Orton's Arm

> if you're trying to say the QB matters 1,000x more than the coach I am literally the last guy on the planet you should want to argue with; not sure why you're quoting me. I'd misunderstood the point of your earlier post. My apologies. > But it's not like there's only 2 great QB's in the league now. There's closer to a dozen. Finding one > of them is 1) easier, 2) more realistic and 3) makes long-term success more sustainable than this > pipe dream of relying on our inept FO to build this phenominally dominant team around the QB. Well said. Too many people here want to follow the example of the Ravens of 2000. There are several reasons why that strategy is very, very unlikely to work for the Bills. The Ravens had one of the three best defenses in NFL history. The worst starters on that defense played at or near a Pro Bowl level. Their defensive line was ridiculously dominant, with all four starters requiring a double team. Of the Hall of Famers on the defense, one was Ray Lewis at MLB. The guys to either side of him were really good too. They had a pair of shutdown corners, along with guys like Ed Reed at safety. On offense, they had a great OL anchored by Hall of Fame LT Jon Ogden. They had a very solid running game in the form of Jamal Lewis. And they had a good TE in Shannon Sharpe. Despite a team which was bursting with all that talent, everything had to go just right for them to reach and win the Super Bowl. Not once in the postseason did they encounter a team which a) had a franchise quarterback, and b) had a reasonably complete team around him. The Kerry Collins Giants team they faced in the Super Bowl was a much weaker opponent than the subsequent, Super Bowl-winning Eli Manning Giants teams have been. A team with a great defense + no franchise QB is typically limited to just one Super Bowl win. The Ravens of 2000. The Bucs of 2002. The '85 Bears. As you hinted at, it's very, very difficult to field a truly elite defense for a sustained number of seasons. Even if a GM actually succeeds in building an elite defense (which is no easy feat), his defense is likely to stay elite for only a short amount of time. That means his window for winning the Super Bowl is very small--perhaps only one or two seasons. If something goes wrong during those seasons, or if he gets knocked out of the playoffs by a better team, then that's it. Window closed. Meanwhile, teams with franchise QBs can keep their windows open for ten years or more; giving them plenty of chances with which to win the Super Bowl.

> I don't spend one second imagining what I'd do if I were the Bills' GM. Complete waste of time. That's probably why this conversation isn't going anywhere. I am interested in, and have thought about, the subject in question. You aren't interested in the subject matter, have nothing of value to contribute, but felt like participating anyway. > But like I said, try selling your GM vision in the locker room. You know, to the other 52 professional football players you are accountable to . . . A GM is accountable to the owner, not to the players. It's reasonable to assume that a new GM will inherit very little young talent. Had there been an abundance of young talent on the roster, the old GM wouldn't have been fired. Why should a GM hold himself accountable to a roster of players who, in nine cases out of ten, he plans to get rid of anyway? > You may go 1-15 all right (and that's not guaranteed), but your career would be short-lived as any owner would fire you for complete incompetence. You are ignoring my comment about the honeymoon period, and you are assuming that the owner is incapable of understanding the concept of short term pain for long term gain. Bill Polian deserved to be fired. His son Chris had been given increasing power within the organization. Any time someone else butted heads with Chris, that other person was typically gone. The result was that the Colts' front office lost talent over the years. As the front office became depleted, good drafts for the Colts became increasingly rare. Toward the end, the Colts had so little young talent that they were a Peyton Manning injury away from being a 1-15 team. A GM who goes 1-15 in his first or even second year can blame it on his predecessor. A GM who goes 1-15 after over a decade at the helm will always receive the blame. Exactly as he should.

