NFL 2013 Season Thread

[Ben Kenobi]

When the 2011 Giants beat the Patriots in the SB, they took the division at 9-7, just ahead of the 8-8 Eagles, 8-8 Cowboys, and 5-11 Redskins.

Given how dominant the AFC has been, it's unlikely.

[Al B. Sure!]

The picture of Stafford claimed he sucked because he was 'the next Romo'. Yet, Romo doesn't suck. That was my point.

Your communication skills suck. Let me remind you of the sequence of events:

Coldwizard posts this:



The image does take a shot at both Stafford and Romo but the focus is on Stafford, hence why he is in the picture.

I quoted the picture of STAFFORD and said:

I've always said he's overrated. He's the Matt Schaub of the NFC. Gaudy numbers buoyed by an elite WR and a pass-first offense. 1 playoff appearance and it was a loss.

As a regular on this board, you should know I'm not a Stafford fan and I didn't like him coming out of college. Here, I describe him as 'gaudy numbers buoyed by an elite WR and a pass-first offense. 1 playoff appearance and it was a loss'. Granted, the first half could be used to describe Tony Romo to an extent, but it is a better representation of Stafford who has the benefit of one of the greatest WR's of all time in Calvin Johnson (Dez Bryant is not quite at that level). Now while Romo's playoff record is famously terrible (1-3), he has started 4 post-season games, including a victory. So no, 1 playoff appearance and it was a loss, wouldn't apply to Romo, but to Stafford.

You quoted my post and said:

He's a far better QB than Vick, fwiw. Better than Cunningham and Esiason and not far off Kelly.

Because you quoted my post so obviously about Stafford for the reasons stated above (I quoted his picture, my dislike for Stafford is well known, his description as gaudy numbers buoyed by an elite WR, and his playoff history), then any person would assume you were talking about Stafford.

No way in hell were you talking about Romo unless you're a disingenuous liar, a terrible communicator, or a freaking psychopath.



Anyway...

As for Culpepper, I think he's very underrated. Had you had the mancrush you had on Vick on Culpepper, I'd have no qualms. The man could throw and throw well. You don't throw for 4700 yards without being a damn good QB.

How many times do we have to get it into your thick skull that volume does not equal greatness? Not saying Culpepper's 4700 year wasn't incredible, it was, but it was incredible because he threw so accurately and had such a great Y/A and threw TD's at a high rate and few picks, etc. not because of the mere yardage number. If a QB were to throw for only 3000 yards but tossed 55 TD's to only 4 picks, it would be the greatest QB performance of all time, even though he only threw for 3000 yards! Do you deny this?

But what it comes down to Culpepper, as I showed, is his one monster year is an aberration. In his career, he had 1 genuinely good year, 1 incredible year that would have been MVP-worthy if it didn't coincide with Peyton Manning throwing 49 TDs, and several mediocre at best years.

Are you claiming 1 incredible year makes a damn good QB, even in the face of several years of mediocrity? His incredible year came in his 6th season, after putting together 3 mediocre years in between his good sophmore season and incredible 6th season. How mediocre were those 3 years? He threw 57 TDs to 47 INTs.

After throwing for 4700 yards, he had a miserable 2005. He started the season in terrible fashion, throwing 8 interceptions and no TD's. Before getting injured in the 7th game, he went 2-4 starting throwing only 6 TDs and 12 INTs. I remember this. Culpepper came crashing down hard and there were a lot of questions about just how good he really was.

The next season, he was traded to Miami who decided Brees was too much of a risk, and by the second game, Miami fans were calling for Joey Harrington and he was benched after 4 starts, going 1-3, and throwing only 2 TDs to 3 picks in those 4 games.

He then went to Oakland where he backed up the then terrible Josh McCown where he sucked. He then spent two years in Detroit. The first year (2008), he played 4 games for the 0-16 Lions (threw 4 TDs and 6 picks). The second year, he was equally as bad backing up Stafford. After an ugly 48-3 loss to the Ravens in which Culpepper played terribly, he was benched early in the next game against Arizona and replaced with the illustrious Drew Stanton. In two years in Detroit, Culpepper finished 0-10 as a starter, throwing 7 TDs to 12 picks.

