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I was thinking this morning it would be fun if there were a stat called something like "percentage of comebacks." It would be pretty random - you'd pick some parameters - say, with less than three minutes left, and needing a score to tie or win, what percentage of the time did a given QB bring his team back for that score?
It would be complicated - more points for bringing your team back for a touchdown than a field goal, for one example - but it might be fun. What percentage of the time, given the opportunity, did your favorite QB bring his team back to tie/go ahead? You'd also have to have some arbitrary cut off - if your QB gets the ball back with, say, eight seconds left and no timeouts, is that a "fail"?
Unlike Patler, I enjoy these discussions. Opinion-based, for sure, but fun if you can discuss it intelligently and not just let it droop into bashing. For example, now I'm piqued about Otto Graham. Hmmm. Also, I remember reading about Y.A. Tittle as hugely underrated - I wonder if he was a big comeback QB?
As for Packnut's assertion that it's dependent on the talent around the QB, isn't every statistic pretty much dependent upon that? If you're a great QB but you have a crap offensive line, your stats will suffer. If you're a great pass-rushing defensive end but your defensive line mates suck, you'll get double-teamed a lot more and your stats could suffer.
I think a comeback QB needs a kind of cold-bloodedness, like a serial killer. The need to step outside any given situation and see it from above. Favre's great strength was very different than that - he made, as someone noted earlier, something out of nothing; he was the great improviser. He was the spectacular and unexpected - thus the joy and the heartbreak of watching Brett Favre.
It's not that he couldn't read defenses and all that - he could, as he got into his career. But he lost the cold-bloodedness at key moments. He seemed to get emotional and try to get it all at once, often at great risk. In a sense, you could argue that he was too human.
It would be complicated - more points for bringing your team back for a touchdown than a field goal, for one example - but it might be fun. What percentage of the time, given the opportunity, did your favorite QB bring his team back to tie/go ahead? You'd also have to have some arbitrary cut off - if your QB gets the ball back with, say, eight seconds left and no timeouts, is that a "fail"?
Unlike Patler, I enjoy these discussions. Opinion-based, for sure, but fun if you can discuss it intelligently and not just let it droop into bashing. For example, now I'm piqued about Otto Graham. Hmmm. Also, I remember reading about Y.A. Tittle as hugely underrated - I wonder if he was a big comeback QB?
As for Packnut's assertion that it's dependent on the talent around the QB, isn't every statistic pretty much dependent upon that? If you're a great QB but you have a crap offensive line, your stats will suffer. If you're a great pass-rushing defensive end but your defensive line mates suck, you'll get double-teamed a lot more and your stats could suffer.
I think a comeback QB needs a kind of cold-bloodedness, like a serial killer. The need to step outside any given situation and see it from above. Favre's great strength was very different than that - he made, as someone noted earlier, something out of nothing; he was the great improviser. He was the spectacular and unexpected - thus the joy and the heartbreak of watching Brett Favre.
It's not that he couldn't read defenses and all that - he could, as he got into his career. But he lost the cold-bloodedness at key moments. He seemed to get emotional and try to get it all at once, often at great risk. In a sense, you could argue that he was too human.
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