Last 4 seasons: 14-2, 11-5, 8-9, 10-7, playoffs 3 of the 4 years. I mean, that's certainly success. It's not what Pats fans have become accustomed to as success, but it's definitely success.
For sure. But...they've certainly been successful with not many high end passing targets.
It's funny when people say the bolded. I mean it's not inaccurate, but here are the Ravens accomplishments during that time period:
If we're deducting points from Mac because he had a good offensive line in 2021 (again, I dispute how good that offensive line was, after watching a lot of the same guys completely quit on plays over and over again last year), are we deducting points from Hurts and Tua and Josh Allen who were in their 3rd seasons before they had a season as good as Mac's rookie season, or Geno's 7th season or whatever it was?
We aren't deducting anything. We aren't even comparing really. We're saying "Mac had a really good rookie year.... for a rookie" he was in a pretty good situation, there were positives and some real concerns about his long term growth potential. He had a worse situation year 2 and his performance tanked, showing all the same causes for concern, and maybe some new ones.
I didn't say they lit the AFC on fire. Just that they were pretty solid, which I think is true. For many teams, that would be wildly successful. For the BB/TB era Patriots, it would have been a disaster.
And for a lot of posters here, it would be just as upsetting as the current Pats situation.
Just to clear this up, the 14-2 season wasn't Lamar's rooke year. It was his 2nd year. In his rookie year, he started 7 games, and the Ravens went 6-1 when he took over for Joe Flacco. He threw for a whopping 75ypg, 6td's, 3ints, and a rating of 84.5. they got into the playoffs, and lost in the WC to San Diego, when Lamar threw for 194 yards, 2tds, 1int. 170 of those passing yards and both touchdowns came in the last 9 minutes of the 4th, after they had fallen behind 23-3.
I'm not drawing parallels. I initially responded to someone making the claim that QB's make receivers better, and not vice versa. Again, I'm showing evidence of the opposite of that theory. With a couple of extremely rare exceptions, all evidence, virtually all of it in the modern NFL game shows that skill position players elevate quarterbacks. That's how you see guys like Brock Purdy succeeding out of nowhere in San Fran, or a guys like Cousins and Goff and Geno being rejuvenated. Derek Carr and Dak are examples of guys who get better skill position players and don't elevate their own games.
I think there is a much better case for "Offensive playcallers make both WR and QB better" than "WR make QBs"
That's how to build a strawman, I guess. Maybe the Bengals shouldn't resign Burrow and should have handed the job over to Brandon Allen instead.
I think the argument--which I basically agree with--is that Brad Hoyer would still suck with Chase Gronk and Randy Moss.
That is something that gets brought up a lot. The argument goes Mac will never be Herbert/Mahomes/Allen so we shouldn't re-sign him to some Daniel Jones like deal and instead we should take a chance on a potential franchise QB. Ok, good plan, you drafted Zach Wilson, now what?
You pay a vet cheap to moderate money to compete with your young QB and get between 85 and 110% of the performance for a fraction of the price?
Teams rarely do what you suggest because they don't want to jettison a competent face of the franchise to bring in someone who might suck and these moderate QB whos can perform at 85-110 percent of the level of starting NFL QBs don't actually exist. Let's take the Giants. What should they do at QB this season? Who is the cheap veteran you're getting instead of Jones and what is your approach to the draft? Brissett at 8 million and then basically hope that Tanner McKee is available at 25 and is good? You realize that's a shitty shitty plan in practice for a team that just made the playoffs, right?
I Mean so is what they did. Though Danny Dimes isn't a great comp because he has rushing upside. But the question is what your goal is. If it's make the playoffs and then decline in a Flacco spiral ... Sure.
It’s not demonstrably wrong-the point isn’t that backups never go well, it’s thatis there aren’t veterans you can bring in to be competent starters for cheap and expect competence. If you’re day one starting qb is Brissett or Smith you’re screwed-and if you wanted it to be Jimmy G you would have had to pay him starter money which no one was willing to do
Jimmy's deal was for record-setting APY at the time. SF just front-loaded the cap hits and the cap rose enough that it didn't look that bad by the end of it. But it wasn't really an example of a cheap vet deal until the very end.