He then wound up in the UFL and is out of football.

Does this sound like a very good QB to you? Then you factor in that during his Vikings career, he had the benefit of Randy Moss, a WR who, like Calvin Johnson, you could literally just chuck it up to him triple covered. Culpepper deserves a lot of credit for his one flash in the pan amazing season but taken as a whole, his career was very mediocre. He lost his job to Brad Johnson, Joey Harrington, and Drew Stanton, for freaking sakes! Very good QB's don't lose their jobs to Drew Stanton!

So how did that monster 2004 season happen if Culpepper was so mediocre otherwise? There's probably a multitude of factors, but it helped that the Vikings' opponents that year were a combined 123-133. Having an average opponent record of 0.480 is always helpful to make a team (or players) look better than they actually are.

[Al B. Sure!]

Given how dominant the AFC has been, it's unlikely.

That's funny because the interconference record as of this week is 34-28 in favor of the NFC. There are only 2 remaining interconference games (Vikings @Bengals and Steelers @ Packers). The AFC will not finish with the better record.

[Ben Kenobi]

The image does take a shot at both Stafford and Romo but the focus is on Stafford, hence why he is in the picture.

Yet it doesn't make much sense. It's like saying, "They said I could be anything and so I decided to be awesome". Romo is a pretty good Quarterback.

Granted, the first half could be used to describe Tony Romo to an extent

So you see my point now. Thank you.

Because you quoted my post so obviously about Stafford

The ambiguity is that your references can all apply to Romo as well as Stafford. Again, my point.

No way in hell were you talking about Romo unless you're a disingenuous liar, a terrible communicator, or a freaking psychopath.

My point stands. Romo is not far off from Kelly and better than Esaison and Cunningham.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

All right, I'm going to just go ahead and bring up the elephant in the room: where does Flutie stand in this discussion?

[Al B. Sure!]

Yet it doesn't make much sense. It's like saying, "They said I could be anything and so I decided to be awesome". Romo is a pretty good Quarterback.

You're a liar or you don't follow football if you don't know the popular perception that Romo and the Romo-era Cowboys fold under pressure, suck in December, etc. It is a running joke with significant factual basis.

So you see my point now. Thank you.

What? You freaking lunatic. I said, "Granted, the first half could be used to describe Tony Romo to an extent" and then I went on to explain why it wouldn't be a good description, which you conveniently ignored, as well as ignoring the entire second half of my statement about playoff record which ABSOLUTELY does NOT describe Romo, since Romo has a 1-3 playoff record, not an 0-1 one!

The ambiguity is that your references can all apply to Romo as well as Stafford. Again, my point.

No. They don't. Romo is 1-3 in the playoffs, not 0-1. I said, "1 playoff appearance and it was a loss." That can't be applied to Romo. So no, my 'references can all apply to Romo' is factually incorrect.

My point stands. Romo is not far off from Kelly and better than Esaison and Cunningham.

You have given no evidence for this assertion. Frankly, I don't want evidence. We were not discussing Romo as a QB in the first place! We were discussing Matt Stafford.


Are you really this much of a piece of ****, Ben? Did you really just gloss over my entire post and select things that vaguely supported you or you thought supported you, and are just smiling happy with yourself like the imbecile you are?

[Al B. Sure!]

All right, I'm going to just go ahead and bring up the elephant in the room: where does Flutie stand in this discussion?

Flutie was better than Kelly, according to Ben, so Flutie is better than Romo. Flutie > Kelly > Romo > Others. No word yet where Elway stands in the Beniverse except that he was worse than Flutie.

[Donegeal]

All right, I'm going to just go ahead and bring up the elephant in the room: where does Flutie stand in this discussion?

[Ben Kenobi]

How many times do we have to get it into your thick skull that volume does not equal greatness? Not saying Culpepper's 4700 year wasn't incredible, it was, but it was incredible because he threw so accurately and had such a great Y/A and threw TD's at a high rate and few picks, etc. not because of the mere yardage number.

