thebandit27

I'll take: Pat Mahomes Michael Thomas Julio Jones DeAndre Hopkins Tyron Smith Rodney Hudson Von Miller Aaron Donald Khalil Mack Stephon Gilmore

I said throughout last season that his play design and offensive structure are excellent. His situational play calling could use some work, so I'm hoping for improvement there.

And yet that was the only play on which the reporter felt it was worth mentioning.

They're giving Siran Neal every opportunity to make the team. That's for sure

Something has to have happened here. This guy can play.

Yep. And to make matters worse: that offense caused him to take a pounding from which he never recovered.

Right? He was also outstanding in the back half of 2011 when Fred was hurt. People tend to dismiss entire seasons of great play if they want to criticize a player. It's weird.

Exactly.

Except that the team chose him; he didn't draft himself. Why take him that early if they had any doubts about him being a franchise cornerstone?

As I said: if you like a player enough to take him 3rd overall, you better not be worried about if recovering bonus money against the cap if you cut him in 2 years.

Rookie holdouts make no sense anymore. There's only 2 things to negotiate: offsets and cash flow. Get 'em figured out and you're done. The team looks stupid here. You took the kid at #3 overall. Screw the offset language and give him the standard fully-loaded cash flow. Done.

Yeah, I teeter on the edge with Brees. I think he's an incredibly good passer; maybe the best pure passer in the mid-range ever to play. That's probably fair. Aikman and Bradshaw, to me, are the guys that seem to be "propped" into the top 16 by the greatness of their respective teams.

The timing of this should tell you everything...they're pitching it so that they have something to "give" in the next round of CBA negotiations. They know that the NFLPA won't go for it, but as long as they put it on the table, they can concede it and say that they gave something up.

Not sure if spelling error or double entendre...

Thurman was remarkable; nobody is denying that. What I'm saying is that it's not as though Marino was playing without talent around him. They actually had fairly productive RBs during his tenure there. Defensively, John Offerdahl made the pro bowl 5 consecutive seasons in the 80's, Jeff Cross was a double-digit sack guy in multiple seasons; Bryan Cox had 14.5 sacks in 1992 and was a 3-time pro bowler. Toward the end of his career, Trace Armstrong put up 35.5 sacks over 4 seasons. Again, the point here isn't to say that Kelly was better than either Marino or Elway; the point is that those guys didn't win over and above what you'd expect for guys that are supposed to be next-level compared to Jimbo, and the disparity in their respective supporting casts doesn't make up for the difference IMO.

I think the problem is that you're misunderstanding where I rank these guys. I said from the start that when ranking Kelly, top-15 felt right to me. I actually said that I have a top 4, then a HUGE gap to the rest of the top 16, and then another big gap. So that is to say that I would put Kelly in the top 16, but clearly outside of the top 4 of Unitas, Montana, Manning, and Brady. When it comes to Elway and Marino, what I'm saying is that there's no way on earth I'd put either guy in a tier above Kelly. If you want to rank them above him within the same tier, fine, no qualms whatsoever. But for either guy to be ranked a full tier above Kelly would require, for me, them to have been more successful when they were in the league at the same time. I mean, how can either guy be considered a tier above Kelly, a first-ballot HOFer, when they literally never made the Super Bowl during his career? You can say that Kelly had some advantage playing with HOFers, but let's be honest here: it isn't like Marino and Elway were playing with stiffs. Mark Duper and Mark Clayton both had close to 9,000 career receiving yards. Both had close to 600 career receptions. Elway got to play with Rod Smith and Shannon Sharpe, and won his only Super Bowls when the Broncos had a top 5 rushing offense. As for playoff career, "awful" and "sucked" are fairly hyperbolic. You can easily support that he was awful in the Super Bowls (well, at least the last 3, I'd argue that putting up a point per minute in the first Super Bowl is pretty darn okay); even say that he was lousy in AFC Championship games (again, outside the first one). Divisional and WC games, he was just fine (not great). But again, compare that to Marino and Elway...I think you'll find that all 3 have fairly similar playoff passing numbers. Again, none of this is to say that Kelly is better than those guys; it's to say that those 2 did nothing (IMO) to separate themselves into a higher tier than Kelly.