I agree with this. NYG backed themselves into a corner. That contract is awful IMO.
There are a handful of teams that try to do this every year and they usually don't work out that well. I think last year we had an unusual number of successes. I also think it's interesting that Jimmy G and Geno signed contracts this offseason that suggest they're in that lower middle class range - usually we wind up with deals like the Daniel Jones one, where a semi-competent-I-guess quarterback signs a top-of-the-market contract essentially. Maybe it's a sign of a new trend. But normally the FA market is all like Case Keenums and Josh McCowns.
I mean... how is that different from the mid-level guys who get overpaid? Do you think the Giants are going to have a real SB shot next year? How did top of the market Derek Carr work out for LV? You might be locking in mediocre, but the ceiling is still low and you don't have the extra $ spread around to make the rest of the team better.
Jimmy G 3-4 years ago I agree, but last year he was on a $6.5M deal (with a bunch of incentives) rather than get cut for nothing, if he thought there was a team out there offerring a starting gig he'd have been gone. And last year isn't the only one, 2021 there were a couple... Teddy Bridgewater put up middle of the pack numbers on a 4.5M deal, Jameis put up pretty decent numbers on a cheap deal for 7 weeks then got hurt.
I’m certainly not here to defend the giants or the Jones contract but the basic logic of why you’d sign the number fifteen qb to a big contract is pretty powerful. If you don’t have Mahomes there’s nothing wrong with having a Joe Flacco or Andy Dalton or Carr and winning games selling out stadiums and if everything works out maybe you do make a playoff run. Plus I think the value of tanking in a year where Andrew Luck isn’t in the draft is overstated-your plan of replacing Daniel Jones with a Caleb Williams might result in replacing Daniel Jones with Sam Darnold
They were still contenders because they built a team that could succeed with anyone playing QB. If you gave Mac, a quarterback still playing at far less than top $, that offensive line, Deebo, Aiyuk, McCaffrey, Kittle, Juszczyk, do you not believe Mac would succeed? Not to mention Shanahan?
I don't think spreading the money around to the rest of the team is actually going to make you better compared to having better quarterback play. We saw with the Patriots' 2021 offseason that turning spending money into roster improvements efficiently is easier said than done. I don't know if anyone has actually done an analysis on this, but I would be surprised if spending anyone else on the roster is as efficient as spending at QB, even granting that you're getting marginal returns at some point here. Most of the FA market is marginal returns too.
I don't really think the cap space is that big a deal. The larger issue to me is opportunity cost. The Eagles were fine paying Wentz what they did because they were still willing to draft Hurts when he became available. The Rams were OK even with overpaying Goff because they moved on for Stafford when they had the opportunity. The Patriots played Bledsoe but still looked at draft QBs and selected Brady. But most teams pay a Carr or a Daniel Jones or a Sam Bradford and then think they're done and don't continue to invest draft capital in the position. That's the mistake.
Dalton and Carr didn't make a run making peanuts either. I think the larger issue is not mid-level quarterbacks getting paid, it's that you need a lot to go right for mid-level quarterbacks to win period. (Flacco's SB run is kind of a special case; the Ravens were not especially great team for a SB winner but he had as good a four-game run as any QB in playoff history. He was not elite, but he played elite for that stretch)
It depends on how much better. We were discussing mediocre QBs, where year to year a cheap guy could well be better. I think you're looking at....
I mean, yes I agree the offense needs to add a lot and should try to while Mac is cheap. Then, unless Mac is a top 10 or so QB they should be looking for his replacement, because you can't keep that and pay him a 2nd deal. We were discussing the merits of paying mediocre QBs, and this is if anything a great case for why you shouldn't. SF took a step forward when their QB cap hits dropped and they could pay for all those talents on both sides.
I don't agree with "much better set up to win." The money doesn't go that far.
The 49ers won the same number of games in 2019 when Jimmy was in year two of his big deal.
The Eagles still had to go through a 4-11-1 season, and an 9-8 season in those first two seasons with Hurts on the roster, before they made their run in Hurts 3rd year. What did the Eagles do after they went 4-11-1 in Hurts rookie season, they used the 10th pick in the draft to get him Smith, even after they used a 1st round pick on Reagor in the previous season. That wasn't enough, so they went and got him AJ Brown after the 9-8 season.