Whereas the godly Michael Vick, in his best season, had just 3300 yards. Unsurprisingly Esaison, and Cunningham score high on similarity scores with Vick. As does Aaron Brooks. Or even Stan Humphries. That's the level of QB that Vick is at.

Culpepper had 4 of 5 seasons better than Vick's, he was a consistant star.

If a QB were to throw for only 3000 yards but tossed 55 TD's to only 4 picks, it would be the greatest QB performance of all time, even though he only threw for 3000 yards! Do you deny this?

You wouldn't see 55 TDs on 3k yards. That's my point.

Flutie, at the age of 39 has thrown for more yards than Vick ever has in a season. He, unlike Vick, topped 3k yards twice. Vick is about the most overrated QB out there.

But what it comes down to Culpepper, as I showed, is his one monster year is an aberration.

Nope.

He had seasons of 3.9k, 3.8k, and 3.4k yards all before his 4.7k season. His 4.7k season was 20 percent higher than his next best season.

Vick's 3.3k season was just as anomalous as Culpepper, which speaks volumes about Vick's ability as a QB.

In his career, he had 1 genuinely good year, 1 incredible year that would have been MVP-worthy if it didn't coincide with Peyton Manning throwing 49 TDs, and several mediocre at best years.

He has 4 3k plus seasons, and 1 4k plus season. Vick has just the one 3k season.

Are you claiming 1 incredible year makes a damn good QB

Nope, I'm claiming that 1 incredible year with 3 damn good years at 3k+ yards, and 4 of 5 seasons makes Culpepper a decent QB. Hall of famer? Nope. But still better than Esiason and Cunningham.

Culpepper came crashing down hard and there were a lot of questions about just how good he really was.

And yet, he was still more durable than Vick.

Does this sound like a very good QB to you?

How many QBs back when Culpepper was playing threw for 3k+ yards in 4 of 5 seasons?

Then you factor in that during his Vikings career, he had the benefit of Randy Moss, a WR who, like Calvin Johnson, you could literally just chuck it up to him triple covered. Culpepper deserves a lot of credit for his one flash in the pan amazing season but taken as a whole, his career was very mediocre. He lost his job to Brad Johnson, Joey Harrington, and Drew Stanton, for freaking sakes! Very good QB's don't lose their jobs to Drew Stanton!

And Michael Vick just lost his job to Nick Foles, and the Eagles O runs better with Foles than it ever did with Vick.

So how did that monster 2004 season happen if Culpepper was so mediocre otherwise?

Answer, Culpepper was a solid QB who had a great run up to then.

There's probably a multitude of factors, but it helped that the Vikings' opponents that year were a combined 123-133. Having an average opponent record of 0.480 is always helpful to make a team (or players) look better than they actually are.

Whereas 33 year old Vick is a mighty 58-48. That's right, Vick has barely started 100 games.

He's ranked 89th in pass completions, 89th in pass attempts, 90th in passing yards, 93 in passing TDs, 94 in passing yards per game (implying that Vick's rate stat of passing yards despite his small sample actually ranks worse than his career stats). Net yards/ attempt is just 85. TD percentage is just 111th, Completion percentage, 112th.

Flutie whom you despise has a far better winning percentage, despite losing the 10 best years of his career.

[Ben Kenobi]

Flutie was better than Kelly, according to Ben, so Flutie is better than Romo. Flutie > Kelly > Romo > Others. No word yet where Elway stands in the Beniverse except that he was worse than Flutie.

Peyton Manning > Flutie > Elway > Kelly > Romo > Culpepper > Cunningham > Esaison > Eli Manning > Matt Schaub > Matt Stafford > Aaron Brooks > Cooper Manning > Michael Vick.

[Ben Kenobi]

I'm going to just go ahead and bring up the elephant in the room: where does Flutie stand in this discussion?

Of course, I do give Flutie 1:1 CFL credit so there. If baseball players get war credit and Black players get NL credit, then Flutie gets CFL credit too.