> I've been thinking about this stat though and I refuse to believe that ypa has nothing to do with surrounding talent. I agree that YPA is affected by surrounding talent. The same is also true of literally every other widely available QB stat. Ideally, someone would grade each pass thrown in the NFL on a scale from 1 - 5. (With 1 being completely uncatchable, and a 5 being perfectly thrown.) Until this is done, we will have to make do with stats that allow the quality of a QB's supporting cast to affect his numbers. > As for Alex Smith - I put him right on par with Fitz. I'm a bit puzzled by the above, considering the two QBs' stats are so different. (Especially their stats from this season.) > Talk to any niners fan and they will tell you all the same things Bills fans bemoan about Fitz. They'd be a lot more appreciative of Smith if they saw Fitz as the alternative.

> Please enlighten me on "all the other ways" a GM might cause his team to go 1-15 other than being utterly > futile at his job and assembling a team that is bad enough to finish with that record. I would have thought that this would have been glaringly obvious. But maybe because that's because I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I would do if I was a GM. Judging from your post, you have not. A typical GM can expect to have a honeymoon period of 2 - 3 years. Most GMs will start off with relatively little young talent. A GM who wants to win as many games as possible, as quickly as possible, will look for stopgaps, short-term solutions, and Band-Aids. He will sign aging players. In the draft, he will often emphasize positions associated with providing a quick impact; such as RB, LB, and S. You could even trade away early picks for aging players. Bills fans should be familiar with these measures, because we've seen our GMs use every last one of them. A GM who wanted to build for the long term should do the opposite. He shouldn't sign aging players as stopgaps; and should trade or release whichever aging players he may already have. At quarterback, he should either have the long-term answer in place, or he should have nothing. One or the other is fine, but nothing in between. If I was a GM in my honeymoon period, and if I didn't have a long-term answer at QB, my team's starting QB would be decided by a competition between Tyler Thigpen and Brian Brohm. A QB like that, alone, would be sufficient to get me most of my way to 1-15; especially if I'm eschewing aging stopgap players. With a 1-15 record, I'd have the draft position needed to take a guy like Andrew Luck. Ryan Fitzpatrick is the exact opposite of what I'd be looking for in a starting QB. He's good enough to win my team some games (thus spoiling its draft position), but not good enough to be a long term answer. If the roster I inherited had a Ryan Fitzpatrick on it, I'd trade him for draft picks. Or would release him, if I couldn't get anything for him in a trade.

Having a really good defense doesn't necessarily boost a QB's stats. If you look at the year Trent Dilfer spent on the Ravens (back when they had one of the best defenses in NFL history), and compare his yards per attempt for that year to his career average, you'll see little or no difference. Statistically, this year's 49ers team has one of the five best OLs in the league. The same could be said of this year's Bills team. So that's more or less a wash. In 2010, Smith averaged 6.9 yards per attempt--not much different than the 6.8 yards per attempt Fitz averaged that year. In 2011, Smith averaged 7.1 yards per attempt; while Fitz averaged 6.7 yards per attempt. This season, Smith is averaging 8.0 yards per attempt; while Fitz is averaging 6.6 yards per attempt. I don't think you can reasonably compare what Alex Smith is doing this season, to what Fitz would have done had he been put in a 49ers uniform. You made the argument about coaching. I'd divide coaching into two categories: Xs and Os and teaching players how to play. As for Xs and Os: Gailey's Xs and Os result in WRs getting open all the time on passing plays. The problem is that Fitz doesn't throw accurate passes to his receivers. Open targets + inaccurate passes is not an Xs and Os problem. Some of Fitz's supporters might argue that he would be a more accurate passer if his coaches were better teachers. This is a harder argument to prove or disprove, because we as fans don't have very much information about the quality of the teaching Fitz is receiving, or about Fitz's ability to benefit from such teaching.

> The level of naivete on this board is staggering sometimes. Indeed. In my post, I wrote that if Buddy fails to find a franchise QB, "his successor should blow the team up, and seek to go 1-15 for as many seasons as it takes to get a franchise QB." The one thought which came into your mind when you read the above was "selling 'lose games on purpose' in the locker room." You disregarded all the other ways a GM might cause his team to go 1-15. Which was very naive of you.

