Enh, I'm not a Pats hater. I'm just perplexed that they've had an identifiable flaw for the better part of a decade now, and it never gets addressed.
As a jealous Cowboy fan I am obligated to give a big "Fuck You" to you BillD, but as a friend I have say congrats. Sports fan rules of etiquette suck.
I know, but hard as it is to believe for anyone under thirty the Cowboys/Niners used to play defacto Super Bowls to win the right to beat the hell out of the AFC wuss of the year in the actual Super Bowl. Much respect, and much hate.
Hey I'm under thirty! But yea as much as a Niners/Seahawks rivalry is developing. The Rams and Cowboys are the Niners true rival and nemesis.
Considering your "true rival and nemesis" to come from outside your division is a mark of hubris and/or being a NY fan (hey, I'm a baseball guy, it's how I do). The sports gods will view this unfavorably in their annual review. (also grats on Super Bowl, I'm retreating to memories of week 3)
Hey the Rams are in the division and well the Cards and Seahawks are new additions so there is very little history there. The West was one weird division when it had the Niners, Ram, Saints, Panthers and Falcons in it.
Congrats to the 49ers for doing what Seattle couldn't and puling off the comeback in Atlanta. And congrats to the Ravens for saving us from another Patriot superbowl. Of the possible matchups, the "Harbaugh" Bowl isn't the worst. I would have preferred the "Overrated(?) QBs" Bowl (ATL vs BAL), but its better then the "Smirk" Bowl (NE vs SF) or the "Fuck Belichick" Bowl (NE vs ATL). Now all I have to do is avoid two weeks of Harbaugh talk. ;-)
On some level I would've rather the Niners play the Patriots, for the same reasons that the Patriots couldn't beat the Ravens--they rely on their offense and Brady almost exclusively, and a good defense can shut that down and then they have nothing. But if the Niners lose in the Super Bowl I'll be a lot less upset with Ray Lewis getting another ring than Brady and The Sweatshirt. All the talk is going to be about the Harbaughs and Kaepernick but the real story is that this is going to be a slugfest. It probably isn't going to be a pretty game, these two teams are going to beat the shit out of each other and it's going to come down to who has the stamina and will to make a play in the fourth quarter when their bodies are already one big bruise. From an entertainment standpoint, Falcons - Patriots would've been a better matchup. Neither team is as dominating on defense as the last Ravens Super Bowl team, but they are also not finesse teams. This is going to be the kind of game John Madden loves, just big ol' linemen slamming into each other trying to get that extra half yard. When they played last season, it felt like a rivalry game and I can only assume it's going to be more so with the championship on the line. The teams may not know each other that well but the coaches sure as hell do.
Is Flacco really overrated? It may just be the circles I traffic in, but in general the impression I get regarding him is that he's a not very good QB with a massive arm.
Well, I think there's two strata of Elite quarterbacks in the NFL. First you got the two living legends, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Then you got the other three, Brees, Rodgers and Eli Manning. That's it. No one else has proven what these five have over several seasons. Flacco is nowhere near this class and Matt Ryan gave us all a great example of why he isn't quite there either yesterday.
And this is why (though now I'm a Seahawks fan) I can never like the Cowboys. It's been ingrained in me to dislike them from an early age!
No..you dislike them because you're not from Dallas, and you're a functioning human being. I get people liking the Cowboys if they're from Dallas (I feel bad for them, but I sort of understand). What I don't get is the random fan from outside the area (like people I knew in the Washington DC area) who likes them just because. Fuck those people.
Flacco and Ryan both have national pundits who love them and both have pundits and fans who think they haven't proved anything. Even Flacco, who has a pretty good playoff record, in the past has been viewed as benefitting from the Ravens defense. This year is presumably changing that.
If you put Eli Manning in the second tier of elite NFL quarterbacks, then surely you have to include Ben Roethlisberger in that group too, right? They've both won two championships in their careers thus far, and their career stats are comparable (Eli has more total yards and TDs, Ben has a better completion percentage, yards per attempt, and career passer rating).
This is the kind of bullshit analysis I hate. Brady is a living legend because he was part of a great team with the greatest clutch kicker in history that won him three Super Bowls, Ryan isn't even in the tier below him because he has never had that kind of team around him. Yesterday, Ryan and Brady played games against very similar teams. They play tough defense, they run the ball and they compete for 60 minutes. And their coaches are brothers. Here are the stat lines: Brady, 29/54, 320 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT Ryan, 30/42, 396 yards, 3 TD, 1 INT, 1 Fumble So, playing against a team with a better record and a higher ranked defense, Ryan has more completions, more yards, more touchdowns and the same number of turnovers and he "gave us all a great example of why he isn't quite there", while Brady loses decisively and is one of the two best QBs in the league? That makes no goddamn sense. How many times does Brady have to lose in the playoffs before people give some credit to Bruschi, Vrabel, Harrison and the rest of that defense which Brady has not won without?
Wait, you're actually arguing that Matt Ryan is on par or better than Tom Brady? I can see why you'd be upset with pretty much every analysis out there then. And Tom Brady is a living legend because he played with a great kicker, gotcha. I guess Montana would have passed unnoticed by history without Tom Rathman too, huh? Of course the Patriots had a great defense. Just like the old 49ers in their dynasty years. I get how you hate Bellichick, Brady and the Patriots, that's fine.
Matt Ryan had a better game against a better team. I don't see how that puts him below Brady. And yes, I do hate analysis that treats the most complex team sport in the world as if it's a contest between two quarterbacks. We have seen what Brady can do with and without a complete team around him. Bob Sanders getting healthy for the Super Bowl run did not make Peyton Manning a better QB, but it did transform the narrative about Peyton. Matt Ryan doesn't need to play better than he did on Sunday, he just needs a better team. If you're judging players by Super Bowl rings, Vinatieri has more. Is your position that Montana would've been a multiple Super Bowl winner if he'd been drafted by the Browns? There were a hell of a lot more great players on the 49ers than just the QBs, including the guy who holds the record for holding the most records. Football is a team game.