[-Jrabbit]

I am very pleased that we made it all the way to Dec. 21 before the first FlutieWars^TM posts of the 2013 football season.

It's only fitting that it only came up because Ben mis-read a post and couldn't admit his mistake. Perfect.

[Al B. Sure!]

Whereas the godly Michael Vick, in his best season, had just 3300 yards. Unsurprisingly Esaison, and Cunningham score high on similarity scores with Vick. As does Aaron Brooks. Or even Stan Humphries. That's the level of QB that Vick is at.

What the **** does Vick have to do with anything?! I never brought up Vick!

Who said I ever thought Vick is godly? I think Imran is the biggest Vick apologist here. All I ever say is Vick is way better than you ever give him credit for and in 2010 when he took the starting QB job from Kevin Kolb, Vick, in his 11 games, was the best QB of the 2010 season.

Evidence? He threw and ran for 16 TDs before he finally threw a pick and finished with 3018 passing 676 rushing 30 total TDs and only 6 INTs plus a 62.6% cmp% and a stellar 8.11 Y/A in only 11 games. Those are superb numbers.

Extrapolating is a silly tactic but one used often in the Beniverse, but if Vick maintained that same pace for 16 games, he would have had 4390 yards passing, 983 yards rushing, scored 43.6 TDs to only 8.7 picks. That would be a season comparable to Daunte Culpepper's monster year.

Similarity scores? Where are these similarity scores for Vick? I would like similarity scores for Culpepper and Stafford as well.

Culpepper had 4 of 5 seasons better than Vick's, he was a consistant star.

Not really. I already have said repeatedly that Culpepper's 2004 was one of the greatest QB seasons of all time and that his sophmore year was also genuinely good.

The rest of the way though, their stats are extremely similar though Culpepper was a slightly more accurate passer but was more INT prone than Vick and didn't win games like Vick (Culpepper went 17-24 in the following span, whereas Vick went 18-16 as starter of the supposed 'Dream Team')

Here are Culpepper's 'middle' 3 seasons with the Vikings.

2001: 4-7 record; 235/366 (64.2%) 2612yds 14TD 13INT 7.1Y/A
416 rushing, 5TDs
2002: 6-10 record; 333/549 (60.7%) 3853yds 18TD 23INT 7.0Y/A
609 rushing, 10TDs
2003: 7-7 record; 295/454 (65.0%) 3479yds 25TD 11INT 7.7 Y/A
422 rushing, 4TDs

Compare with Vick's 3 year tenure as the Eagles starter:
2010: 8-3 record; 233/372 (62.6%) 3018yds 21TD 6INT 8.1Y/A
676 rushing, 9TDs
2011: 7-6 record; 253/423 (59.8%) 3303yds 18TD 14INT 7.8Y/A
589 rushing, 1TD
2012: 3-7 record; 204/351 (58.1%) 2362yds 12TD 10INT 6.7Y/A
332 rushing, 1TD

It's stunning. Vick's chronology in reverse is extremely similar to Culpepper's chronology. Vick's 2012 = Culpepper's 2001; 2011 = 2002 (Vick has the slight edge thanks to much fewer INTs and better Y/A); 2010= 2003 (Vick threw fewer INTs again and threw deeper).

He, unlike Vick, topped 3k yards twice. Vick is about the most overrated QB out there.

What do you mean 'unlike Vick'? Vick threw for 3018yds in 11 games in 2010 and 3303yds in 13 games in 2011.

If you add his rushing yards, he had several 3K+ seasons. This is the guy who ran like an NFL starting RB, with both a 902 and 1039 yard rushing seasons.

Vick is like having a QB and a RB in one paycheck.

Vick's 3.3k season was just as anomalous as Culpepper, which speaks volumes about Vick's ability as a QB.

You're right Vick's best season was anomalous. It was. He outplayed MVP Brady on a per game basis that year. That season was why Andy Reid and the Eagles invested in him, got rid of erstwhile QB-of-the-future Kevin Kolb and mortgaged their future for the Dream Team, because Vick was so jaw-droppingly impressive in 2010.

