Product of the system?

[stinkypete]

Here's a way to answer this question: what teams would NOT be improved if Brady were inserted at QB?

I'd say Indy, Cinci, New Orleans. That's all.

So, is Brady really a system QB?

 

[Ring 6]

This is a foolish thread.
A system QB is a QB who is playing for a coach, in a scheme and system that is ahead of the rest of the league. And, that QB who doesn't have the all encompassing skills to suceed outside of that system, succeeds anyway. In other words, if my system is better than anyone else's and makes the QBs job easy, giving him more open receivers and wider open receivers as a result, then his success is due to the system.
Joe Montana was POTENTIALLY a system QB, but ultimately showed that he was a great QB. Many QBs could have had success on that team in that system, but none would have had as much. That is not a system QB thats a great QB on a team where a system QB could do well.

There is absolutely no evidence that the Patriots have run a system with Brady here that was a years ahead of the rest of the league as the 9ers were, as the Coryell teams were, etc. The Patriots system does nothing to make the QBs job easier. In fact, in SB years, in was widely reported that BBs philosophy was that he was going to win or lose with the ball in Tom Bradys hands, because he felt the best chance to win was to put the pressure of winning or losing in Bradys hands.

As far as other comments Ive seen here, Manning is a good QB, but his system is one that revolves around big QB stats. Perhaps like Montana he rises above what the system provides, but you cannot call statistics between Manning and other QBs apples to apples, just as you couldnt with Fouts, Marino, etc who were on teams that we build around big QB stats. Manning has now won a SB. That means 10x more to me than any of his stats. Stats that don't add up to team success are meaningless. We will see over the rest of his career whether he continues to win, or just get good stats. 12 months ago he was considered the biggest choker in the NFL. He made step one in disproving that, but he has more playoff failures (and most of them were him playing poorly) than successes, so the jury is still out.
Marino, IMO, is one of the most overrated players in NFL history. If it was only about the regular season, I'd feel differently. However, it was not a case of 'he had no running game' it was a case of their offensive strategy not using the running game. Ultimately, the Dolphins believed (like BBs comments on Brady) that their best chance to win was to put it all on Marinos shoulders. That got them some nice regular season records, but a pretty abysmal playoff record.
The answer I always have to the Marino lovers, is go look at all of the losses in the playoffs over his career. In almost every case Marino had a poor day. The team decided to live or die with how Marino played. If he were one of the greatest ever, that would have worked against good teams (i.e. in the playoffs) but it did not. Winning or losing was heavily in his hands, and if you look at the losses, he played poorly in almost every loss in the playoffs.

 

[Ring 6]

Here's a way to answer this question: what teams would NOT be improved if Brady were inserted at QB?

I'd say Indy, Cinci, New Orleans. That's all.

So, is Brady really a system QB?

What a minute. Cincinnati wouldnt be better with Tom Brady? Are you out of your mind. They have made the playoffs ONE time, and were a 500 team last year.
New Orleans? Huh? Drew Brees had a nice yardage total in an offense that was pass happy. As a winning QB he and Brady dont belong in the same sentence.

Colts? There is the big debate. I happen to believe that in 2003-2004, if you had switched QBs, the result would have been different in one of those years. The primary difference in those games were Mannings horrendous play, and Bradys winning play.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

How many Super Bowls has Brady won post Vinatieri?

How many Super Bowls has Vinatieri won post Brady? Hmm......

Huh. How many total did Dan Marino win?

I think we're all coming to the conclusion that football is a team game. In the past two years -- in each one of which, 31 teams ultimately failed -- Tom Brady has failed, using the highest bar. Peyton Manning failed in all but one year of his career.

So by this single, all encompassing statistic, what was Dan Marino's success rate?

I await your answer with baited breath,

PFnV

 

[Fixit]

How many Super Bowls has Brady won post Vinatieri?

How many Super Bowls has Vinatieri won post Brady? Hmm......

My God, that's a stupid post, even by the lofty standard you've set.

 

[JaredOfNazareth]

Was Marino the only player on the TEAM? How many SB's would Brady have without Vinatieri?

Vinatieri is only a kicker. NEs defense owned the rams and eagles. And the panthers would not have had nearly the success they did had Rodney not broken his arm. BTW Brady won that SB against Carolina more than Vinatieri.

PS There is no system. Anywhere. They all play football and some are not as good as others at QB. I.E. Trent Green is not as good as Brady. Can the guy do what is asked of him? That is the only question that needs answering. And for Phins fans to praise Manning is rediculous. If the Phins were the best AFC East team then they would have to play Manning every year. In that senario Phins fans would degrade Manning not praise him. We all know Manning is a great one. I don't care what Brady and Manning individually achieve as long as NE wins the SB and the Colts do not.