The last time the Bills have been to the playoffs was 1999. I'm fairly sure we have the longest active non-playoff streak in the league. Over the last 12 years (the non-playoff years), the Bills have had a top-5 pick just twice. (Mike Williams and Marcel Dareus.) The last time the Bills had the first overall pick was 1985 (Bruce Smith). This team has been good at winning just enough games, against bad teams, to almost always keep it out of the top five picks of the draft. Typically when the Bills pick, the most obvious and best QB prospects are off the board. 2000. Chad Pennington went 18th. The Bills picked 26th. 2001: Mike Vick went 1st overall, and Drew Brees went 32nd overall. The Bills picked 21st, after having traded down. They missed on Drew Brees. 2002: Three QBs chosen in the first round; all of whom were busts. The Bills picked 4th overall. By that point, two of the three first round QBs were off the board. 2003: Three QBs were chosen in the first round: Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, and Kyle Boller. All three were off the board before the Bills picked at 23rd overall. 2004: Eli Manning (first overall), Philip Rivers (4th overall) and Ben Roethlisberger (11th overall) were all off the board before the Bills' first pick (13th overall). The Bills therefore contented themselves with the 4th QB taken in that draft (Losman, at 22nd overall). 2005: The Bills had no first round pick; having traded it away for Losman. Alex Smith, Aaron Rodgers, and Jason Campbell were taken in the first round. 2006: Only one QB (Vince Young) was off the board before the Bills picked at 8th overall. But instead of taking Jay Cutler or Matt Leinart with their pick, the Bills chose Donte Whitner. 2007: Not a good year for first round QBs: the two chosen were JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn. Quinn was still available when the Bills' pick came up. 2008: Matt Ryan (3rd overall) was long gone by the time the Bills picked (11th overall). But instead of taking Joe Flacco (who went 18th overall), the Bills chose Leodis McKelvin. Another miss. 2009: Matt Stafford (1st overall) and Mark Sanchez (5th overall) were gone before the Bills picked (11th overall). But instead of taking Josh Freeman (who went 17th overall), they chose Aaron Maybin. 2010: Sam Bradford went first overall; and Tim Tebow went 25th overall. The Bills used the 9th overall pick on Spiller. That's two definite misses (Brees and Flacco), and two arguable misses (Cutler and Freeman). Of those four players, only one (Brees) is a franchise QB. That's one miss on a first round franchise QB over the 11 year period described above. All the other first round franchise QBs who have slipped through their fingers over that time did so because of poor draft position. (Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Aaron Rodgers.) Maybe Nix will somehow figure out how to get a franchise QB as part of this rebuilding effort. If he does, the rebuilding effort will be successful. But if not, then Nix's successor should blow the team up, and seek to go 1-15 for as many seasons as it takes to get a franchise QB. Only after that puzzle piece is in place should the Bills start worrying about things like "a culture of winning" or "you play to win the game." Winning meaningless games against the dregs of the NFL hasn't exactly gotten the Bills very far.

Good point. Over the course of his career, Mark Sanchez has averaged 6.5 yards per pass attempt. That's exactly the same career average as Trent Edwards; and a lower average than Fitz has provided the last 2.5 seasons. Typically, Sanchez's supporting casts have been stronger than the ones Edwards was afforded. Mark Sanchez is not the answer to the Bills' problems at quarterback.

> TD passes are the "wrong stat" now? Yes. For reasons which should be obvious, once you stop and think about it. 1) Some offensive coordinators tend to run the ball inside the 10. Others are more likely to emphasize the pass. 2) If one QB has twice as many pass attempts as another QB, the first QB is likely to have about twice as many TD passes. That doesn't mean that the first one is twice as good as the second--just that the first one was on the field more. Over the course of their respective careers, 3.8% of Batch's pass attempts have resulted in touchdowns, versus 4.2% of Fitz's passes. Yes, there's a difference. But you have to take that difference with a grain of salt, especially because of 1) from the list above. A few years back, the New York Times did a statistical analysis which found that six factors explained 80% of the difference in teams' winning percentages. Those six factors are yards per pass attempt, interception percentage, yards per rushing attempt, and the defensive analogs thereof. The QB controls or greatly influences two of those six factors. Charlie Batch is better than Fitz at both. This means that if Batch was capable of producing exactly the same stats for the Bills that he's produced for other teams, the Bills would be statistically more likely to win games with him under center than with Fitz.

