Sunday Nighter - Colts/Chargers

[lightningbolt]

Does anyone realize Kyle Orton has more passing yards than Phillip Rivers yet Rivers is the only one being talked about in terms of beating Marino's record?

The only reason for that is because Rivers hasn't needed to play catch up the last couple of games. Our running game and impressive defense have made it so that he didn't have to single handidly win our last two games like he usually does. As a Charger fan though, I prefer this since Rivers' not breaking Marion's record will mean that our team as a whole is much better than we were in the first part of the season because our victories will be a total effort rather than due to Rivers alone.

 

[tuckeverlasting]

I would lose some respect for Tom Brady if he outright admitted that Rivers is better than him, whether he thought it or not. A QB of his caliber has to believe that he's the best QB on the planet every season or else he will lose some of his competitive fire.

That said, Rivers is statistically the best QB in the league going on about 3 seasons now and he's arguably doing more with less than either Manning or Brady on offense, especially this season when most of his top receivers have been out and Gates has been out for lots of games as well and yet he's still shredding defenses to lead the league in QB stats.

When Manning and Brady become old, pathetic shells of their former selves Rivers will be unanimously viewed as the best QB in the league, as he's only 28 currently so he's got many more years to establish himself in the league whereas Brady and Manning have reached the midpoint of their careers and their skills will probably gradually decline from this point.

Here's how I currently rank the top 5 QBs in the NFL in terms of skill:

1) Rivers
2) Brady
3) Manning
4) Brees
5) Rodgers

In terms of legacy:

1) Brady
2) Manning
3) Favre
4) Brees
5) Roethlisberger


Rivers is currently better in terms of his level of play than any other QB currently in the NFL, but if he were to get hurt and never play another NFL game he'd rank very low in terms of his career legacy. He needs to win at least one super bowl to be considered an all time great and multiple super bowls to compete with Brady's legacy or another QB great like Montana.

please stop with these "gomer's the greatest" posts. the ugliest thing in sports is a gomer rivers pass. not a shaq free throw, not sean avery skating, not a johnny damon throw from the outfield. no ! the single ugliest thing in sports(outside of norv turner's neck) is a rivers pass. that guy will never be the best at anything, unless you count kicking the football when he's mad.

 

[sbpatfan]

Does anyone realize Kyle Orton has more passing yards than Phillip Rivers yet Rivers is the only one being talked about in terms of beating Marino's record?

Yeah, I've noticed. I said earlier in the year it would be hilarious if both Orton and Rivers broke the yardage record this year. Just goes to show you how stupid the record is. I mean, look at this..

Kyle Orton 3370 yards
Phillip Rivers 3362 yards
Peyton Manning 3344 yards
Drew Brees 3321 yards

There are four guys that realistically have a close shot at breaking it. But for some reason, they only talk about Rivers doing it.

 

[moosekill]

So you're going to be willing to bet that Brady will be playing at an elite level until he's 41 or 42? Do you understand how extremely rare that is?



Sure it is. For every quarterback that you can name that played at an elite or even pro level late into his 30's, you can also name guys that fell off well before that. Examples: Dan Marino (last great season at 33-34), Troy Aikman, Jim Kelly, Drew Bledsoe, Dan Fouts, Joe Theismann, Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, and Bernie Kosar are all guys going back two decades who were great in their times whose skills eroded before their late 30's. If I went back even further, I could find more examples. Again, quarterbacks playing at an elite level late into their 30's are the exception. Guys like Favre are, by far, the exception.



His decline has everthing to do with who he is throwing to. His passes to Wayne are dead on. Tonight, you saw what happened with Garcon if a quarterback's timing with his receiver is off in a timing offense. Combine that with the O-Line, and you get the result that you currently see in Indy.



You forget that Brady missed the 2008 season with a devastating knee injury that effectively took him an entire year to come back from. Manning has no such injury in his career.

Not sure, I would include Bernie Kosar in a list of great quarterbacks. Marino retired when he was 39.

 

[RodThePat]

Rivers is the best QB in the NFL in terms of skills???????? His arm is average at best, he has a sideways throwing motion and is a statue in the pocket. You could say the guy is very accurate, reads defenses extremely well and all that, but in terms of skill he is far behind the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger.

 

[Pewsterbaby]

John Elway says hi. He took more beatings than most QBs and played at an elite level at 38. Again, the data doesn't support your argument since there are plenty of QBs who have taken a lot of poundings through their career and still played at an elite level at 37 or 38. I listed some of them.

