PDaDdy

Oh now don't go bringing that up. It was Baby Eli's passion and fire you can read on his face that brought them success in the post season and his 240TDs and 38,000+ yards because he is 10x the QB Fitz is! It had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with 8 years of stability, pro bowl WRs and a awesome defense. IT WAS ALL ELI!!!

So Eli threw for 240 TDs and 38,000+ yards in 2011? ROFLOL. How did I miss that? That is SOME season!

Exactly how did you arrive at that 10x number when Eli was going 1-6 and as you say the Giants defense as well as the running game's improvement accounted for their regular and post season success? Another useless TROLL statement while cowardly avoiding discussing my points. Why do you bother other than to troll? If you don't have anything of value to say just read what other people that contribute have to say and try to learn something.

How about we see what you think? Are you praising Eli for keeping them in the play off hunt by going 9 - 7 on the year and enduring a 1-6 stretch losing 4 straight in that run when the defense was injured? Nice job Eli!! So it was Eli's play that kept them in the play off hunt going 1-6 when the defense was banged up? Again...GREAT job Eli! Wish we had a QB that could captain a 1-6 run when our defense was hurt...OH Wait...we already do!

Actually as usual you were obtuse. His deep ball was my first point of many. Not a premise. As usual you cherry picked the only one of many points that you thought you could argue. You ignored the statements I have made repeatedly regarding the stability, system and talent around Eli including an awesome defense that keeps him in every game which is the exact opposite of what Fitz has. Address those points if you really want to say something.

I will say this. You are well skilled at addressing miniscule comments in a forum members post while ignoring the actual focus of the post itself. I suppose that works on some, just not me. So can you disagree with the actual focus of my post? "After Jones and Parrish went down what deep speed did we have to respect at WR?" "Other than SJ we don't have guys on this team that can get separation and have the ability to consistently go up and catch balls over their head or outside of their torso." I for the most part agree. Eli has had 8 years of stability in scheme, talent, coaching, system and organization. He has also had probowl WRs and an elite defense keeping them in every game. Fitz is the exact opposite in every way possible. It would be silly to try to compare them and use Eli's success to condemn Fitz.

Put Eli on our team and he ends up with cracked rips and doesn't make the playoffs. So what's your point? Did you forget our discussion about Manning benefiting from being in the same system with the same coaching staff and scheme in place for 8 years? Did you forget his probowl WRs and his stellar defense? If Fitz was in that system for 8 years I have every confidence that the Giants would have been a perennial play off team and may have as many super bowls.

After Jones and Parrish went down what deep speed did we have to respect at WR? Fitz when his ribs aren't broken can throw a deep ball better than Edwards could. Fitz is capable of making the throw we didn't have any WRs left capable of running the router and it showed. Other than SJ we don't have guys on this team that can get separation and have the ability to consistently go up and catch balls over their head or outside of their torso.

No problem. My point in asking to quantify a franchise QB instead of an endless debate on qualitative evaluations is to get people to at least ponder the idea that some guys they think are franchise aren't and some that they think aren't are. That can even change from year to year as DrD pointed out. How franchise was Eli last year when he lead the league in INTs before the emergence of JPP on defense for them. One year later, a star WR in Cruz born and all of a sudden Eli is franchise again. Another point is that many QBs are capable or performing at a statistical franchise level when they have the right talent, scheme and support system around them. Fitz did so before the wheels flew off with all the injuries to our WR core that already was mediocre at best. Couple that with a defense that required the offense to score 28+ on average to win unlike the Giants defense and you see this whole thing as a team sport and team issue. Fitz can play like a mythical franchise QB when the pieces are around him. I have that faith I understand others do not. The problem is they would rather mortgage the future to gamble on a rookie QB than actually put talent on this team and let Fitz work with it. Fortunately they aren't the GM and Nix and Gailey will hopefully put talent around Fitz and he can shut up the whiners when we play like we did before the injuries killed us.