You are looking at the wrong stats. Completion percentage can be inflated by throwing a lot of short, high percentage passes. Is Fitz's completion percentage inflated due to this? Absolutely! Passing yardage can be inflated by a pass happy coach. Does Gailey fall into the "pass happy coach" category? The correct stat to look at is . . . yards per attempt. Charlie Batch has a career yards per attempt of 6.9. Fitzpatrick has never even averaged 6.9 yards per attempt in a single season, let alone over the course of his career. His best season was 2010, when he averaged 6.8 yards per attempt. This season he's averaging 6.6 yards per attempt. Fitz gets intercepted on 3.8% of his pass attempts. Batch gets intercepted on 3.2% of his attempts. Statistically, Charlie Batch is at least a step above Fitzpatrick.

Exactly. If Fitz's first 20 passes a game were consistently accurate, and if passes 21 - 50 were a mix between accurate and inaccurate, then those calling for fewer pass plays as a solution to the Fitz problem might have a point. However, Fitz is just as likely to throw an inaccurate pass on throw number 5 or 10 as he is on throw number 50. Running the ball more might help us mask our weakness at the QB position. It would do nothing to fix that weakness.

> The Bills have shown improvement this year and I'd like to see it continue. I can see this logic--at least to an extent. However, there has been one franchise QB in Bills' history: Jim Kelly. It's not like the Bills have the option of drafting 1/3 of a franchise QB one year, another 20% of a franchise QB another year, and so forth; only to finally merge the fractional pieces together into one complete franchise QB. A franchise QB must be drafted in one big lump, or not at all. Of the QBs who will be available in the upcoming draft, Barkley appears to have the best potential to become the franchise QB the Bills desperately need. The Bills are a franchise QB away from having a very special offense. The problem is that other teams also need franchise QBs, and other teams can see Barkley's potential. He will go early in the draft. If the Bills go 9-7, they will have the following options come draft day: 1. Do nothing about the QB position; and content themselves with Fitzpatrick for yet another year. 2. Trade the house to move up to grab Barkley. This would give them a solid chance of upgrading the QB position, but would deprive the team of other players or valuable draft picks. 3. Stay put, and take a lesser QB prospect than Barkley. This creates a higher probability of the chosen QB being a bust. It also implies that the chosen QB might well have a lower ceiling; much like Joe Flacco's ceiling is lower than Matt Ryan's. I can't say I'm in love with any of the above options. If I had to choose from the above three, I'd take option 2. The nice thing about losing out is that you get to take a very good prospect like Barkley, with much less trade-up pain than would have been the case, had you traded up for Barkley after going 9-7. > The Bills are not that far away and have been building themselves up the last few years - why would anyone want to see this destroyed? It's not about seeing anything destroyed. I want to see the Bills get a franchise QB, with as little destruction to the team as possible. Many of the remaining teams on our schedule are legitimately better than us. A number of others are comparable. It wouldn't take much for the Bills to lose out. A few unlucky breaks, a few fluke plays, a few bad officiating calls, a few key players having an underwhelming second half of the season. It could be done. The hope would then be to draft the franchise QB, and to correct whatever flaws caused the Bills to lose out over the rest of this season.

