Brady for so many years that he anticipates the game better than any QB I've ever seen. Can't back it up objectively, but I believe it's true and I'm not really out to spin it for one QB or another. I'm trying to be football honest and would change my opinion if I saw another QB that seemed to do it better.

Can you say with conviction that, say, Marc Bulger, who was taken in the same sixth round draft in 2000 as Brady, couldn't have done it as well in the Patriot's scheme?

Spontaneous genius is another important intangible quality you can pick up from viewing but can't really quantify. The ability to consistently go off the script when things break down and turn a negative into a positive. Joe Montana was one of the best ever at this IMO.

How is it possible that Montana was so good at going off script when he had only average mobility to extend plays? Steve Young was better than he was.

Brady and Manning are especially limited in that ability because neither runs well and neither throws on the move well.

RGIII is an absolutely breath taking spontaneous genius, and every skins fan watching him this year has noticed it. It's what the people arguing for Luck for ROTY over him who haven't watched RGIII play are missing. I think it's his most special quality. You can't really quantify it to people who aren't viewing it first hand because to them it seems like that brilliant spontaneous play would seem like just another 8 yard completion, etc. But you can see it hidden a bit in his numbers if the guy is incredibly efficient, moves the offense down field despite not having that great of surrounding talent/frequently beats superior teams on paper, has a lot of dramatic come back wins and fourth qtr moments, etc. Things go wrong for everybody. Being consistent and efficient often means you were able to cope with them at a special level. But the rub is you can only really sense most of these kinds of things in seeing them done first hand over a large sample size.

I think in the foregoing paragraph you are helping me make my argument that the athlete-QBs are generally greater threats than the pocket passers. They have more ability to extend plays, to throw on the move, and to make something good happen after the called play breaks down.

---------- Post added December-24th-2012 at 11:01 AM ----------

Yup, there's that, Steve. There's also how often they sucessfully change the play and how well they manipulate the defense. That's fairly easily seen. It may even be quantifiable. You can measure how safeties and linebackers respond to pump fakes or play action for instance. You can see when a qb audibles into a successful play.

These things count. You can look not just at the throw, but at the ball placement of the throw.

If it's that easy to see these things and to quantify them, where are the stats?

It would take a lot of super-knowledgeable football minds, working full-time on all 32 teams, to do what you claim is easy. However, if someday we have that information, then we could intelligently add it to my method.