Tom Brady is an elite living legend along with Peyton because they have done this for a decade plus and continue to do so. I don't see what there is to argue about that. Ryan, Flacco are both good, great quarterbacks who could become elite ones. Just because Ryan played one game better than Brady doesn't mean anything. You could just as well argue Ryan had a slightly better offense around him than Brady has. A HoF TE, two #1 WRs and a good pair of RB. This is all pointless anyways since it's all subjective. But I would agree with Hammet's list and just call them all elite QBs with the difference being how long each of them has been in the league. Flacco and Ryan are both now on the cusp of elite status and a future Super Bowl win will be what cements them there if they stay consistent and continue to do what they're doing.
No shit. I had no idea. Next post you're going to tell me that coaching matters and, whoa, I'm just not prepared for that. Stop being an argumentative idiot.
No, you really couldn't. The Patriots had the best offense in the league during the regular season, and it's not even close. Almost five points per game more than the second place team, and 9 more than the Falcons. If it's so obvious, then how is a 400 yard, 3 TD game an indictment of the QB? The Falcons lost because Mike Nolan decided to sell out to stop Kaepernick and give up 8+ yards every time he handed off inside. Matt Ryan did not Romo away a game they should've won. The Falcons just got beat by a better team. This is basically the Dan Marino argument. I think judging QBs solely on whether their team was good enough to win the Super Bowl is simplistic. I don't see how you could watch the 49ers game and say that Matt Ryan is not elite. Especially if we're lauding Ben Roethlisberger for his 123 yard, 2 INT Super Bowl win.
You really have no idea what you're talking about, do you? Hint: Elite status is not handed out (as it were) on the basis of one (lost) playoff game. It is a summation of a career, over several seasons and many many games. One very, very important stat is playoff appearances and wins. Matt Ryan has one (1) playoff win in his whole career, against an opponent that you hilariously decided wasn't very good at all. I watched six full Falcons games this season and it came as no surprise to me that they ended up losing against the 49ers, or that they were very close to losing against the Seahawks. You know, the Seahawks which are SO overrrated by everyone except you. Is this only Matt Ryans's fault? No. But he is part of it. The other major part is the coaching and playcalling from the sidelines, as well as a general lack of what I call mental toughness. They fold, the Falcons fold, and whether you like it or not Matt Ryan IS their most important player. Not the only player that matters, but the most important. My personal favorite position in football is Free Safety, one of my favorite plays ever was when Ronnie Lott hit Ickey Woods so goddamn hard he toppled over backwards. Some people think that's why the Niners won that Super Bowl, I tend to think it was because Boomer basically didn't complete a pass in the first half.
I do know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about narratives and groupthink. Remember when Peyton Manning was overrated and a choker? Then Bob Sanders comes back from injury and the defense suddenly is able to stop the run, and now Peyton isn't a choker anymore. He's still the same guy. John Elway was a Super Bowl failure until he started handing off to Terrell Davis 30 times a game. Tom Brady chokes in the Super Bowl, but he already established his narrative so it's ok. Ben Roethlisberger is literally a net negative for his team, but they win in spite of him and therefor he gets to be called elite. It's ridiculous. Trent Dilfer, Mark Rypien and Phil Simms all have Super Bowl rings. Sometimes it really is the QB, but a lot of times the play of the other 21 guys gets overlooked. Colin Kaepernick showed a lot of heart and leadership bringing the 49ers back, but it was plays by Ahmad Brooks and Navorro Bowman that sealed the win. If you swapped Kaepernick and Ryan in that game, the Falcons still lose. You're right that the Falcons looked like paper tigers, and I've been saying that all along. But if anything, the fact that they rely on Ryan so much is part of their problem. That shouldn't reflect poorly on him. It's not like he can be the QB and the defensive coordinator.
Bullshit. In his first SB loss against the Giants, Brady engineered a 4th quarter TD drive to put the Patriots ahead 14-10 in the dying minutes. It's not his fault the D couldn't stop David Tyree from making a miraculous catch. Then last year, with his team leading late in the 4th, he threw a perfect pass that would have given the Pats a first down and allowed them to pretty much ice the clock...except the usually-reliable Wes Welker dropped a ball he would normally catch every time. Granted, neither of those games rank among Brady's career best performances, but he's not a SB choker. Both times he did enough to secure a win only to be let down by others.
Did anyone else find it...odd...that the commentators avoided talking about the fact that Ridley fumbled because he was unconscious? I don't think Pollard was to blame, Ridley clearly lowered his head, but I find it insulting that it wasn't mentioned that he was Knocked Out. The same thing happened last year in the 49rs Saints game, where again the commentators conspicuously avoided talking about Pierre Thomas' lack of consciousness. I don't believe either hit was currently illegal, but that shouldn't prevent discussion of the immediate (to say nothing of the long term) effects of these hits.
This is pretty much my entire argument for Matt Ryan. 400 yards and 3 TDs is plenty to win most games. He certainly had a better game than either of the winning QBs. But I do think it's fair to call it choking when a team steamrolls to an undefeated season and then loses to a fifth seed in the final game, regardless of how close it was. Anyway, moving back to Jerry Jones and the Cowboy Circus, today Jones announced that Jason Garrett won't be calling plays next season, and it's assumed Bill Callahan will take over. Coincidentally, Tim Brown just came out and accused Callahan of sabotaging the Raiders in the Super Bowl.
