1762

I go with no but he is a good QB and with a couple more years of this and possibly a Super Bowl win then he will be considered elite. Same with Matt Ryan.

1763

Matt Ryan is more towards the Jay Cutler side of things right now, in my opinion. He needs a couple of brilliant Super Bowl performances just to wipe the memories of his failures away. Looking at it another way, I’ll never doubt Flacco’s ability to win, anywhere, anytime, against anyone. The next time Ryan is in a championship game I’ll be surprised if the Falcons win it.

1764

Not sure what to think about Ryan but he was pretty darn lucky to get even one post season win this year. Seattle’s defense had to collapse for it to happen.

1765

I probably don’t watch enough Falcon games but Fox seem to air his late game comeback a lot as bonus coverage. We’ll see how good he really is in time. If he stays consistent and rises his game or not.

1766

Brady looked terrible, he was why they lost. As far as Belichick stepping out on the mandatory interview, I say more power to him. He went out of his way to congratulate Harbaugh, thats enough for me. The mandatory post-game interviews are stupid. You just lost a huge game, how do you feel?!?! Fuck that get out of my face before I punch you.

I think all of the league mandated interviews, in all sports, are stupid, its not like they add anything to the coverage. Most of the time its real clear the coach just wants to get the fuck out of there and the questions are inane.

1767

That Sunk-Cost Feeling - The Jets and Sanchez

Surowiecki says it well:

Even so, while the Jets figure out whether Sanchez is the best option, they need to forget—forget how much they’ve paid him, how high he was drafted, and even the fact that the head coach has a tattoo of his wife wearing Sanchez’s jersey. All those costs are sunk. Worrying about them will only insure that the Jets are, too.

1768

I don’t know, I kind of agree with Shannon Sharpe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ly-GJnfSy6Y

You can’t win the Superbowl every year. Part of being a coach is talking to the media after games and you don’t get a pass because your team lost. Belichick acts like he’s the only coach that’s ever lost a game. He comes off as entitled and a poor sport.

1769

It’s plain and simple: Belicheat’s a jackass. Always has been, always will be.

1770

Calling Joe Flacco an “elite” quarterback is one of the more ridiculous things I’ve seen this week. And that includes the silly Harbowl hype!

Joe Flacco is an average quarterback with a very strong arm who played a good game against a team with a pretty poor defense. It happens! Even Rex Grossman had a good game here or there.

I really don’t like the “elite” arguments, but I’d posit that for a quarterback to be “elite” he needs to show a high level of performance on a consistent basis across multiple seasons. Flacco has done nothing of the sort.

1771

Yes. I thought people were joking?

1772

People seem surprisingly sincere in their “Joe Flacco on the cusp of elite” comments.

A Ravens victory in the Super Bowl would put Joe Flacco on the cusp of slightly above average.

1773

It’s true that Flacco has not done it consistently over a period of time. He has not won a Super Bowl. However, I’m comfortable enough with what I’ve seen to this point, based on my years of watching football, to say he’s crossed over to elite status. That is, I fully expect in the coming years(barring injury) we’ll see consistency and at least one SB victory from him. I wouldn’t say the same for Matt Ryan.

1774

Fine, he may not be on the cusp of eliteness but he’s a good QB. I agree eliteness is something that come with time through consistency. But calling him average is an insult. Ponder and Sanchez are average, Flacco is not. He may not be elite but I’m sure there are 20 plus teams who would love to have him as their starting QB. I hate the elite debate anyways. In my mind there shouldn’t be more than 2-3 QBs in a given season that would be elite, another 3 or so that are great and so on and so forth.

1775

I think calling Sanchez average is being generous to Sanchez.

1776

20+ teams seems a bit high for someone as inconsistent as him. But let’s take a look:

New England: No
Miami: Yes
New York Jets: Yes
Buffalo Bills: Yes

Baltimore: Default
Cincinnati: This one is basically a tossup, as they’re somewhat similar statistically. Dalton is younger and my guess is Cinci would choose to stick with him and hope for further growth.
Pittsburgh: No
Cleveland: Yes

Houston: Don’t think so. It looked like there was something wrong with Schaub at the end of the year, but that’s what the offseason is for.
Indianapolis: No
Tennessee: Yes
Jacksonville: Yes

Denver: No
San Diego: No
Oakland: Yes
Kansas City: Yes

Washington: No
New York Giants: No
Dallas: Cowboy fans might rather have Flacco, but Romo is better.
Philadelphia: Not with the system they’ve got coming in

Green Bay: No
Minnesota: Yes
Chicago: Probably not, but this one is closer than I thought originally.
Detroit: No

Atlanta: No
Carolina: No
New Orleans: No
Tampa Bay: Probably not. Facco has been better except for the 2010 season, but Freeman is younger and I think the team would stick with him and hope for the same growth Cinci wants to see from Dalton.