I don't disagree with this at all.
I think they're making a run at Hopkins, which is interesting, it implies they want to run for a title in the 2-3 cheap Mac years. I also think they were a victim of circumstance a bit, this is the worst WR class in years, they got the best one arguably. They got probably the best receiving TE in the class. OT wasn't great, they were allegedly in on Taylor but he understandably chose KC. Having money to spend is great, but there has to be someone to spend it on.
Well certainly all three made the playoffs when making real money which is my point. Fans here like saying super bowl contender or bust but if you aren't one of the three teams lucky enough to have a top three QB just making the playoffs and crossing your fingers is a good functional plan (and better than being shitty and changing QBs every year or two until you happen to draft Mahomes) Lately the AFC championship has rotated between brady/mahomes/allen/burrows team but the Jaguars and Titans both made it within the past decade.
Even more recently, the Rams went to 2 Super Bowls in 4 years, winning 1, with 2 different, above average and immobile, but not top 5 QB's. Right in between those 2, you had Jimmy G. getting there with the Niners.
Rams are a great example. Loaded roster, meh QB. Not even super special receivers.
Let's not undersell the receiving corps on the Rams. In 2018, Robert Woods had 86 catches, over 1,200 yards (not a fluke either, he followed it up with 90 catches and 1,100 yards the following year) and Brandon Cooks who had 80 catches and 1,200 yards (his 4th consecutive 1,000 yard season at that point), and Cooper Kupp who got hurt and only played 8 games had 40 catches, for 566 yards and 6tds. They went 7-1 in those games. Oh and Gurley.
Carr is 0-1 in the playoffs in his 9 year career (his best season he got injured before the playoffs during his rookie contract).
I think my conclusion is a bit overblown, though. There's tons of different ways to handicap your team that you can possibly get around. I think paying a mediocre QB full market value is one of the tougher handicaps to get around, though.
Tougher handicap is to get around a bad QB.
Eh...Trent Dilfer & Brad Johnson won Super Bowls.
Right, and it's also worth reiterating that you can't apply "The Process" here. There are no guarantees even at the top of the draft, and you can't count on free agency. Best you can do is take your best shot with the quarterbacks you have or can easily get.
I mean, people keep saying things as if you can't start looking for your next QB until you get rid of your current one. The Giants are a great example of totally fucking up (even if it pans out) because they declined the 5th year option.... but didn't make any moves to get a new QB. Now if they had lined up a young guy... they have options. If they pick up the option, they get 2 years to get the young guy (and potentially get 2 good years out of Jones and decide to re-sign him on that). The point is that any well run team should be making decisions early on "do I think this guy is going to be top 7-10 every year of his next deal?" if not start looking early.
Well.....that's kinda true, depending on the sport. I mean, it's true, yes. But trading a ton of assets to take your shot may end up not having a neutral effect; it may have a hugely negative effect on your organization for YEARS. So you have to be pretty confident that the shot you're taking as a GM is the right shot.
So the problem is I think a pretty obvious one--if you're going to replace someone because you don't think they can be a top 7-10 guy then you generally need to spend a first, maybe a high first to replace them (and you probably need to move on from the old guy as well). That's going to be tough in practice particularly if the player you have is like a Carr or a Dalton or a Flacco or maybe Kirk Cousins where you can win games and they are decent enough
Lol yeah I was joking. But being good enough at your job to be in position to take those shots with a high probability of success & having the confidence to do so is pretty important.
Then they would have been around the playoffs but not real contenders through the end of the Smith deal, same as they were.
Not sure it's fair to say someone is settling or that they know they aren't going to win a title if they decide to keep an average or even good quarterback rather than blowing up the position in hopes of getting Mahomes.
I mean, that isn't at any point what I said... but. Yeah, if you pay a league average QB top $ you have very little chance at winning a title, and even less of competing over a longer period of time, as those teams always bleed talent as guys need new deals and you can't afford it all because of the QB. And that is the point. If you pay big money the QB has to be good or elite, if you pay small money then you can offset some of that, even if they don't turn out good or elite.
Eli Manning being an average QB?
