sam bradford

skinsguy

Honestly, people around here are so worried about getting a franchise QB that they forget how successful the franchise was with different QBs in the 80's. If I had my choice, I would rather have a solid built team in trenches, a solid defense, a workhorse RB, decent receivers rather than one good QB with a bad supporting cast. That's just me though. But, that's why our team was so good in the 80's, it had depth. If a starter went out, the back up could come in and lead the team.

While teams like St. Louis are enjoying improvement because of Bradford, they are also taking a gamble with him. If the gamble holds out long enough for St. Louis to build a good supporting cast around him, then they're great. However, if Bradford goes down with injury, this could be failure for the franchise. Look how much the Colts drop off if Manning isn't in there. Nine times out of ten, I would much rather go with an overall solid team rather than an iffy team that is made great by one player.

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skinster

Dating back to the beginning of my life (1989...21 years ago), the only 3 teams that have won a superbowl without a franchise qb are the ravens (dilfer), bucs (johnson...who was a pro bowler), and redskins (Rypien....was a pro bowler). The bucs and the ravens had two of the best defenses of all time also.
The QB's that won the other 18 superbowls

Favre
Aikman
Young
Montana
Simms
Brady
P. Manning
Warner
E. Manning
Brees
Roethlesberger
Elway

All of them are either going to be in the HOF or got a contract that deemed them the "franchise" qb.

SirClintonPortis

Cassel, imo, can play great when there's talent around him, but not so great without said assistance.
Schuab, I think is prone to having dud games against great pass rushes and obviously benefits a lot from Andre Johnson. Neither would be in my top choices for a franchise trying to find its way.

Don't get me wrong, they're definitely good ones, and if the franchise QB definition was more lax, they'd be franchise qbs without debate under that kind of definition.

Cutler, I admit am a little biased towards his playmaking ability. But he does have a really shitty o-line that even P. Manning would have trouble with. Chicago's offense could be a lot worse if say, Jason Campbell was their QB.

Vick and Bradford, although they haven't not for a long time, have played really well given their respective circumstances.

Vick was tough to defend when he was just relying on his athleticism. He's now shown that he can be a pretty good damn good passer too and is now almost impossible to consistently defend. Take away Jackson, Maclin, and McCoy, and he'd still be pretty damn good.

Bradford beat a vet QB who knew the offense in the preseason, and has definitely not be "coddled" like Flacco or Sanchez. The dude has had plenty of games with 30 throws, which shows plenty of confidence in his ability even though they could be riding Steven Jackson instead. And he's shown some great poise and savvy.

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SirClintonPortis

Almost every transaction in football a gamble. That said, busting on a franchise qb may not be that bad because since the QB will make the team lose, the team will have higher draft picks in the subsequent years. They can then use those high draft picks to stock up the roster. Of course, this only applies if the team is just using it's normal 1st rounder and did not trade a bunch of stuff away for the pick.

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Analysis using datasets (aka stats) is an attempt at reverse-engineering a player's "goodness".

Virtuosity remembered, douchebaggery forgotten.

The ideal character profile shoved down modern Western men and women's throats is Don Juan.

rypper11

Phil Simms? Franchise QB? He wasn't even his team's best qb (Hostetler was). And of those on the list, IMO, only Peyton, Montana and possibly Brees is better than Marino who never won a SB so more than a franchise qb is needed. And, don't forget that Elway only won a SB once he had a great running game.

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Mattyk

Hostetler better than Simms? No way.

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skinster

Simms started 14 years for the giants. I'd say he was a franchise qb. But even if you disagree, the numbers are now 17 franchise sb victories to 4 non...and 3 of the 4 non and some of the best defenses of all time (I was 2 when the Giants won, but I assume that was the LT defense that I've heard so much about)

GTripp0012

Can I be the first to point out that Bradford is having a pretty poor season? If you limit your quarterbacks to all rookies, then by virtue of not being a disaster, Bradford has exceeded expectations. But we've seen Joe Flacco, Ben Roethlisberger, and Matt Ryan have better rookie years in recent times. His season looks a lot like Vince Young's rookie year, but without the long, dynamic runs.

Granted: he may have the worst supporting cast of any of those guys, and whether or not the Rams make the playoffs this year, it looks like the sky is the limit for Sam Bradford. But as a rookie, he's been a moderately below average NFL QB. It was better than Freeman, Sanchez, and Stafford from last year, but you only have to go back another year to find two rookie QBs having more success than Bradford.

The ability of Bradford to win in the future is tied more to the Rams' ability to add talent to his offense so that they can win with offense rather than Bradford himself.

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mredskins

All very true and in the 25 plus years I have been watching the NFL I have learned one thing: everything can turn on a dime in the NFL.

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skinster

I can see your arguments for Ryan and Roethlesberger being statistically better, but definitely not Flacco. Statistically I'd say that Roethlesberger was better (I know Ryan has the higher qb rating, but I like how many TDs Bradford has thrown for) , but in reality I'd say that Bradford is doing much better considering how close their numbers are and that Roethlesberger had respectable recievers and a great rushing attack while Bradfords recievers and rushing game are poop.

GTripp0012

Flacco probably had the most similar rookie season to Bradford in terms of numbers, but did considerably better in Y/A.

I think I can understand the argument that Bradford can't control his Y/A: he's throwing to people that no one has ever heard of afterall. But, you know, there's this:

2010 NFL Passing - Pro-Football-Reference.com

(ranked 30 out of 31 qualified QBs in YPA)

He's been excellent in the red zone, which has helped his team score a lot of points, but obviously, he's going to need to throw for better than 6.1 YPA to have a quality season.

Obviously, yards per attempt as a rookie says nothing about his future prospects, and everything else points to a guy who makes quick, smart decisions. He just isn't accomplishing much as a rookie: he's not a big reason for the Rams success. The Rams needed to improve their QB position from last season, which they have done, but this isn't a great performance as much as it's better than what they had before. That's what I'm trying to point out here.

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Shanahan: “The bad thing is he's [Sav Rocca] probably our best offensive weapon and that’s not good.”

skinsfaninok

Well that could be the coaches scheme also for a rookie QB, and lets be honest the guy is out there throwing balls to Me and You

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30gut

Someone is gaga for Bradford and won't hear of anything to the contrary

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No longer were NFL coaches dealing inflexibly with spread [QBs] in ways that caused stunted development for players like [A. Smith and Vick] now, the idea is to bring what the quarterback can do, and what he should do, together as an organic whole