Buffalo Junction

Please quote my post and highlight where I wrote Shannon. I’m pretty sure I just wrote Sharpe without a first name since, you know, Favre never played on the Broncos or Ravens. If you wanna beat this like a dead horse feel free.

I mistook 95’ for 96’. Fun with charts and phones... My mistake.

One reason we rarely see guys coming into the league and improving with a poor short game is that they usually don’t see the light of day for at least a year. Rivers sat. Aaron Brooks sat. Jeff Blake sat. Favre sat. Go watch the Falcons 1991 game against the Redskins. Favre literally pulled a Peterman; 4 pass attempts, 2 incompletions (one high another in the dirt), and 2 interceptions. The first two games he played for the Packers weren’t much better. His first pass as a packer was intercepted. The second game he was booed off the field after fumbling 4 times.... He was horribly inconsistent. Crappy footwork and body position lead to tons of inaccurate passes. He benefited greatly from having Sterling Sharpe. Fun fact... Favre’s completion percentage dropped by 5% to the high 50’s after Sharpe retired. A few of these guys can improve. It’s not usually for guys to improve like Favre. The reason to have faith is that Allen seems to have a similar will to succeed as Favre along with enough intelligence to learn from his mistakes. Time will tell whether we have a Favre or a Kyle Boller.

While he wasn’t underrated in his playing days, he’s certainly been forgotten about since then... Rickey Watters. Another forgotten guy... Ahman Green. He put up six 1000 yard seasons with a 4.5 ypc career average.

Interesting thing about Tiki Barber... He got to run behind his college fullback (Charles Way) with the Giants. Way was certainly underrated in his own right. Definitely a top 5 blocking FB, and a beast in short yardage... until his knees deteriorated.

Interestingly, Rivers had some similar issues his first few years. He consistently forced/pushed the ball down the field instead of taking the easy yardage. It was really chunk yardage or bail to the back at the last second. His short game numbers are actually inflated because of those swing passes and screens, which is expected when your backs are Tomlinson and Sproles. This is not a direct comparison, but rather an example of improvement. Rivers was light years ahead or Allen his first year as a starting QB. However, he was also more pro-ready coming out and sat behind Brees. The thing to take away is that these guys can learn to utilize the short game, but for gunslingers it generally occurs after some time and experience. In contrast, it’s damn near impossible to get a timid QB to improve the intermediate/deep game.

Which is saying something because Wolford, Ballard, Richter, Hull, and Davis were a damn good unit. Probably the second best o line at the time.

Definitely one of the most dominant positional groups I’ve ever seen.

It’s a fun thought experiment, and it’s interesting to see other people’s views and how they remember the players. As for Thorpe... 6 foot and 200 pounds. His size would translate. The cool thing is that his athleticism is documented thanks to winning two Olympic gold medals (pentathlon and decathlon). His speed is documented... 100 yard dash in 10 seconds flat and a mile in 4:35. Throw in a long jump over 23’ and you’ve got a serious athlete that would probably compete with the combine performances of modern players without any of the advanced supliments and training. A lot of the freak HOF players would likely translate across eras. It’s just hard to say definitively who would be best.

We definitely agree on Emmitt. IMO he’s basically Curtis Martin with a HOF offensive line. I still put Barry in my top 3. Despite me defending his line, he did what he did against front 7’s stacked with HOF players who were out to stuff him.

I certainly can’t and won’t take Brown off my list for the reasons you stated. However, I feel that Brown’s physical dominance is also what undermines your argument; at least with those of us who didn’t see him play in person. He simply never played against a modern roster. In the same vein, Peterson never played under the older rules and field conditions. There’s no definitive answer, but that’s why the conversation is fun. We’ll probably never agree on this, although I think we’re recalling different sections of Sanders career. I’ll definitely concede that the Lions never replaced the Oline talent, and that line deteriorated after the 95’ season. Prior to that they suffered from poor depth, but average starters. The problem they had was that none of the D-lines in the NFC north were average then except the Buccaneers before Sapp (95’). An average O-line isn’t going to look good when the front 7 across from them has Reggie White, Sean Jones, and Bryce Paup on it and is anchored by a NT that demands a double team. Same goes for the John Randle and Chris Doleman lead Vikings lines. Heck, Richard Dent was the worst starting D-lineman on that 93’ Bears team and he made the pro bowl that year.