Brady didn't start until he was 24 (many elite QBs including Manning become starters at age 21 or 22) and he also missed the entire 2008 season. So when he is 38, he will have four less years of punishment than Manning will have when he turns 38. That is significant.

My God, talk about a freaking cherry pick. I hate when someone tries to highlight an exception to the rule as being more important to an argument and/or disagreement than it is. Kontra explained the rarity of a qb aging very well. In fact, he started his paragraph out with "Every qb is different" and concluded with a fine "Raw data doesn't support it". There are literally DOZENS of fine qb's who's nfl lifespan doesn't reach much past 30. Then this guy opens with "John Elway says hello". What a douche.

And what's worse, the guy types,"He will have four less years of punishment. That is significant."

Nah, man, It's four FEWER years of punishment and the fact that you can't speak proper english is what's SIGNIFICANT, let alone that anal cherry pick. Yuh, as if the mighty Kontradiction didn't already factor in John Elway.

 

[patsinthesnow]

For all the Rivers ballwashing by the media about him having an amazing season uhm,.....

Brady 23 TDs 4 Ints comp% 66.3 105.8 Rting (Team is 9-2)
Rivers 23 TDs 9 Ints comp% 66.2 104.9 Rting (Team is 6-5)

O NOES BUT RIVERS HAS SO MANY YARDDSSS!! So what....

Brady should be in the lead for MVP and if he keeps it up he has it easy.

Ex. Trent Dilfer: "It have no hesitation saying Philip Rivers is the best QB in the league. It wouldn't surprise me if you called up Tom Brady and asked him and he agreed with me."

 

[RodThePat]

For all the Rivers ballwashing by the media about him having an amazing season uhm,.....

Brady 23 TDs 4 Ints comp% 66.3 105.8 Rting (Team is 9-2)
Rivers 23 TDs 9 Ints comp% 66.2 104.9 Rting (Team is 6-5)

O NOES BUT RIVERS HAS SO MANY YARDDSSS!! So what....

Brady should be in the lead for MVP and if he keeps it up he has it easy.

Ex. Trent Dilfer: "It have no hesitation saying Philip Rivers is the best QB in the league. It wouldn't surprise me if you called up Tom Brady and asked him and he agreed with me."

I just find it awesome that the "but look at his defense!! He has to carry his team all on his own!!" argument is used to support the argument for every other QB, except for Brady. Rivers has the number one D in the league, and all those yards have lead the Chargers to a 6-5 record. That's not an MVP season.

 

[Uncle Rico]

Since starting 14-0 last year, the Colts are 6-7 in the regular season and 8-8 if you include playoffs.

:singing:

Karma for ditching the Jets game. And for Polian being so absolutely certain in citing the Pats' going for perfection in '07 as the cause of their SB loss and harping on Welker's being hurt while, you know, playing in a game.

 

[Uncle Rico]

The only reason for that is because Rivers hasn't needed to play catch up the last couple of games. Our running game and impressive defense have made it so that he didn't have to single handidly win our last two games like he usually does. As a Charger fan though, I prefer this since Rivers' not breaking Marion's record will mean that our team as a whole is much better than we were in the first part of the season because our victories will be a total effort rather than due to Rivers alone.

But the massive yards Rivers ran up while playing catch-up earlier are a big part of what people are citing in making his case as MVP. Sounds like maybe RIvers is less valuable when they are winning?

 

[IllegalContact]

nobody's breaking the record this year. yardage tails off in december. brady was around 3500 after 11 games in 2007.....marino had the luxury of nothing but warm games for the last 5 weeks of 1984.......rivers has to finish the season in cincy and denver.......

 

[RhodyPatriot]

The thing I really found interesting after last nights game was the total lack of genuine QB kinship between Manning and Rivers. It looked like a Dungy/BB handshake.

 

[102 Pat]

And no surprise, all the Colts injuries are being blamed for the loss, yup, there the ONLY team in the NFL dealing with injuries...

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

And no surprise, all the Colts injuries are being blamed for the loss, yup, there the ONLY team in the NFL dealing with injuries...

It starts at the top, with the team president, coach, and best player all making excuses.

Can you imagine Bill Belichick allowing ANYONE to whine on and on with the "woe is me" injury card? You have 53 roster spots, 8 practice squad spots, and even an emergency "call list" for a reason. Everybody on those lists needs to be ready to play, no excuses. So Wayne and Garcon dropping passes and getting beaten physically by defenders at the line is due to the injury issues? Okay...

