Seems like the gap between Bradshaw and Ben lasted forever. Now that we finally have a franchise QB again, it seems like every team has one.
Are Franchise QBs becoming a dime a dozen?
Seems like the gap between Bradshaw and Ben lasted forever. Now that we finally have a franchise QB again, it seems like every team has one.
Are Franchise QBs becoming a dime a dozen?
Ben, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, and the Mannings are the only ones in the elite category. It's now 2012, and the guys on this list have won every Super Bowl since the 2003 season.
Guys like Rivers, Romo, Ryan, Stafford, Flacco, Schaub, Luck, Griffin, etc. are franchise QB's to their teams, but they are all second tier to the above until they can prove that they can win when it counts.
Steeler teams featuring stat-driven, me-first, fantasy-football-darling diva types such as Antonio Brown & Le'Veon Bell won no championships.
Super Bowl winning Steeler teams were built around a dynamic, in-your-face defense plus blue-collar, hard-hitting, no-nonsense football players on offense such as Hines Ward & Jerome Bettis.
We don't want Juju & Conner to replace what we lost in Brown & Bell.
We are counting on Juju & Conner to return us to the glory we once had with Hines & The Bus.
Was Archie Manning an elite QB when he played?
What about Dan Marino, Jim Kelly or Fran Tarkington?
Was Dilfer elite?
Super Bowls are important, but not the only factor.
That said Romo, Rivers and Flacco are obviously not elite.
But Ryan, Stafford, Shaub and Luck may well be elite QBs.
Not sure about RG3. He may peak very early, then settle in the upper middle for 10 years.
That was their own damn fault. They are the ones who passed on Dan Marino when he was right in their front yard the whole time, and fell right into their damn laps. They let him get away and the rest is history until we finally got Ben and then history was re-written again. Probably the dumbest decision the Steelers front office ever made, rivaled only by the fact that they actually cut Johhny Unitas.
Rockon
The new rules are making it easier to be considered an elite or franchise quarterback. Holding has been legalized provided your hands aren't outside the guys shoulders, the secondary can't touch a receiver after 5 yards, hitting a quarterback except in specific locations has given quarterbacks some hubris that they may not have had a few years back and the criminalization of hard hits in the secondary has certainly given WRs some bravado to go over the middle. All this is leading to increased passing numbers and making quarterbacks look better than they may actually be or would have been under a slightly different set of rules. The rules are what they are and defenses have to adapt and they will, then the NFL will alter the rules again, wash, rinse, repeat, wash, rinse, repeat, etc
Pappy
The 2024 Pittsburgh Steeler draft
1.20 - Troy Fautanu, T, Washington
2.51 - Zach Frazier, C, West Virginia
3.84 - Roman Wilson, WR, Michigan
3.98 - Payton Wilson, LB, UNC
4.119 - Mason McCprmick, OG, S. Dakota St
7.178 - Logan Lee, DT, Iowa
7.195 -
"Football is a physical game, well, it used to be anyways" - Mel Blount
There is a big difference between being able to put up big numbers as a QB in today's NFL and being THE guy that can put a team on his back and will them to a win. I would say franchise QB's are FAR from a dime a dozen.
Good points. And I think that O'Donnell and Maddox were our "Romo/Rivers/Flacco". At the time, I was hopeful that Maddox would be our "Kurt Warner" - and he very well may have been - if it weren't for that paralysis-inducing injury. He was never the same after that.
I also wonder about RGIII. He could continue to get better (like Ben, Rogers, Brady) or he could be a flash-in-the-pan like Newton appears to be. What a massive year-over-year change he's turned out to be.
Last edited by Eich; 10-23-2012 at 11:50 AM.
I am starting to wonder if we should start to look to groom another QB before Ben gets too much longer in the tooth. Seems to me the ONLY reason we have both Batch and Leftwich is because both of them are so frail they may snap a bone within 5 plays of being called into action.
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