Shaw, the biggest argument against Brown is the era. When you consider a guy like Peterson you have to wonder what his stats would look like if he’d have played against the smaller and less athletic guys in the 50’s through 60’s NFL. As a result you have to have this argument defined by era. Maybe construct a “lineage” that starts with Jim Thorpe and goes up to Adrian Peterson. ?‍♂️

The only real argument against Sanders is all the negative runs. People definitely recall the highlights, but what the don’t recall are the 3-4 carries before the 50 yard touchdown. He’d average 5 yards a game, but he had a penchant for negative yardage which was often caused by impatience and a desire to hit home runs. It’s why he often got pulled in short yardage situations and the red zone. Of course people also forget how good a lot of those 90’s defenses were.

It does, but for the majority of Barry’s career that line was substantially better than our Incognito and Wood led O-line that Shady thrives behind. Not to mention that Herman Moore was an all pro WR keeping the safeties honest with help from guys like Perriman. I’m not saying that Barry wasn’t the GOAT... Just that comparing last seasons Bills team to a Lions squad that was routinely in the playoff hunt and had a minimum of 6 probowlers (2all pro) is disingenuous. Their biggest flaw was facing Favre and Reggie White twice a year.... A Packers team that held Sanders to negative yardage in the playoffs and won the game by carrying Moore out of bounds after a clutch catch.

Come on man. ?. Lomas Brown was an all pro tackle. Kevin Glover was a probowler Center. Herman Moore was an all pro wideout. Kramer and Peete were both infinitely better than Peterman. The Lions had some weapons, and the offensive line wasn’t that bad until Sanders last two seasons.

Sayers, had he never blown his knees out, possibly would have gone down as the best. He was simply the best offensive weapon of his era until injuries undid his career. On top of his running you have to factor in his ability to return kicks and catch the ball. His patience and field vision was top 3, and when coupled with his patience and athleticism... The man was a freak and as fluid of an athlete as there ever was. A 6 touchdown game. A career kick return average over 30 yards. A rookie season of over 2,200 yards with 22 touchdowns... Everyone should watch that Chicago vs San Francisco game. I’ve never seen anything like it... Sayers made everyone else on the field look like they were in slow motion.

IDK why everyone is so obsessed with moving Edmunds and/ replacing MM this offseason. I can’t see any reason why the team would be looking to upgrade at their spots this year. Edmunds made a substantial amount of rookie mistakes with fills and seemed to lack strength and leverage at times while taking on blockers. The flipside is that his height and athleticism need to be game planned for because of the amount of area he can take up in zone coverage. Now... If Edmunds doesn’t improve at MLB or Milano ends up getting injured again I can see them taking care of that in 2020 by using a 1st on a LBer. Until then they’ll be looking at depth and a possible Alexander replacement. That said, they like competition so I could easily see them going LB in the 3rd or even moving up to the late second if someone they have a hard-on for falls.

This years class seems very similar.... Round 2 lottery.

The Packers are definitely on the short list, and their fans have proven it. “On Nov. 22, 1959, however, in an official league game against the Washington Redskins, just 297 tickets went unsold, so it was a little more difficult to notice even at the reduced capacity of 32,150 at the time. That was the last home game at the stadium — not counting the replacement games — that failed to sell out based on the team’s count of 317 straight games through the 2015 regular-season finale against the Minnesota Vikings.” https://247sports.com/nfl/green-bay-packers/Article/The-Packers-Last-Non-Sellout-at-Lambeau-Field-74998271/

I’m pretty sure that comment is sponsored by Nike... Imbedded advertising.

Meh. I’m not worried about it. He’ll get his share of crap from Bills Mafia if his performance suffers in Oakland. Not to mention the media circus that’ll ensue if we make the playoffs and they don’t.

Good points. The other aspect is LB, S, CB, and TE depth. The backups at those positions often make up the core of your “teams” groups, and we had a serious lack of talent at those spots last season. Hopefully Beanes depth changes and the new coach bring us back up to par with the rest of the league.

Hence the use of past tense. Their GM did show that he’ll go all out to fix a single position group in a single offseason though. Last OS they signed 2 CBs then went CB in r1 and r2. With Fackrell on the roster OLB is probably done. ILB/Will though... they need a guy to play next to Martinez. I think they may go with Devin White if he’s still on the board.

I’ve had Sweat going to GB in my brain for a while. He seems like the perfect 3-4 OLB/4-3 DE tweener for Pettine’s defense. I honestly think he has more value for a 3-4 unless he can perform at the higher weight.

Not concerned about the heart. My concern would be that he packed on a substantial amount of weight between the season and the combine. He’s not a young player as he went to MSU, got booted, then did JUCO. As a result I’d be more concerned that his body doesn’t actually want to carry the extra muscle (like Maybin). I’d be a lot less concerned about that if he was a 19-20 year old sophomore. For reference he’ll be 23 in September.