Isn't it great that these quitters who laid down like dogs last year are getting theirs?

Awesome.

It would suck though if they struggle to 9-7 or 8-8 and host the loser of next Monday night's game on wild card weekend.

 

[bostonia3333]

I am so sick of the Colts referring to injuries when explaining losses. Speaking of blaming injuries, Polian did just that when they lost to the Colts 2 weeks ago...here's how he explained the James Sanders INT

The Official Website of the Indianapolis Colts


"Really, what the game boiled down to was an errant throw at the end. It's one of those situations where you say, 'If it had been Dallas (Clark) in there or if it had been Austin in there or if it had been Gonzo (wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez) in there, maybe we get a little more continuity. I think I would chalk it up to that and that's the break of the game..."

 

[jcdavey]

The thing I really found interesting after last nights game was the total lack of genuine QB kinship between Manning and Rivers. It looked like a Dungy/BB handshake.

it may have looked that way but this can't be farther from the truth

peyton's had rivers be a coach at his football camps, the two are good friends

 

[Rob0729]

So you're going to be willing to bet that Brady will be playing at an elite level until he's 41 or 42? Do you understand how extremely rare that is?

No, but possibly 37 or 38. That is about 4-5 years.

Sure it is. For every quarterback that you can name that played at an elite or even pro level late into his 30's, you can also name guys that fell off well before that. Examples: Dan Marino (last great season at 33-34), Troy Aikman, Jim Kelly, Drew Bledsoe, Dan Fouts, Joe Theismann, Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, and Bernie Kosar are all guys going back two decades who were great in their times whose skills eroded before their late 30's. If I went back even further, I could find more examples. Again, quarterbacks playing at an elite level late into their 30's are the exception. Guys like Favre are, by far, the exception.

QBs playing at an elite level in their late 30s are neither the exception nor the rule. There are plenty that do and plenty that don't. And remember that players are playing at a higher level longer because advancements of medical science and condition programs. Favre might not be the rare exception

His decline has everthing to do with who he is throwing to. His passes to Wayne are dead on. Tonight, you saw what happened with Garcon if a quarterback's timing with his receiver is off in a timing offense. Combine that with the O-Line, and you get the result that you currently see in Indy.

It probably is, but he has made a lot of unManning-like throws the past two weeks that would have been picked even if he was throwing to Austin Collie. Or even Marvin Harrison in his prime.

The only reason I question this is because Jaws pointed it out long before he had the injury issues. Jaws is excellent at breaking down film and definitely is an expert on the QB position. He isn't perfect, but the fact he stated it and now a month later Manning is playing like crap makes me wonder if he has at least some validity to his argument.

You forget that Brady missed the 2008 season with a devastating knee injury that effectively took him an entire year to come back from. Manning has no such injury in his career.

Didn't forget it. I addressed this in several posts already on this thread. Brady's injury could actually help his longevity because of the fact he lost a year of physical abuse to the rest of his body. It allowed old injuries to heal properly on other parts of his body especially his throwing arm.

I tend to doubt the knee injury will be a factor in his longevity. If he was a RB or WR, maybe. But I think the fact that he threw about 300 less passes in 2008 he would have if he was playing probably helped his longevity in terms of not having his arm get shot latter in his career which happens to a lot of QB.

As someone else pointed out, the things that usually degrades a QB performance over time is long term wear and tear more than one major injury especially to the lower extremities. If the knee was going to affect Brady's career long term, he probably would already be declining.

 

[tuckeverlasting]

it may have looked that way but this can't be farther from the truth

peyton's had rivers be a coach at his football camps, the two are good friends

of course goober and gomer are friends.

 

[alvinnf]

Rivers is the best QB in the NFL in terms of skills???????? His arm is average at best, he has a sideways throwing motion and is a statue in the pocket. You could say the guy is very accurate, reads defenses extremely well and all that, but in terms of skill he is far behind the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger.

Time to take your fandom hat off. Phillip Rivers is one of the top 3 QB's in this league. He is lighting the league up with hardly any weapons and a high school coach. After Brady he would be the first guy I would want. Beast.....

 

[ATippett56]

Time to take your fandom hat off. Phillip Rivers is one of the top 3 QB's in this league. He is lighting the league up with hardly any weapons and a high school coach. After Brady he would be the first guy I would want. Beast.....

I would hardly consider Norv Turner a bad offensive coordinator.