There's a difference between the Gilmore and Spiller picks on the one hand, and the Whitner pick on the other. Several mock drafts I saw didn't have Whitner going until the second round. Vic Carucci didn't have Whitner rated as a first round talent. Once Whitner's time with the Bills ended, the relative lack of interest in him among NFL GMs, and the relatively small size of the contract he ultimately signed with San Francisco, indicated that NFL GMs around the league didn't think he was good enough to justify the kind of contract a first round pick, in the prime of his career, performing at or above expectations, can typically expect to receive. By comparison, the Vikings made Antoine Winfield one of the highest paid defenders in the league when they signed him away from us. Shortly after Whitner was picked, Marv explained the selection by saying that the pick shouldn't have been looked at in isolation. Instead, you had to look at the combination of SS and DT the Bills received in the first round. He said they got a better SS + DT pair than would have been the case, had they gone DT first and SS second. The problem with this line of thinking is that Marv ignored much better players at other positions in order to add an SS and a DT. Unlike Marv--who squandered his first round picks on players like Whitner, Lynch, and McCargo--Nix has typically taken a more disciplined approach to the first round. Pre-draft, Spiller was felt to be one of the two or three most talented players available. Taking him at 9th overall represented the opposite of a reach. At least according to pre-draft analysis, Gilmore was the best available player when the Bills picked at 11th overall. Both were justifiable on the basis of best player available, and Gilmore also filled a high value position of very legitimate need. The one time Nix failed to take the best available player with his first round pick was when he took Dareus instead of A.J. Green. That decision looks sub-optimal in hindsight; just as his decisions to take Spiller and Gilmore look very good. The argument has been made that the Bills should eschew RBs and DBs in the first round. RBs, because our first and second round RBs have typically been replaced every 3 - 4 years. DBs, because over the last 15 years the Bills have typically let their best DBs go first-contract-and-out. Over the last 15 years, first round RBs and DBs have almost invariably been short-term value propositions. A rebuilding team like the Bills should never squander its first round picks on short-term-only value propositions. But Nix is not Butler or Donahoe or Marv: there's nothing to indicate that Nix will allow Gilmore to go first-contract-and-out. As for Spiller: even if you have a moderately strong anti-RB bias--as I do--Spiller is a better enough player than the others available to fully justify the pick.

> And if they move up (I thought drafting for need was wrong) it'll be done to put out a fire they have. You may be using a different definition of "drafting for need" than the one I employ. Let's say that on a scale of 1 - 100, the best player available at your pick is a 70. Let's say you draft a 50 instead, because his position is one of greater need. Then that's the kind of reaching for need/Donte Whitner pick teams should always avoid. But let's say you trade up a few spots, to where the best player available is a 90. Then you take that player; who happens to fill a need. That's not reaching for need at all. In general, teams would do well to trade up or down in the draft to spots where the best available player also happens to fill a need. (Assuming, of course, that fair trades are available.) Unfortunately, Buddy has thus far been unwilling to tank seasons, and unwilling to pay the price to trade up in the draft. Each year, the best available QB prospects were off the table well before the Bills picked. (By "good prospect" I mean "a good prospect based on the information available at the time. A guy like Tom Brady is a Hall of Fame player; but was not considered a particularly good prospect based on the information available back in 2000.) Maybe Buddy will use a combination of skill + luck to take a QB who plays much better than his draft position would indicate. That's a best-case scenario, and I see little to indicate it will actually happen. A more realistic scenario would be for him to take a QB generally acknowledged to be a top prospect, such as Barkley. That will almost certainly require him to pay a king's ransom to trade up. If trading up gets the Bills a franchise QB, Buddy should pay that king's ransom with a smile on his face. Sometimes, if you want a king, you need to pay a king's ransom.

The Bills do not currently have a team capable of winning the Super Bowl. Nor will they win the Super Bowl until upgrades occur at a number of positions; most notably quarterback. If the goal is to win the Super Bowl, you have to ask yourself which path is the more likely to get you there.