Why are we still discussing the Bell experiment? Before this season started I asked the question if he was a stop gap measure, good enough, elite, no good etc. He can't stay healthy, is out of shape and is inconsistent. How long are we going to have this injury prone late round fodder protecting our QB's blind side? When he is healthy that is!!!

There ya go usin' that fancy college boy logic again. Don't you know it's all one guys fault!?!?!? We need a mythical franchise QB messiah that can evade all pressure, deliver the ball in 1/2 second, make every throw, catch his own passes without dropping them as well as rush the passer and stop the run on defense. Mythical franchise QB you say? Mythical because no one can define one!!!! (**special mention for section122 that a least had the stones to throw out the numbers of a 65% completion rate and 2:1 TD to INT ratio. There are a whole FOUR QBs in the entire league that meet that criteria and Eli is not one of them!!!)

Time is the challenge not finding the answer.

He's showing solidarity with Fitz!

Let's use the Fitz attack pattern gamma. "So you are going to count his 4th quarter TDs in garbage time?" You do recall that the Giants were 9 - 7 in the regular season and had a horrible losing streak only topped by ours because their DEFENSE wasn't healthy? The Giants defense eventually got healthy and they road it into the playoffs while our defense continued to suck.

Right on man. This speaks to football being a team sport. The QB can't be looked at in a vacuum. Though the most important position on the team it is the position most dependent and reliant upon the talent around it, the scheme and the team. People are so caught up in the ESPN buzz word opinion making game that they have somehow forgotten teams that win generally play good defense as well or at least when they need to. The best defenses in the playoffs made it the farthest and the best play off defense won it all. You bring up an excellent point that a good defense benefits the offense in field position and opportunities on that side of the ball. This will take pressure off of the offense to score 28+ points a game and improve their field position. It was very apparent that after we suffered some injuries that this team went into pass happy panic mode in the 2nd quarter in many games. This also had the unfortunate side effect of reducing the impact of two of our best weapons on offense FJ and Spiller who emerged this year and proved he is a very capable pure RB both rushing and receiving. In his 3rd year hopefully he gets better at all the little things like blocking. With a full off season and some health I fully expect we will see the team that started the first 5 - 7 games last year every week. The sky is not falling. Let's support this team and wish them health and good luck. Ah a revisionist historian! I said I would take Fitz over Eli in OUR system. Take away Eli's 8 year stability of coaching and scheme in NY, his pro bowl WRs, the Giants awesome defense that was able to actually get to Brady and what do you have? A great unknown in Eli. I will take Fitz over him in OUR system due to his familiarity and because I know that Fitz was a top 5 QB in the league and leading it at one point before the train wreck of injuries hit us. HUGE difference.

Wow. It took 17 posts to even reference our #1 pick in that draft. The draft so far hasn't been bad since it was their first one and it takes a while to get a feel for your talent. Troup AND Easely's injuries have made it tough to evaluate but Spiller is a starting RB in this league and is the heir apparent to 31 year old FJ. Hopefully they split a lot more time and we run more plays for the RBs in general. Both are play makers and this offense desperately needs play makers.

LB or DE, at a much lower salary and for a longer period of time. Despite my complaints about the offensive weapons we have at WR DEFENSE is a actually a much bigger problem.

Not that he will be around for us but what about Coples?

WHAT!?!!? You mean Shawn "Good Gamble" Merriman who got off the juice over 6 years ago and hasn't done jack squat in the last 5 years can't be relied upon to contribute coming back from multiple off season surgeries? SHAME on you sir! Reckless faith unbound by reality and 5 years of history is the only option here. People have argued with me until they are blue in the face that the Merriman signing was a good gamble and the $7.5 to $10.5 million he has gotten from us for nothing is no big deal.