So great that they...did what while Kelly was playing? Isn't it worth acknowledging that neither QB went to a Super Bowl during Kelly's career, but both did so before/after he retired? If we can "scoreboard" Jimbo outside of top-10 consideration due to no Super Bowl rings, can't we "scoreboard" his classmates for literally NEVER beating him?

Here's the problem with Marino: he went to a Super Bowl very early in his career, lost, and never returned. That, on its face, is not the story. The real story is that a QB from his same draft class entered the division a year later and proceeded to dominate the division for a decade. I mean, we discount Jimbo for not winning the big one, and that's a single game played at the end of a grueling 6 month run. The division is a cumulative performance. If you cant win your own division, how great can you really be? Did Marino ever beat either Elway or Kelly in the playoffs? Even once? Honestly asking because I haven't looked it up (admittedly I should; I am being lazy). Marino was a great passer and deserves to be on this list. He isn't in the conversation as a top-tier, GOAT guy IMO. PS happy fourth to you and yours ??

I don't agree

Maybe it's just me, but I would bet that it would be close to unanimous among current and former HCs in favor of Manning over Rodgers.

Your point is fair, and it's not lost on me. I would say that it's a balance between individual passing metrics, ability to win, leadership, and the good old fashioned eye test. For me, the greatest of all time tier should check all 4 boxes in near unanimous fashion.

And Tony Romo is top 5 in all of those categories; is he a top-5 all-time QB? I think Rodgers is great. I also think that, despite all of his ability, he simply doesn't win the way the others do. Compare him to Brady and Manning; the other two nearly double his playoff games started, game-winning drives, and comeback wins. They've each thrown for 50 touchdowns in a season. They've each thrown for over 5,000 yards; Rodgers hasn't even come close. Rodgers is a sub-0.500 QB on the road for his career. Montana, Brady, and Manning have career win percentages on the road of 68%, 64%, and 68%, respectively. I'm not saying he's not an all-time great; he probably deserves to be a top-10 guy. I mean, think about how many QBs have played in the NFL; I have him in my top 16 of all time. I'm just saying that he's not one of the 4 greatest ever to play is all. I guess I would ask this: of the top 4 that I listed, who does he replace?

So you believe that Aaron Rodgers is clearly better than 2 of Unitas/Montana/Brady/Manning? I think that's pushing it.

I like Steve Young, but on a per-game basis Jim was the superior QB. http://pfref.com/tiny/02C2S I think young is in the next tier.

I always like to break things down a bit more to better my understanding, so after crunching some numbers, here's what I can tell you about the Bills' defense... - They ranked 15th in defensive points per game allowed. In other words, if you normalize the scoring numbers by removing the defensive and special teams scores across the league, the Bills' defense allowed an average of 21.2 points per game. That ranked 15th. The top 5 teams in that category were (in order): Chicago (16.4), Baltimore (17.1), Tennessee (17.9), Minnesota (18.7), and the L.A. Chargers (18.8). - They ranked 3rd in yards per play allowed at 4.9. The other teams in the top 5 include Chicago and Baltimore, who tied for 1st with 4.8, Minnesota (5.0), and Jacksonville (5.1). - They ranked 4th in 1st downs per game allowed with 18.3. Rounding out the top 5 are Chicago (17.4), Baltimore (17.9), Jacksonville (18.0), and Houston & Tennessee, who tied for 5th at 18.6. - They tied for 8th in takeaways with 27. The top 5 in this category are Chicago (of course)--who had 36, Cleveland (31), L.A. Rams (30), Houston (29), and a 3-way tie for 5th between Miami/New England/Denver (28). As it pertains to the Bills, I would say that the numbers seem to indicate that this is an above-average defense that needs to take the next step. Regarding the rest of the league, here's a few quick-hit thoughts: - if you don't think that the Bears have the best defense in the NFL, well, you're wrong. Plain and simple. They allow the fewest points, the fewest yards per play, the fewest first downs per game, and they take the ball away more than any other team. For good measure, they also had 50 sacks (tied for 3rd) and scored more defensive TDs than any other team (6). - Minnesota had a sneaky-good defense in 2018. You hear almost nothing about them, but they allowed the 4th fewest points, 4th-fewest yards per play, and had 50 sacks. They also ranked 1st in 3rd down conversion rate allowed.