Vick was always seen as having other-worldly potential that he never realized in Atlanta. His first year starting in Philly, that potential seemed realized. Experts, pundits, and the Eagles organization thought he had finally figured it out. Instead in the following seasons, he regressed back to a version of himself from the Falcons, albeit a slightly more polished passer but a worse runner.

Taken in sum, Vick was a mediocre passer but the single best running QB in NFL history. Combined that made him at least a solid and good QB.

Culpepper a decent QB. Hall of famer? Nope. But still better than Esiason and Cunningham.

Cunningham practically is the same as Culpepper, even playing for the same team with the same stellar Randy Moss! Look again at Cunningham's career and you see Culpepper-like #'s.

In fact, since you like the arbitrary number 3K for some reason, Cunningham had 5 3k+ seasons and in 1998, he threw for 3704 34TDs 10INTs and an incredible 8.7 Y/A.

I'm not going to post Eagles-era Cunningham but know that his seasons were extremely similar to Culpepper and Vick's seasons posted above.

As an aside, the similarities are very interesting. It would seem that all running QB's put up similar passing/rushing #'s and TD #'s. Running QB's hitting 30+ passing TD's happens but it's rare though they often get 30+ total TD's. They skirt around 3K to just over 3K yards passing and consistently get 400-800 rushing yards.

I suppose this isn't surprising since there's only so many Y/A a pass or a run can go and only so many offensive downs a season.

It does bring up the idea for all us, but especially Ben, that we need to recalibrate how we look at passing numbers. Running QB's have an average and an upper limit of passing and rushing #'s mimicking the #'s of Vick, Culpepper, and Cunningham (and for that matter, RG3, Wilson, and Kaepernick). An equivalent to 4000 yard passing season for a running QB would probably be somewhere around 3400 yards passing and 600 yards rushing.

And yet, he was still more durable than Vick.

You can't be serious?

Did you actually pay attention to Culpepper's career? He always got injured! His knees especially were ruined.

In 2001, he missed 5 games with a knee injury.
In 2003, missed 2 games.
In 2005, he missed 9 games with an ACL, PCL, and MCL injury.
In 2006, he underwent arthroscopic surgery on his knee and was put on IR.
In 2007, he suffered an off-field hamstring injury while racing Stanford Routt during practice, and missed the rest of the season.
In 2009, in the preseason, Culpepper suffered a foot injury which opened the door for Stafford to start as a rookie.

How many QBs back when Culpepper was playing threw for 3k+ yards in 4 of 5 seasons?

A lot. Culpepper played from 1999 to 2009. What do you mean by 'back when Culpepper was playing'? He didn't play in the 80's!

And Michael Vick just lost his job to Nick Foles, and the Eagles O runs better with Foles than it ever did with Vick.

Nick Foles is having a fantastic season comparable to Vick's 2010.

Whereas 33 year old Vick is a mighty 58-48. That's right, Vick has barely started 100 games.

Culpepper was 41-59 in his career. He started exactly 100 games.

Vick is 58-48-1. He has 107 games under his belt AND a better record.

Vick also has 6 playoff games to Culpepper's 4.

You're a ****ing idiot.

He's ranked 89th in pass completions, 89th in pass attempts, 90th in passing yards, 93 in passing TDs, 94 in passing yards per game (implying that Vick's rate stat of passing yards despite his small sample actually ranks worse than his career stats). Net yards/ attempt is just 85. TD percentage is just 111th, Completion percentage, 112th.

In what? Career?

Now tell me where he stands in rushing attempts (you said pass attempts like it means something), rushing yards, rushing TDs, yards per rush attempt, etc.

[Ben Kenobi]

It's only fitting that it only came up because Ben mis-read a post and couldn't admit his mistake. Perfect.

Who am I to deny my fans? Koya brought up Flutie.

[Al B. Sure!]

Does anyone actually believe Ben's arguments? I don't want to waste so much time doing research and typing up responses if Ben is the only one to read it. It's not fun. It wastes my time and makes me angry.