San Francisco: No
Seattle: No
St. Louis: No
Arizona: Yes

So I count 10 teams there that would rather have Flacco than their current starter. If you want to give him all the tossups, that ups it to 14. I’d say that’s the very definition of ‘average nfl quarterback’.

1777

I think Sanchez had the worst stat line of any QB designated as the starter this season. I can’t imagine any team will want him as a starter in 2013. Though, maybe the Jets feel like they don’t have a better option.

As for Flacco, he’s an average QB paired with a traditionally elite defense. I suspect San Fran will win by 10+ points. Regardless, my opinion won’t change no matter what happens in the Superbowl.

1778

Okay maybe not 20 teams that would want him, but I would label him as top 10 or 12. Which I would consider in the good range. Either that or average for an NFL starting QB is pretty good and hard to find considering 5-7 teams look for a new starting QB every offseason. Hell I don’t even know why I’m debating this since the Ravens aren’t even my team. I just feel he’s a good QB and if over the next 2-3 years he stays consistent and wins a Super Bowl he can grow like Eli has and move up into that next tier of QBs.

1779

It’s pretty clear you are grading QB’s on a pretty generous curve.

Ponder and Sanchez are two of the worst QB’s in the league. In fact, they are arguably the two worst starters in the league. If either is a starting NFL QB two years from now, I will be shocked.

“20+ teams that will have him as their starting QB” means that Flacco is in the top 12 of starting quarterbacks. That means he is clearly better than:

  • Peyton Manning
  • Tom Brady
  • Drew Brees
  • Aaron Rodgers
  • Russel Wilson
  • Colin Kaepernick
  • RGIII
  • Andrew Luck
  • Ben Roethlisberger
  • Eli Manning
  • Matt Ryan
  • Phillip Rivers

That’s just off the top of my head. I doubt any of the teams who have those players as their QB would prefer to have Joe Flacco.

Seriously you need to get a grip. Joe Flacco had a good game. That’s good for him, but you need to evaluate that one good game in the context of a career that consists almost entirely of mediocre to bad games. Flacco’s not a dreadful QB like Sanchez or Ponder, but the idea that he’s anything other than about league average is just ridiculous on its face. You remind me of my dad: he thinks the fact that Joe Flacco can gun the ball downfield really well makes up for all of his liabilities, because all he remembers from Joe Flacco are the handful of successful deep balls he’s seen him throw. Joe Flacco has indeed made some really pretty long completions, but when he’s not throwing that rare beautiful long pass he’s playing like a slightly below average QB.

1780

Obviously, if Flacco wins a Super Bowl and suddenly starts playing dramatically better than he has for the duration of his career, he’ll be due some reconsideration. Oddly, that’s basically what happened to Eli. Before the Giants Super Bowl run, he was an average to below average QB. Somehow a switch was flipped during that Super Bowl run and all of a sudden he became fantastic and hasn’t looked back.

It’s possible that the same thing might happen for Joe Flacco. And if it does, I’ll be there cheering him on (I like good QB play!). But to call him elite - or great, or good, or really anything other than about league average right now is ridiculous.

1781

Well there are 96 QBs or so in the league presuming each team carries 3 QBs. So let’s be fair now, he’s not that bad. And yes I used Ponder and Sanchez as examples because of how terrible they are and that they’re still starters. It just shows you how bad a really average NFL quarterback would be since they wouldn’t even be in the starting lineup. Again I would put him in the top 12-15 or so. That doesn’t mean he’s clearly better than any or most of the people on your list cause they would clearly be top 5 or top 10. And I would put him on the same level as Ryan and Rivers for the time being. Ryan like Flacco hasn’t proven anything and River has regressed in the past couple of years.

My point is that he is a good quarterback but he’s an average starter. While others like Ponder or Sanchez are smack dab in the middle of average. Probably where our points differ was I was comparing Flacco and Ryan and where they would rank among all QBs and not just starters. Since to me average means low end starter or backup in the NFL.