How big of a part is the QB to the whole team?

[RashanGary]

I think you're right, though it won't be a popular position to take within some circles. We like our heros to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Favre legend is beginning to resemble the legend of Paul Bunyan. I guess what he did wasn't enough for some people, and they feel like they have to embellish it.

That's exactly it. Favre was a great player for a long time that contributed to a lot of really good teams. He was fun to watch, tough as nails and easy to root for. He'll always be remembered (or should have been always remembered) as a regular guy with a cannon arm that did it his way and did it the right way.

Instead, people have to prop him up to be a savior and watch as their savior is so easily replaced and discarded (pretty much proving he was no savior). They attribute things to him that no QB has ever done and will ever do and fill in circumstancial evidence to prove it to themselves and very ineffectively to others.

We can and should all appreciate what Brett Favre did. We don't have to overglorify him to appreciate him but at the same time, it's exciting to move on from him because a well run organization will not miss a beat. I think that is what we're looking at right now - a well run organization taht won't skip a beat.

[Scott Campbell]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

If you care about QB rating, you by default care about yardage. It's in the calculation.

So when you asked "who cares about yardage", my answer would be - Partial cares about yardage. Just like everybody else who watches football.

[RashanGary]

And clearly we're not in a conversation where we can even begin to discuss correlation and causation

[Bossman641]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

Partial, sometimes you confuse the hell out of me. I am 99.9% positive that you have said before you don't care about QB rating at all in shooting down the stats of Rodgers. So if he had a good QB rating this year (6th) doesn't that mean, by your own definition, he is well above average and should have been quarterbacking a winning team?

I decided to take a look at the top 10 QB's by QB rating for the past 3 years and see who made the playoffs.

2006
1. P. Manning - Yes
2. Huard - Yes
3. Brees - Yes
4. McNabb - Yes
5. Romo - Yes
6. Palmer - No
7. Bulger - No
8. Rivers - Yes
9. Brady - Yes
10. Brunell - No

2007
1. Brady - Yes
2. Roethlisberger - Yes
3. Garrard - Yes
4. P. Manning - Yes
5. Romo - Yes
6. Favre - Yes
7. Garcia - Yes
8. Hasselbeck - Yes
9. McNabb - No
10. Warner - No

2008
1. Rivers - Yes
2. Pennington - Yes
3. Wanrer - Yes
4. Brees - No
5. P. Manning - Yes
6. Rodgers - No
7. Schaub - Yes
8. Romo - No
9. Garcia - No
10. Cassell - No

2006 - 7/10 made it
2007 - 8/10 made it
2008 - 5/10 made it

Decided to look at 2005 too out of curiosity

1. P. Manning - Yes
2. Palmer - Yes
3. Roethlisberger - Yes
4. Hasselbeck - Yes
5. Bulger - No
6. Brady - Yes
7. Plummer - Yes
8. Green - No
9. Leftwich - Yes
10. Brees - No

7/10 made it

Overall, 27/40 (67.5%) made the playoffs with the outlier being this year when only 5/10 made it. I think it's more than fair to say that Rodgers was not the problem on this team and if he can consistently put up numbers like this for the rest of his career we should see a lot of playoff football assuming the defense comes together.

[Scott Campbell]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

Partial, sometimes you confuse the hell out of me. I am 99.9% positive that you have said before you don't care about QB rating at all in shooting down the stats of Rodgers. So if he had a good QB rating this year (6th) doesn't that mean, by your own definition, he is well above average and should have been quarterbacking a winning team?

I decided to take a look at the top 10 QB's by QB rating for the past 3 years and see who made the playoffs.

2006
1. P. Manning - Yes
2. Huard - Yes
3. Brees - Yes
4. McNabb - Yes
5. Romo - Yes
6. Palmer - No
7. Bulger - No
8. Rivers - Yes
9. Brady - Yes
10. Brunell - No

2007
1. Brady - Yes
2. Roethlisberger - Yes
3. Garrard - Yes
4. P. Manning - Yes
5. Romo - Yes
6. Favre - Yes
7. Garcia - Yes
8. Hasselbeck - Yes
9. McNabb - No
10. Warner - No

2008
1. Rivers - Yes
2. Pennington - Yes
3. Wanrer - Yes
4. Brees - No
5. P. Manning - Yes
6. Rodgers - No
7. Schaub - Yes
8. Romo - No
9. Garcia - No
10. Cassell - No

2006 - 7/10 made it
2007 - 8/10 made it
2008 - 5/10 made it

Decided to look at 2005 too out of curiosity

1. P. Manning - Yes
2. Palmer - Yes
3. Roethlisberger - Yes
4. Hasselbeck - Yes
5. Bulger - No
6. Brady - Yes
7. Plummer - Yes
8. Green - No
9. Leftwich - Yes
10. Brees - No

7/10 made it

Overall, 27/40 (67.5%) made the playoffs with the outlier being this year when only 5/10 made it. I think it's more than fair to say that Rodgers was not the problem on this team and if he can consistently put up numbers like this for the rest of his career we should see a lot of playoff football assuming the defense comes together.

