Rob0729

I heard in the radio that prior to this year, QBs have only passed for 4,500 plus yards 23 times in league history. Right now, five QBs have surpassed that mark - Brees, Brady, Rodgers, Manning, and Stafford. Philip Rivers is 186 yards away from that mark and Matt Ryan is 429 yards away. That means by the end of this weekend there could be seven QBs to reach that mark this year which is over 23% of the QBs who reached that mark in league history.

People talk about how bad the Pats' defense is (although they don't look around the league and see there are a lot of bad defense), but the poor defensive play this season around the league is a product of the offensive explosion that is going on. I mean a mediocre QB like Mark Sanchez who has trouble hitting the side of a barn five feet away has over 3,200 yards, it shows that defenses around the league are suffering from this offensive explosion.

If it is a historically good year for offenses in the league, it is logical that it is a historically bad year for the defenses around the league. It isn't because they all played the Pats' defense. In fact, of all the QBs who have surpassed 4,500 yards, only one actually played the Pats (Manning) and ironically, it was his third worse performance of the year in terms of passing yards (250 yards).

cavtroop

This year is strange. It doesn't FEEL to me like all these passing records are up in the air. It doens't FEEL that the Pats have passed for near 5000 yards. Just a strange year all around. But looking at the books, there it is.

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brdmaverick

Agreed, take Saturday for example. In watchin the game it didn't FEEL like a 300 yard passing performance from Tom Brady.

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mgcolby

I've been trying to figure it out and blaming the changing of the rules is part of it (which is what I find myself doing from time to time), but it is to easy to blame it all on the rule changes alone.

I coach youth football and our 12 year olds were running out of the gun. My older son's AYF coach has a son who is a senior in high school and plays QB. He threw for over 3500 yards and 40 TD's his senior year in High School. They are throwing at much younger ages than what they used to. I'm 32 and when I played hardly any one threw the ball at the youth level and very little at the high school level. Then add in flag leagues during the spring and it aids the kids in passing as well, as the game is seven on seven, passing the football all over the field.

To me it is a perfect storm of kids growing up passing and catching the ball a lot more. Soft pass coverage do to the contact rules, poor tackling do to a number of things:

1) Less live tackling at all levels during practice becasue of the size and speed of players now a days.
2) Rule changes that have some defenders playing tenative.
3) Receivers knowing they can operate in the middle of the field and not have their head knocked off. For example not really being able to blow up the receiver until he becomes a "runner" essentially allowing receivers to catch the ball clean without fear.

Football has quickly become a passing game and I don't see it regressing any time soon.

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Tunescribe

Rule changes and referee points of emphasis favoring offense over defense have come home to roost. The NFL game is out of balance. When you have any quarterback (Brees) completing 72 percent of his passes, things are seriously out of whack.

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Rob0729

I think only allowing 14 padded practices all year combined with no offseason has played a huge factor. Tackling has been horrible this year which is usually corrected in padded practices. You look at a guy like McCourty and his only real problem is not turning back for the ball and that is learned and honed in the offseason and during practice (again in padded practices going full speed).

I agree the rules change and emphasis on certain rules has changed the game, but the lockout and new practice rules also have played a huge factor. I think it was a mistake for the league to agree to so few padded practices and I think having a non-football guy like DeMaurice Smith negotiating for the players hurt in that aspect too. No football coach would agree to 14 padded practices a year and many players have spoken out against this rule too.

mgcolby

Its not just the NFL a lot of those rules trickle down all the way to the youth level. My Pee Wee team had a kid absolutely light up a player on the other team on the backside of the play and the refs threw a personal foul flag saying the hit was unnecessary. A clean, legal hit but 15 yards because the ref thought he had no reason to block him.

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strngplyr

I think the bigger issue is that defenses are playing scared. Defensive players are losing paychecks left and right for completely legal plays.

Pretty soon each regular season game is going to have the rules of the probowl. blitzes will be eliminated entirely because you might hurt someone. Tackling will be outlawed.

signbabybrady

This says one thing to me.

Rules comitte you broke something!!!


I have 4 proposals to try and reel things in and I think 2 or 3 should be put in place ASAP. These are rules that either have been in place for a long time or were recently implemented that at the time were fine but given the added emphasis to player safety could be used to balance out the offensive favoritism from the rules that clearly had its hand in said offensive explosion.

1) Go back to wink wink 5 yard press coverage that is really more like 7 or 8 yards like prior to Pollians Biatching.

2) Enable defenders full right to the field. If they get to a spot on the field and are not the ones initiating contact no flag should be thrown on them. Currently if you are not looking back for the ball and a offense player is trying to come back to the ball they can go thru you and create a penalty on you.

3) A tiered system for implementing Pass Interferance. if the play is less than 15 yards from the line of scrimmage it is a spot follow if it is 15-25 yards it should be a 15 yard penalty and anything greater than 25 yards should 20 yard penalty.

I know the arguments against such a rule but they are flawed. Argument 1 - if a player is beat he will just maul his guy knowing it is only 20 yards or less but the truth is this sort of thing under current rules would likely end up as defensive holding or illegal contact (as the ball usually isnt thrown until youve been burnt which would be after you maul the guy. The ball needs to be in the air for PI). Also you dont see this sort of thing in college much. Argument 2 - the play could have been much bigger than 20 yards, well tough there are plenty of instances were a penalty doesnt equal what could have been (should a sack be assesed and loss of down on a blatant hold that prevents such a sack).

4) Unnecessary Roughness calls should have to include actually roughness. They have made one change to this effect already. In the past any incidental grazing of a QBs helmet was unnecessary roughness blow to the head now that is no longer the case and Refs can use descretion to determine if it was incidental grazing or a true blow to the head. This sort of thing should apply to all Unnecessary Roughness calls I mean how can you make the call if there is no actual roughness just minor contact to specific spot that based on black and white rules would be called.

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Rob0729

I think they all go into it. The rules committee won't be happy until this turns into arena football. But you are seeing a lot of fundamentals being thrown out the window that have nothing to do with finable offenses. The rules and fines have played probably the biggest role, but the lack of real practices have also hurt.

How many times has Belichick in the past punished the players after a poorly executed game with a week's worth of greuling padded practices? A lot. He can't anymore. That hurt the team. I sure if he could have this year, he would have had double or triple the padded practices he has had especially with all the turnover on the defense.