Rant Over

 

[JaredOfNazareth]

Vinatieri is the Robert Horry of the NFL.

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I can understand the idea, Fixit. I use to be that way about the Sox, and sometimes the Pats too -- I would count the HR and RBI, or the rushing yards for a QB back when Grogan was the man, or whatever.

Back when the Pats were just perreniel losers, I use to love trying to track the pieces instead of the team. The last time the 'Phins succeeded as a team was 1972, and I doubt this guy was born back then.

Hear me now and listen to me latah: Tracking stats without regard to winning championships is the consolation prize for the habitual loser. This is the case for Dolphins fans. They have ceased to follow football as a sport, sort of doing it as a mathmatical exercise instead.

I have no problem with that, in a way. I love fantasy football, in fact. Dan Marino, however, was, pure and simple, a great, talented, valuable loser. Whatever it was that it took, Marino never had it. He can never erase that.

Montana's stats were not that exalted next to Marino's. But Montana won super bowls.

The object of a football game is to win. The object of an NFL season is to win the super bowl. Marino never achieved that level of success, and "woulda coulda shoulda" doesn't change a thing about that. Had he played on the 2001, 2003, or 2004 Patriots, we have no evidence that he would have a ring. Had he played on the 49ers, we have no evidence he would have a ring. The only way to prove it is to prove it, and Marino could not.

Move on to another 'Phins icon, and hope. It is all you have left. The past is prolog -- when will Miami learn to win again? That's the question.

Or perhaps better put: is Miami the product of a bad system? If so, how can Miami come by a good system?

That's all a team is, a system. So yes, Tom Brady is a product of the Patriots team, and the Patriots team is a product of its players -- including their belief down to the last guy, that the team comes first.

Can they say that in Miami? Do they even want to say that in Miami? Or would that make them a "system quarterback," a "system running back," a "system receiver," etc.? Given that they could as easily fly by flapping their wings, or turn lead into gold, as win the AFCE in the foreseeable future, Miami might want to look into acquiring some "system" that other places call a Team.

Unless of course your team is the Toronto Argonauts, now that Ricky Williams is playing there.

PFnV

 

[PatsFanInVa]

Vinatieri is only a kicker. NEs defense owned the rams and eagles. And the panthers would not have had nearly the success they did had Rodney not broken his arm. BTW Brady won that SB against Carolina more than Vinatieri.

PS There is no system. Anywhere. They all play football and some are not as good as others at QB. I.E. Trent Green is not as good as Brady. Can the guy do what is asked of him? That is the only question that needs answering. And for Phins fans to praise Manning is rediculous. If the Phins were the best AFC East team then they would have to play Manning every year. In that senario Phins fans would degrade Manning not praise him. We all know Manning is a great one. I don't care what Brady and Manning individually achieve as long as NE wins the SB and the Colts do not.

Rant Over

Yeah there is a system, everywhere there's a winner. See previous rant. Otherwise you're playing playground ball, or "tackle the man with the ball" or something. Aquaboy is obviously playing some outdated forerunner to fantasy football.

The question is, do you win? If you win, you achieve the object in playing a game. If you win the super bowl, you achieve the object of playing a season of football.

Marino could not. We have no reason to believe he could regardless of the "ifs" we postulate.

Again, the only way to prove it is to prove it.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda titles are unfortunately never noted in the annals of the game. By-the-way statistics are. Interesting trivia, but they don't come with rings.

PFnV

 

[Peytonsbetter]

Actually, Brady DOES have that power. The difference between Brady and Manning is that Manning thinks he knows more about opposing teams than the coaches and regularly calls things differently from what the coaches called in where Brady, having FAITH in his coaches, selects from the plays he's given.

Thats interesting. Do you have any evidence of this?

I've never heard anything like that.

 

[TripleOption]

Thats interesting. Do you have any evidence of this?

I've never heard anything like that.

Weis admitted it and said that Brady had as much input into the offense as anyone.

 

[Peytonsbetter]

Weis admitted it and said that Brady had as much input into the offense as anyone.

I was referring to dabruinz' assertation that Peyton regularly blows his coaches off and calls whatever play he chooses. Thats crazy.

Actually, so is this thread. Anyone who would call Tom a product of the system doesn't know enough about football to be worth debating, IMO. The system doesn't make clutch plays when they're needed the most. The system doesn't drive its team to a game winning field goal in the last minute of the Super-Bowl. Thats all Brady. Which should be obvious to anyone who knows anything at all about football.

