What the Bills need the most...

[ganesh]

The best qb in the world is no good when he is laying on his a$$, bleeding and injured.

723874[/snapback]

 

Yup

[Pyrite Gal]

.....a bad QB is just not good enough period.

I agree(again) that if one has a strong team, one only needs a decent QB.  At this point we have not produced a decent QB(though one may develop).

 

One thing I didn't look at in my first list was who WINS a superbowl.  My list focused on who gets to the Superbowl.

 

13 of the last 18 superbowls were won with HOFers, future HOFers or MVPs

(Rothlisberger may turn into #14, who knows)

 

I don't want us to be just competative.

I don't want us to be just superbowl runner-ups.

I want the Bills to WIN the superbowl.

 

13 of the last 18!!!!

 

Having a future HOFer or MVP QB is not essential to winning the big one....just extremely useful.

723868[/snapback]

 

 

Your last line is right on point. Having a great super stud like really tremendous spiffiest in he world QB is extremely useful, it just ain't essential for winning the SB.

 

This is the simple point I am making.

 

Folks seem to want to pretend/believe/insist/whatever, that I am arguing instead that we should go out and get a bad QB as a strategy for winning it all. This taking an opposing point, inflating it to the worst case and then arguing against that worst case is what passes for debate in today's screaming news TV and talk show radio, but that is not what I am saying.

 

All I am opposing is an extreme view taken by some (not all or I'd be guilty of using the same technique I am complaining about) that having a greator even more than average QB is essential to getting to the SB.

 

It is not. And actually, if one takes the thoughtful post from Dibs which sites the last QBs from the last 17 SBs this makes the point that an average QB is quite capable of taking a team to the SB. Of the 23 QBs he cites, 7 of them he also lables as average or worse (he does not typify Humphries). Overall, several of the stud QBs he cites made it to multiple SBs, however, I think this factoid is balanced out by may sense that though QBs like O'Donnel. Hasselbeck and Delhomme (to date as I think he will likely get better and be a real stud though he was a UDFA) made the SB, they really do not scare me to face them as a great or very good QB should.

 

In general, one needs to be careful using Pro Bowl status or even getting to the SB as definite proof or more than a potential indication that a QB is very good or above average in his absolute quality as this proof is somewhat self-referential. Just as being a better than average QB (far better than avg. in Manning or Marino's cases) is no guarantee of getting to or winning the SB also getting to the SB with your team is no absolute proof you are above average QB in absolute qualtiy.

 

I have made the point arguing against the extreme view that having a stud QB is essential to getting to or winning the SB, not because I want to take an extreme view of opposing points, but because some have advocated that the Bills should make what I judge as bad football moves in the foolish hope of getting a stud QB.

 

For example, i have repetitively argued against drafting a QB in the first round against the shouts of folks who argued long that we needed to take Harrington by pointing out the simple fact that until Ben RoboQB won the SB with Pitts last year, no QB had delivered an SB win to the team which picked him in the 1st round since allas took Aikman in 1989.

 

I did not say this to argue that 1st round QBs were bad, I just argued that one could get a QB who was a 1st rounder or capable of getting you an SB win for or near the NFL minimum as seen in the cases of Trent Dilfer, Kurt Warner or Tom Brady. its not easy to pick studs such as these players, but it this field had proven to be a strategy that worked far more often than drafting a QB in the first.. I was not advocating one of these approaches as the way to do it, i was simply arguing that for a long period of time from Aikman in 89 to RoboQB, drafting a QB in the first had simply not proven AT ALL as a way to win the SB or get to it very much either.

 

I think the lesson to be learned from he facts as Dibs points them out is that somwhere between 1 in 4 and 1 in 3 SBs teams get there with an average QB at the helm.

 

This lesson is of particular import to the Bills as our history since the great days of the early 90s has been to continually not build or simply destroy our team in the foolish search to find the next Jim Kelly.

 

Stetching to draft TC in the second

Rushing TC to start before he was ready (if he ever would be)

Trading a 3rd for Hobert

Extending RJ before he proved himself

Agreeing to deals with RJ that bonused him and then having the Flutie cap hiot when he played as AJ Smith expected

Cutting Bledsoe after foolishly extending him and handing the job to JP

 

are all examples to me of QB foolishness inspired by our insane attempts to find the next Jim Kelly rather than instead devoting similar resources and efforts to building a winning team with a merely adequate QB (Flutie and Bledsoe at their peak for us were actually better than adequate but even that was not good enough for those who have bought into the QB Club marketing mentality that we need Joe Montana or we are doomed).

 

I'd love a stud HOF QB and a natural succesor to Jimbo.

 

However, I simply think it is better strategy rather than banking so much on a vain desire to get this stud QB, to instead do the more difficult but I think more likely to happen job of building a winning team.

[Dibs]

.....The best qb in the world is no good when he is laying on his a$$, bleeding and injured.

723874[/snapback]

The devil himself, let alone his advocate could not argue with that statement.

[Chalkie Gerzowski]

a team!

 

[OCinBuffalo]

The devil himself, let alone his advocate could not argue with that statement.

723906[/snapback]

 

Agreed.

[BuffOrange]

It seems like in most posts you go to great lengths to explain your point, and try to come to a logical conclusion. I guess I just don't understand a lot of the logic you use. It seems like you base your assumptions off isolated examples rather then the overwhelming majority of events. This response is a perfect example. You have often cited the Ravens Super Bowl run in an attempt to un glorify the QB position, when in reality the overwhelming evidence points toward needing a high tier QB to win the super bowl. 

 

Is it possible to win the Super Bowl with an average QB?

Yes

 

Is it likely?

Hell no.

 

Dibs didn't cherry pick the best QB's ever, he just picked the QB's of teams that have won or gone to the Super Bowl. It's not a coincidence that most those teams had pro bowl caliber QB's.

723520[/snapback]

 

Great post. The Sports Guy once wrote a fantastic article about this. The Ravens, Pats, and Bucs from 2000-2002 were just anomalies (Brady was average at best in 2001). It was a strange era in football that saw 3 of the worst championship teams ever who were not coincidentally, led by mediocre QB's. Those years were the exception to the rule for sure. The evidence in the time periods before & after that 3year period is pretty overwhelming.