Are You Ready for Some Football - Super Bowl XXXIX

[Ned]

Bradshaw started his career with a really bad Pitt team. As he matured, he cut down on his mistakes and increased his effectiveness dramatically. The Superbowl Pittsburgh teams had a compete offense, better than the predecessor powerhouse, Miami, and very much like the great Joe Montana 49'er teams and the current New England team. Bradshaw would kill you with passing if you loaded up stopping the very potent Pitt running attack.

Teams had a very difficult time stopping Pittsburgh, and Bradshaw had a lot to with that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If he was an all time great and like Joe Montana, don't you think he would have made some more Pro Bowls at the very least? I mean Staubach made 6 Pro Bowls in the same time period.

You'll also note in all their SuperBowl years (and all but one of the other playoff years of the 70s), only in 1979 did the Steelers have a top 10 passing attack (in yards), and Bradshaw didn't really run a whole lot at the end of his career. Though in all those years, the running attack (in yards) was near the top of the league.

[Ned]

Well, at the time, the AFC was loaded with good QB's with great stats. I recall Stabler was one of them. Bradshaw QB'ed on a running team. These others quarterbacked on passing teams and ran their stats up. But, when the chips were down in the title games, Pittsburgh with Bradshaw won every time.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Loaded with good QBs with great stats? Who? Stabler a few years (who's stats, btw, where NOT all that good - long passing leads to a Hell of a lot of INTs). A few years, Bradshaw finished second best to Bob Griese (not exactly a great passer - though you may have an argument that he didn't belong in some years, but those were mostly the young Bradshaw years). Ken Anderson was there for a few years and he probably was a better QB than Bradshaw.

In the title games, I think the running game and defense had a lot to do with things . There weren't many games where he had to air it out in the playoffs (albeit one of them was a Superbowl).

He deserves his spot in the Hall of Fame, but I wouldn't call him an "all time great" (the Hall of Fame does equal all time great status btw).

[JohnT]

Originally posted by bfg9000


That comment was meant as a reality check for Imran. I'm tired of hearing his BS about how great Atlanta is..

Now its time for Reismark to step up and acknowledge Philly's greatness..

Atlanta is a great city. Not a great sports town, mind you, but a great city.

But, when over 1/2 of the 3,000,000+ population is made up of transfers and emigrants, one should expect that the sports teams don't get the same sort of fanatical showing when compared to a city that nobody wants to move to.

[Ned]

Do the names Joe Namath or Dan Fouts mean anything to you?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ned
Do the names Joe Namath or Dan Fouts mean anything to you?

You mean that Joe Namath who only had one good year after 1972? Btw, Broadway Joe's LAST Pro Bowl year was '72, so he didn't take anything away from Bradshaw. Btw, Joe Willie is also an overrated QB. Threw for a LOT of yards and TDs, but also threw a TON of INTs, usually more than he threw for TDs.

Fouts was good, but his FIRST Pro-Bowl was in 1979! Before that he was an average QB.

Bradshaw's heyday was smack in between both QBs, from '73 to '79 (he did make the Pro Bowl in '79, btw).

[Brundlefly]

Eagles TE Chad Lewis out of the Super Bowl. (foot)

Chad had 2 TD yesterday..


They plan on bringing in a TE to fill his spot, but IMO that is a bad idea. You dont plug an integral spot in your offense with somebody off the waiver wire when you are playing the most important game your team has played in the past 24 years. They have one other TE on the roster - Mike Bartrum - a guy who is the long snapper on the team and rarely gets to play TE. They are better off starting him in Chad Lewis' place and then signing a long snapper off the waiver wire....

[Imran Siddiqui]

What happened to L.J. Smith?

[Jaguar]

I'm calling NE with a fairly comfortable win. But Philly won't roll over and die.

[Straybow]

Pity the poor Steelers fans (ie, me).

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
What happened to L.J. Smith?

Yeah, they have LJ, but most of their offensive package requires 2 TE on a given play.

They went out and signed Jeff Thomason to fill the spot. Thomason used to play for the Eagles as a third string TE but he has been out of football for the past 2 years.....

Imagine getting a call at work and being asked to play in the Super Bowl!

[pchang]

TO Baby

He says he'll be ready to play

[Brundlefly]

Re: TO Baby

Originally posted by pchang
He says he'll be ready to play

Some Owens quotes from last night:

"Spiritually, God is healing me and I am way ahead of what a lot of people expected me to be - even the doctor. He is even shocked at what he has seen the times I have gone back there to do my post-op.

"Spirtually I have been healed and I believe I will be out on that field on [Super Bowl] Sunday, regardless of what anybody says. They can't deny the man the ball."


Clearly God is on our side...

[Zopperoni]

Rodney Harrison won't be