 

[Asante4prez]

I hope everyone understands how posts like this are important to expose the idiots who still bash Tom Brady even after he won three super bowls.

Not every thread on here should be Patriot "ego stroking". We all like the Pats (except for Aqua of course) but it is threads like this that raise discussion....

 

[rabthepat]

I do not believe Tom is a system QB. He has had to deal with too many personnel changes over the years. I would not want any other current QB for our team. Tom is the perfect QB for our team.

Having said that though, I would not put Tom in the same league as Dan Marino, Joe Montana, John Elway, Steve Young, Peyton Manning or several other QBs yet. Tom has never been league MVP, had a QB season rating over 100 or any significant NFL passing record.

I, currently, rate Tom's career between Jim Plunket(2 Sbs) and Terry Bradshaw(4 SBs). Like Tom these two guys were winners in their career but in terms of being a dominate QB they were not.

 

[jcdavey]

How many fans are sick of people telling them that Tom Brady is merely a product of the system?

Every season I have to hear from a bunch of idiots that say this over and over again. Sure Brady has a very good Offensive line here in New England, but I wouldn't call him a "product of our system". I think If Brady went to an Atlanta or a Jacksonville(hypothetical!!!!), he would have no problem being a superstar there as well.

Peyton Manning doesn't have a great O-line? You wanna talk about a "product of a system". The guy never gets sacked and last time I checked Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne are pretty outstanding recievers.


give me a break....

brady's a great qb, so is peyton, brady's just been more clutch in his career so far

 

[DaBruinz]

Thats interesting. Do you have any evidence of this?

I've never heard anything like that.

Do you follow the Patriots? With your name, probably not. So its not likely that you would hear it because the national media ball-washes that over-hyped Manning and rarely talks about what other QBs are allowed and not allowed to do.

Charlie Weis has talked about it several times. Including, if I remember correctly, an article about Brady Quinn where he mentioned that Brady has just as much power.

As I said, the difference between Manning and Brady is that Manning thinks he knows more than the coaches and regularly goes off script where Brady doesn't. Because Brady actually believes in the system and his coaches and has an equal say in the game planning.

 

[DaBruinz]

I do not believe Tom is a system QB. He has had to deal with too many personnel changes over the years. I would not want any other current QB for our team. Tom is the perfect QB for our team.

Having said that though, I would not put Tom in the same league as Dan Marino, Joe Montana, John Elway, Steve Young, Peyton Manning or several other QBs yet. Tom has never been league MVP, had a QB season rating over 100 or any significant NFL passing record.

I, currently, rate Tom's career between Jim Plunket(2 Sbs) and Terry Bradshaw(4 SBs). Like Tom these two guys were winners in their career but in terms of being a dominate QB they were not.

1) Brady doesn't need STATS to prove he's a great QB.
2) While Brady doesn't have a LEAGUE MVP (a popularity contest like the Pro-Bowl), he has 2 SB MVPS. I believe THAT puts him in select company. I believe that only Montana and Elway in the group you mentioned have more than 1 SB MVP.

3) Your own stipulation for not being "a system QB" is exactly what makes him just as good as the other guys. Manning has had the same O-line (with only 2 changes to my knowledge) protecting him for 9 years. His primary receiver has been the same for that length of time also. He's had the same top 2 receivers for 6 years (this being the 7th).

4) Its amazing. I talked about continuity last year and how it takes receivers a while to get used to a QB and how he throws the ball and was ridiculed. Yet, the other side of that coin is the longevity that people have mentioned.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

I

Having said that though, I would not put Tom in the same league as Dan Marino, Joe Montana, John Elway, Steve Young, Peyton Manning or several other QBs yet. Tom has never been league MVP, had a QB season rating over 100 or any significant NFL passing record.

.

Look at the All-Pros who were on the same offensive units as the QBs you referenced....ALL had multiple all-pro offensive linemen....(except Brady)



Montana/Young - Jerry Rice, Ricky Watters, Brent Jones, Guy McIntyre, Steve Wallace, Harris Barton, Jesie Sapolu, Bart Oates

Manning- E. James, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Jeff Saturday, Tarik Glenn


Marino- Clayton, Duper, Dwight Stevenson… Roy Foster Ol,Keith Sims,OL, Irving Fryar, Keith Byars, Richmond Webb

Elway- RB- T. Davis, Sammy Winder, Glyn Millburn, Bobby Humphrey, Shannon Sharpe,,Anthony Miller
Ed McCaffrey, Wr. OL- Gary Zimmerman, , Tom Nalen, Tony Jones, Keith Bishop


Brady- Troy Brown (2002) Matt Light (2006)

I think you’d have to agree that Brady has done more with less in terms of not having an All-Pro supporting cast and that makes what he has done all that more remarkable…..