Stevie consistently gets open against the best CBs in the league, like Darrell Revis. That's his skill set; and that's why he's such an asset to the team. There's no such thing as a perfect player. Tom Brady has lost a foot race to Drew Bledsoe. Joe Montana lasted until the third round because of his limited arm strength. Barry Sanders was often taken out of the game on goal line situation. If you want to criticize any player, you can always look for whatever his weakness is; and then identify a play which could have gone better, had it not been for that weakness. If you look at Stevie Johnson's overall body of work--both over the last few years, and in that game--it's quite solid. It would be even more solid if he had a decent quarterback to get him the ball.

I am not exactly the guy driving Fitz's bandwagon. However, MDH's post was constructive and informative. He supported his opinions with facts and reasoning. I enjoyed reading his post. I do not feel your post added much to the discussion, beyond your (renewed) insistence that Cam is a significantly better QB than Fitz. Earlier in this thread, someone mentioned that according to Football Outsiders' rating, Fitz is 17th best; and according to TQBR he's 27th best. I think that those two ratings represent reasonable lower and upper limits. He's probably not better than 17th in the NFL, and probably not worse than 27th. Where Cam Newton should be ranked is a separate discussion.

Edwards_Arm: > Matt Schaub's career yards per attempt is higher than Jim Kelly's. Higher than Peyton Manning's. Higher than Tom Brady's. MRW: > I know YPA is your favorite stat for evaluating QB play, but doesn't this cause you a little concern about how good an indicator it actually is? No. Like any other stat, yards per attempt (YPA) is just a starting point. If two QBs provide exactly equal levels of play, and if one has a much stronger offensive supporting cast than the other, the one with the better cast will likely have the higher YPA. Also, YPA isn't the only stat I care about. I also care about INT percentage; albeit to a lesser degree. Tom Brady has a career INT percentage of 2.1%; and Peyton Manning has a career INT percentage of 2.7%. Matt Schaub's career INT percentage is 2.5%. For comparison, Fitzpatrick's career INT percentage is 3.6%. Section128 has argued that Schaub's YPA is being boosted both by the strength of his supporting cast; and by the run-oriented nature of the Texans' offense. There may be some truth to both arguments. On the other hand, the QBs to whom I've compared his stats--Manning and Brady--have also had a number of strong offensive supporting casts over the years. I would argue that Schaub is among the five or seven best QBs in the league.

> [schaub's] stats except for ypa don't jump off the page at you. For QBs, the two most important stats are YPA and interception percentage. The New York Times ran a regression analysis which demonstrated that 80% of the observed variation in teams' winning percentages could be explained by yards per pass attempt, yards per rushing attempt, interception percentage, and the defensive analogs thereof. Of those stats, yards per pass attempt is three times as important as INT percentage or yards per rushing attempt. > I simply said that Schaub, Flacco, and Alex Smith benefit greatly from playing with great Defenses. Playing with a great defense does not seem to increase yards per attempt. Trent Dilfer played with a great defense back when he was part of the Ravens of 2000. But his yards per attempt for that season was almost identical to his career average. Tom Brady played with one of the worst defenses in NFL history last season. And yet, Brady's yards per attempt for 2011 was higher than it had been in any other season of his career. If having a great defense somehow boosts YPA, one would have expected Dilfer to have exceeded his usual standards in 2000; and Brady to have fallen short of his usual standards in 2011. > Why is [schaub's] ypa higher thank kelly? It is a completely different game. Johnny Unitas has a higher career yards per attempt than Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. Yards per attempt is a much more valid method of comparing QBs from different eras than is QB rating. (Not that QB rating is a particularly useful tool even for comparing QBs from the same era.) Speaking of Kelly: during Kelly's time, the Bills employed a roughly 50/50 mix between run and pass. A 50/50 run/pass mix does not indicate that Jim Kelly was a caretaker QB. Nor does that same mix indicate Schaub is a caretaker QB. Especially not when Schaub has a higher career YPA than Kelly. > He had a great game and I won't discount it... too much. Over half of those yards went to Andre Johnson - 273 and a td. Early in his career, Brett Favre targeted Sterling Sharpe on a very high percentage of his throws. People wondered how much of Favre's success was due to Sharpe. Then Sharpe went down with a career-ending injury. Favre's numbers didn't decline at all. On the contrary: he actually started throwing for even more yards, because he began spreading the ball around more.