I think we may end up with Upshaw but I don't like your reasoning at all. Upshaw is a 3-4 OLB. We are moving to a 4-3 and need a DE or OLB. He comes from the wrong scheme and would be playing out of position. Not saying that he can't do it. It is however just more of an obstacle that he will have to over come. I know people love to hate Coples for some reason but he is a 4-3 DE that has even played some DT due to his ridiculous size. Measurables are only part of the game I know but who would you rather have batting down passes at the line of scrimmage? Upshaw at 6'1" with short arms for his height or Coples at 6'6" with long arms for his height? Upshaw looks like a squat fire plug guy where as Coples looks like a rangy guy that can probably leap and out reach Upshaw by a full foot. If we get Upshaw I'm cool with it but I say we use him at his natural position of OLB and teach him how to play it in the 4-3.

Oh no doubt some of these guys are out there but we can't ignore where they came from. Aaron Rogers was phenomenal this year but GBs best game from a QB perspective was perhaps the game Matt Flynn started. Does this mean that Flynn is the next Rogers? Does it mean that Flynn is better than Rogers...OR does it mean that GB has a great team, great scheme and is loaded with talent at the WR/TE positions and Flynn benefited from being in the same scheme with the same coaches for a number of years?

Without question this has been the winning formula for every winning team in the NFL. All one has to do is look at how the Bills stack up against this philosophy and you can see the reason for our struggles. Sometimes a small market team needs to over pay for talent but over pay for great not mediocre. It's inflated mid level contracts and dead money for players that haven't been contributors in years that are taking away from resigning our good guys and limiting our ability to obtain difference making FAs.

I certainly get ya. Interesting way to put it. Is it any surprise that these mythical beasts called franchise QBs tend to come from stable organizations, good schemes and have good talent around them? It is one hell of a correlation if not causation.

I was prompted to write this article after reading that Kevin Kolb and John Skelton will be competing for the starting job in Arizona. I started to think about all of the names that keep getting thrown around in Bills forums regarding FA QBs to bring in that they think are better than what we have. History is now showing us that we can't look at the QB position in a vacuum. QB although the most important position on offense is perhaps the position most effected by the talent around them and the system in place. Kevin Kolb and Matt Cassel have been some names that have been thrown around that we should have pursued. We are being shown that these guys were in fact no better than what we have and teams gave up quite a bit to acquire these mediocre QBs in draft picks and contract money. Both of these QBs have TRUE top 10 #1 WRs, some talent around them and have BOTH been outplayed by Fitz. Are there better QBs than Fitz? Sure. Are there a lot worse? Absolutely. It seems that the single mindedness of some are so focused on gambling on the latest flashy name like say a Matt Flynn that they don't stop to consider the team, scheme and the talent these guys were surrounded by prior to their big free agent signings and the first round picks that it cost to get them. Kolb and Cassel came from GREAT organizations in every aspect. They benefited from these situations and went on to underwhelm. This addresses two points in that past performance on one team and in a particular system doesn't necessarily translate to a new team. It also illustrates the importantance of the team, scheme, talent level and support system around a QB and how that can positively or negatively effect how they are perceived. Past performance whether good or bad has to viewed in the light of what situation they were in. I've already used the perfect example of Kurt Warner who at times bagged groceries, obtained stardom and a super bowl victory, failed horribly again and had his future in the NFL questioned only to rise another time and make it to a super bowl. What was the difference? The team, scheme and talent that he was surrounded by. I hate even using the word because nobody can define it but franchise QBs are more made than they are born.

Was this the game where Fitzpatrick went for 26 of 39 for 264 yards and three touchdowns? Was this the game where SJ dropped a ball while wide open that should have gone for an extremely long game if not a TD? Thought so. If SJ could catch a ball that hit him in stride and in the hands while wide open Fitz could have gone for 300+ yds and 4 TDs. Maybe SJ was focusing on his TD celebration not focusing on catching the ball. Perhaps he was thinking of how he could top his fake leg shooting to lose us another 15 yards. Fitz sucks. Lets run him out of town! Is Trent Edwards still available?