Very interesting. I wonder what that list would look like if you replaced QB rating with passing yards.

[Bossman641]

One more year

2004

1. P. Manning - Yes
2. Culpepper - Yes
3. Brees - Yes
4. McNabb - Yes
5. Roethlisberger - Yes
6. Griese - No
7. Green - No
8. Bulger - Yes
9. Brady - Yes
10. Favre - Yes

8/10 in 2004

Grand total 35/50 or 70%.

[Bossman641]

I'm adding 2 more years to bring it to 7 total

2002
1. Pennington - Yes
2. Gannon - Yes
3. Brad Johnson - Yes
4. Green - No
5. P. Manning - Yes
6. Hasselbeck - No
7. McNabb - Yes
8. Bledsoe - No
9. Brady - No
10. Brunell - No

5/10

2003
1. McNair - Yes
2. P. Manning - Yes
3. Culpepper - No
4. Green - Yes
5. Plummer - Yes
6. Favre - Yes
7. Brooks - No
8. Hasselbeck - Yes
9. Kitna - No
10. Brady - Yes

7/10

47/70 (67%) made the playoffs.

[Partial]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

If you care about QB rating, you by default care about yardage. It's in the calculation.

So when you asked "who cares about yardage", my answer would be - Partial cares about yardage. Just like everybody else who watches football.

Pass yardage is an incredible misleading statistic. I think QB rating tends to be as well. You can have a very good rating and not score many points. Somebody can go 9/11 with 1 td off of a bunch of dump off passes and have somebody break a tackle or two and take one long and have an excellent rating. That doesn't mean they did an excellent job. That means they did an efficient job.

Good quarterback play(which I was alluding to by notioning the rating) typically (over a long period of time) results in success because it is easier to build a team when you're not spending high picks constantly trying to find that quarterback. It's quite obvious to me.

Bossman, he did play above average. How many times does a guy have to say that?!? You're an engineering student, right, so you're clearly a smart enough dude to understand that you're not either great or awful. In my opinion, however, when running an NFL team, if you aren't great at the QB position, you keep trying to improve it as much if not more than any other position due to its importance.

[Cheesehead Craig]

Any good, competent GM is going to keep looking for a quarterback. Take a look at Baltimore. I'm a huge Ozzie Newsome fan, believe he is the best GM in the NFL. He signed Girbach. He liked Boller so he traded a #1 to go up and get him. He liked Troy Smith and took him on the first day. He liked Flocco so he traded up to get him.

Well, he had to replace Anthony Wright at QB because he stunk, so he picked Boller. Boller turned out to be a bust as well and had to be replaced, so he took Troy Smith. Smith was a magnificent bust so he wasn't the answer at QB so that meant he had to go find another guy and got Flocco. Flocco is moreso a game manager right now. You and I agreed on that assessment this past season.

I don't see this as Ozzie believing that the QB position always has to be upgraded, he needed it to be upgraded as the picks he made were poor. Now that Flocco appears to be a somewhat decent QB, Ozzie selected no QBs in this last draft. So Ozzie believes that Flacco is good enough that he didn't need to select a new QB this past draft.

So my question is that given that Rodgers is clearly better than Flocco and "the best GM" Ozzie feels that he doesn't need an upgrade over Flocco, why is it that the Packers need to get an upgrade on Rodgers?

[Zool]

Flacco

Dont forget about Steve McNair. They keeps taking QB's high out of necessity not choice.

[Bossman641]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

If you care about QB rating, you by default care about yardage. It's in the calculation.

So when you asked "who cares about yardage", my answer would be - Partial cares about yardage. Just like everybody else who watches football.

Pass yardage is an incredible misleading statistic. I think QB rating tends to be as well. You can have a very good rating and not score many points. Somebody can go 9/11 with 1 td off of a bunch of dump off passes and have somebody break a tackle or two and take one long and have an excellent rating. That doesn't mean they did an excellent job. That means they did an efficient job.