> truth is his QBR and whatever else would have been higher this year if the defense was better... If bad defenses hurt QBs' stats, and good defenses help QBs' stats, then how do you explain a guy like Trent Dilfer? Dilfer was a member of the Ravens of 2000--a team which had one of the three best defenses in NFL history. The next year he moved to the Seahawks. Dilfer's stats with the Seahawks were much better than his stats with the Ravens or the Bucs; even though the Seahawks didn't have a defense anywhere close to the Dungy defenses in Tampa, or the Ravens defense of 2000. Or take a guy like Tom Brady. Last season, the Patriots had one of the worst defenses in NFL history. If having a bad defense hurts a QB's stats, then surely you'd expect Brady to have had a down year in 2011. But no. He averaged 8.6 yards per attempt in 2011. At least according to YPA, 2011 was Brady's best season ever. This season, Fitz has one of the five best offensive lines in football, the best running back in the game, a #1 WR who can consistently get open against Revis and other top CBs, emerging threats at WR in the form of Graham and Donald Jones, and a reliable pass catching TE in the form of Chandler. Those things--not the defense--are what affect a QB's stats. Thus far this season, Fitz has averaged 6.7 yards per attempt--no better than the previous two seasons, and not much different from Trent Edwards' career average of 6.5 yards per attempt; or J.P. Losman's career average of 6.6 yards per attempt. And yet, Fitzpatrick has a significantly better offensive supporting cast than Edwards or Losman had been given. Either Fitz must greatly improve, or he must be replaced.

> people automatically assume the only way to beat the Pats is to have a QB that's just as > good or better. Uh..... Actually it's the defense that's needed to stop the whining brat. The last time that a team with a very good defense + mediocre QB won the Super Bowl was after the 2002 season. That was ten years ago. Since then, every Super Bowl winning team has been led by a franchise QB. Every single one. There's only one way to build a Super Bowl winning team; and that's to build a team capable of beating the Patriots in the postseason. If you can beat the Patriots in the postseason, you can beat them when they are at their most focused and at their very best. Obviously, a quarterback alone does not a team make. If you want to beat the Patriots, you should have a QB in the same general category as Brady, in order to cancel him out. Then you need to build a better, more complete team than the one the Patriots have. If you do both those things, you set yourself up for success when you face the Patriots.

Exactly. Matt Schaub's career yards per attempt is higher than Jim Kelly's. Higher than Peyton Manning's. Higher than Tom Brady's. To call Schaub a "caretaker" is beyond absurd.

Fixed.

Your standards were too low! Over the course of his career, Johnny Unitas averaged 7.8 yards per attempt. That's a higher career average than Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. If the best QB from Kemp's era could achieve a better yards per attempt than many of the best QBs of today, it suggests that yards per attempt may be a reasonably good way of comparing QBs across eras. Jack Kemp achieved a career yards per attempt of 6.9. Typically, a QB has to achieve a career yards per attempt of 7.2 - 7.4 to be considered franchise. In addition, Kemp was intercepted on 6.0% of his pass attempts. Compare that to Alex van Pelt's 5.0% interception rate; or JP Losman's 3.6% interception rate. (Incidentally, Kemp's career yards per attempt of 6.9 is in the same general neighborhood as Losman's career yards per attempt of 6.6.) Like Losman, Ferguson also averaged 6.6 yards per attempt over the course of his career. Ferguson was intercepted on 4.6% of his throws. Nothing about those stats remotely suggests "franchise" to me. I'd argue that Jack Kemp was another Alex Smith/Joe Flacco. Neither Smith nor Flacco are franchise QBs, but they're a step down from that. I'd argue that Ferguson was two steps down from being a franchise QB, and was probably no better than Fitz.