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I am a little worn out reading this, and trying to determine exactly how sports fans are supposed to break through the circularity of the argument.

We posit hypotheticals: What if Peyton were playing with Caldwell and Gaffney instead of Harrison and Wayne? What if Miami's defense in Marino's day were the equivalent of NE's today? What if the talent had pooled in the AFC when Marino was throwing? What if Elway had been teamed with Terrel Davis earlier?

Every quarterback works in the system he is in.

Every quarterback is, by definition, a product of the system.

A Colts fan can say "What if 24-28 TD a year Tom Brady had been playing with Wayne and Harrison -- he would have made them worse," when in fact the Colts were built on Dallas-style "triplets," then complemented with Wayne and good tight end play. The Pats were built on another "system," a spread-the-ball-around system usually referred to as a "spread attack."

Or "what if" there were a deep threat in NE for 10 years running -- would there even be a "spread attack" when you have so much better odds of getting the ball downfield? BB is no dummy about using the talent at his disposal.

Ultimately, the system very quickly achieves a complexity of mutually inter-influencing variables that just can not be broken down by "look what happens to Brady when he has third string receivers..." or "look at how many touchdowns Peyton/Marino could heave in a season..." The stats tell us how each individual performed in given settings: Peyton and Marino in settings in which they often played from behind, in systems that emphasized the "unstoppable force" object of winning. Brady played in a system emphasizing control on both sides of the ball. You don't run time off the clock by heaving a 60-yard TD strike. The counter argument is, you don't have to; they're already 6 more behind.

But would those styles of play been different, if you swapped cog A for cog B? WE DO NOT KNOW, nor can we.

Maybe the makers of Madden can get together with Pujo's A-list of quantum physicists, and we can play an alternate-universe woulda coulda shoulda bowl to finally get Marino his ring.

But it's not our reality.

Our reality is that Tom Brady has won three super bowls. Let's be fair: the NE Patriots, in a span of 4 years, won three super bowls. Maybe on a Belichik team, with the stellar and variable talents of let's say Antowain Smith and Corey Dillon, David Givens and Deion Branch, Ty Law, Ted Washington, Richard Seymour, Lawyer Milloy... you get the picture, three "right systems" -- maybe with that set-up "you could say" Marino would win the big one.

But Dan Marino never did it, in reality.

Marino failed, ultimately. A great talent, who ultimately could not win the big one.

Good for Elway, sticking in the game until people couldn't say that anymore. Good for Brady, sticking around until he got the toys he has always longed for (as has Belichick, to hear how he talked about Moss previously.) Good for the whole vertical organization, for keeping BB, Pioli, Brady, and some core players under one roof for long enough to make that first four-year run, as well as the one that's coming.

Yeah, I call what's happened here a system, a winning system. A synergistic integration of various parts working together to produce an intended effect. This does not prove that any part of the system can be replaced with no consequences; it is telling that BB chose Brady over Bledsoe, when the latter became available again. Drew was not a winner at the level Tom is, precisely because he had more of the "gunslinger" mindset, whether or not it was warranted.

All Tom does is win Super Bowls. Nah, he isn't anything special.

It's just tedious. You can not compare an interesting statistical oddity like a Marino to the greats like Brady and Montana. Otherwise I can just measure the arc and velocity of a football thrown, decide what the ultimate perfect release point is, computer-model the mechanics, and extrapolate from an individual's deviation from that model, and declare Jeff George the best quarterback ever to play the game.

48 touchdowns in a losing season is still failure -- It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that bling.

PFnV

 

[Peytonsbetter]

Do you follow the Patriots? With your name, probably not. So its not likely that you would hear it because the national media ball-washes that over-hyped Manning and rarely talks about what other QBs are allowed and not allowed to do.

Charlie Weis has talked about it several times. Including, if I remember correctly, an article about Brady Quinn where he mentioned that Brady has just as much power.

As I said, the difference between Manning and Brady is that Manning thinks he knows more than the coaches and regularly goes off script where Brady doesn't. Because Brady actually believes in the system and his coaches and has an equal say in the game planning.

I wasn't asking for proof that Brady has the power to change plays, I have no doubt of that. I was wondering how you knew that Peyton thinks he knows more than the coaches and regularly goes off script? How do you know that? Do you have proof? If so, please indulge us.