Good quarterback play(which I was alluding to by notioning the rating) typically (over a long period of time) results in success because it is easier to build a team when you're not spending high picks constantly trying to find that quarterback. It's quite obvious to me.

Bossman, he did play above average. How many times does a guy have to say that?!? You're an engineering student, right, so you're clearly a smart enough dude to understand that you're not either great or awful. In my opinion, however, when running an NFL team, if you aren't great at the QB position, you keep trying to improve it as much if not more than any other position due to its importance.

Ex-engineer. Accounting is what I ended up doing.

My issue is more with how you have consistently lumped the blame for the losses on Rodgers. I'm not talking a loss here, or a loss there. There were certainly 2-3 where Rodgers and the offense played like shit. It just seems like, in general, whenever you discuss the losses you put them on him.

I disagree with your if not great dump him statement. I certainly wouldn't say Roethlisberger is a great QB. He's really good but he only has to be really good from time to time. The rest of the time he can count on the defense or run game to bail him out. I'd say the difference between the Packer run game/defense and the Steeler run game/defense is a hell of a lot bigger than the difference between Big Ben and Rodgers.

[Scott Campbell]

Snake is absolutely right that QB rating has a strong correlation to wins.

Pass yardage is an incredible misleading statistic. I think QB rating tends to be as well.

Crystal clear.

[Partial]

Well, he had to replace Anthony Wright at QB because he stunk, so he picked Boller. Boller turned out to be a bust as well and had to be replaced, so he took Troy Smith. Smith was a magnificent bust so he wasn't the answer at QB so that meant he had to go find another guy and got Flocco. Flocco is moreso a game manager right now. You and I agreed on that assessment this past season.

I don't see this as Ozzie believing that the QB position always has to be upgraded, he needed it to be upgraded as the picks he made were poor. Now that Flocco appears to be a somewhat decent QB, Ozzie selected no QBs in this last draft. So Ozzie believes that Flacco is good enough that he didn't need to select a new QB this past draft.

So my question is that given that Rodgers is clearly better than Flocco and "the best GM" Ozzie feels that he doesn't need an upgrade over Flocco, why is it that the Packers need to get an upgrade on Rodgers?

Good post. I agree with it. I think that need and upgrading are basically the same thing. They "upgraded" because the "needed" a respectable player there who could get the job done.

We all saw A-Rod as a rookie. I don't think there is any chance he could do what Flacco did as a rookie. I think Flacco has a higher ceiling as he still has a ton of room to grow mentally. The difference in how Rodgers played the game from year 1 to year 4 was night and day. I don't know if we'll see that from Flacco because I haven't seen him nearly enough to have an opinion, but the difference from going through one off-season and camp and four off-seasons and camp is night and day in my opinion.

Zool, thats what I'm getting at. Teams that have a JAG at QB have to keep trying to find a competent starter (upgrade to one was what I was saying -- same meaning different verbage)

[Partial]

I disagree with your if not great dump him statement. I certainly wouldn't say Roethlisberger is a great QB. He's really good but he only has to be really good from time to time. The rest of the time he can count on the defense or run game to bail him out. I'd say the difference between the Packer run game/defense and the Steeler run game/defense is a hell of a lot bigger than the difference between Big Ben and Rodgers.

You put the Pitt defense with the Rodgers lead offense and it's a team that goes deep in the playoffs, no doubt. I personally believe that Roethilisberger is a better QB, but right now Rodgers has infinitely more weapons (way better line, way better receiver -- santonio is the most overrated player in the NFL after the big catch --, though Heath Miller is a great TE) and with a defense like that, this team would have competed for a super bowl, no doubt.

Problem with that is its very, very, very unlikely to put that sort of skill position talent on offense and defense together. The Steelers don't have anywhere near the talent the Packers do at the skill position on offense. Thats one of the big things that makes our offense go.

I don't know that with the Steelers offense and Rodgers under center if they're a super bowl team. They might still be a playoff team. It's impossible to tell obviously, but since they have Cleveland and Cinci in their division they'd probably sitll win enough games to get into the playoffs.

[Bossman641]

Zool, thats what I'm getting at. Teams that have a JAG at QB have to keep trying to find a competent starter (upgrade to one was what I was saying -- same meaning different verbage)

Million dollar question then - Is Rodgers JAG?