The Tom Brady playing now is better than the 07 version.

[Deus Irae]

Brady
Manning
Brees
Rodgers
Rivers

In that order. I don't care how many rings Roethlisberger has he doesn't make the throws those 5 make.

On the other hand, Roethlisberger can make plays that none of the other 5 you listed can make. You seem to have ignored that.

 

[PatsSox363804]

On the other hand, Roethlisberger can make plays that none of the other 5 you listed can make. You seem to have ignored that.

True, given that if I have a team where the offense has to carry the load for a weak defense I still take those 5 over Roethlisberger.

 

[Deus Irae]

True, given that if I have a team where the offense has to carry the load for a weak defense I still take those 5 over Roethlisberger.

Why? Brees has demonstrated that he can't do that consistently, as has Rivers.

 

[Ring 6]

Why? Brees has demonstrated that he can't do that consistently, as has Rivers.

Rivers hasnt been able to carry a team with the #1 ranked defense.

 

[PatsSox363804]

Why? Brees has demonstrated that he can't do that consistently, as has Rivers.

The Saints were 20th in points allowed in 09 and went 13-3 and won the Superbowl, Brees was absolutely robbed of the MVP that year. Granted they got a lot of key turnovers but they still had to score a ton of points giving up 21.3/game. Roethlisberger in his 3 Superbowl seasons had the 3rd, 1st, and 1st ranked defenses and did basically nothing in their Superbowl vs Seattle. I would take him 6th, it's not like I think the guy sucks.

Rivers I can be swayed on that one, possible that my Steeler hatred is getting in the way there.

 

[Deus Irae]

The Saints were 20th in points allowed in 09 and went 13-3 and won the Superbowl, Brees was absolutely robbed of the MVP that year. Granted they got a lot of key turnovers but they still had to score a ton of points giving up 21.3/game. Roethlisberger in his 3 Superbowl seasons had the 3rd, 1st, and 1st ranked defenses and did basically nothing in their Superbowl vs Seattle. I would take him 6th, it's not like I think the guy sucks.

Rivers I can be swayed on that one, possible that my Steeler hatred is getting in the way there.

2007 and 2008 Saints

7-9
8-8

Brees didn't get it done. The Steelers were 6-10 the year before Roethlisberger took over and led the team to a 15-1 record. Roethlisberger's never QB'd a losing season, while Brees has done it twice, once fairly recently.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to rank Roethlisberger #6. The arguments for #4-6 can be pretty good no matter how you order them, IMO, and I'm always looking at ways to get comfortable with ranking the top QBs. I'm just noting that your reason isn't one that holds up as strongly as you seemed to be implying.

 

[PatsSox363804]

2007 and 2008 Saints

7-9
8-8

Brees didn't get it done. The Steelers were 6-10 the year before Roethlisberger took over and led the team to a 15-1 record. Roethlisberger's never QB'd a losing season, while Brees has done it twice, once fairly recently.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to rank Roethlisberger #6. The arguments for #4-6 can be pretty good no matter how you order them, IMO, and I'm always looking at ways to get comfortable with ranking the top QBs. I'm just noting that your reason isn't one that holds up as strongly as you seemed to be implying.

The 04 Steelers also gave up 5 less points per game than the 03 Steelers and the 2 times in Roethlisbergers career where he didnt have a top 10 defense they went 8-8 and 9-7 and they werent bottom half defenses, they were 11th and 12th. You can make a case for either of them and also point out that Brees plays in a dome and has an offensive minded coach. It's really all just opinion because we can never create a situation where all things are equal. As long as we all agree on #1 it's all good.

 

[emoney_33]

Yes. Tom Brady seems to perform better without a big name receiver, since he likes to distribute the ball around to all his receivers, rather than to have to keep feeding the ball to a prima donna receiver even if said receiver is not open.

Tom Brady seems to perform better... wait what? His best season ever, by a very large margin, was his first (and pretty much only) year with a big name receiver. 2008... injury. 2009 he was coming back from injury, Moss was starting to hit the wall, the schedule was brutal and they had a new OC... plus a mediocre run game, and he still did pretty well. 2010 he had a "big name" receiver who was finished, and he only had him for four games.

So please spare me this "he's worse with a great receiver" speal. He had one healthy year with a great receiver, and that year will go down as the best of his career.

That's why I don't think this Chad Johnson trade will benefit the Patriots very much. He's the 2nd most annoying receiver in the league after Terrell Owens. Imagine him pestering Tom Brady all season long to pass him the ball and how he'll celebrate whenever he gets a TD. Too much of a distraction for sure.

He's not a distraction at all, except for bored ESPiNylysts who need to start something. The only way it's a bad trade is if he doesn't catch on and perform. Him being a "big name" receiver is meaningless, it's whether he becomes a big TALENT receiver for the Patriots that will matter.

And him annoying you has precisely 0 impact on whether he is a good fit for the Patriots.

 

[BillyD123]

Jeez, The Chargers Nation have done their own "Tate of the Tape"
And it starts out like this:

After studying the Chargers and Patriots on tape, here’s our position-by-position breakdown on who has the upper hand in Sunday’s AFC showdown:

QUARTERBACKS

Tom Brady has three rings. We get that. But Philip Rivers is the only quarterback with three straight seasons of 4,000-plus yards and a 100-plus passer rating. Also, we like Rivers’ ability to move around the pocket with bullets flying around him.

We know, we know — Brady is a future Hall of Famer. Nevertheless, Rivers has the leg up with his pocket presence in this matchup.

Judge’s score: San Diego, 10-9

OMG! Brady is coming off a slam dunk MVP year, Is the Offensive player of the week @ passing for over 500 yds. And the SD can justify that Rivers is better than TFB?

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

Rivers hasnt been able to carry a team with the #1 ranked defense and the #32 ranked special teams.

The added part seems quite important, costing them many games last year.

 

[PatsSox363804]

Jeez, The Chargers Nation have done their own "Tate of the Tape"
And it starts out like this:

After studying the Chargers and Patriots on tape, here’s our position-by-position breakdown on who has the upper hand in Sunday’s AFC showdown:

QUARTERBACKS

Tom Brady has three rings. We get that. But Philip Rivers is the only quarterback with three straight seasons of 4,000-plus yards and a 100-plus passer rating. Also, we like Rivers’ ability to move around the pocket with bullets flying around him.

We know, we know — Brady is a future Hall of Famer. Nevertheless, Rivers has the leg up with his pocket presence in this matchup.

Judge’s score: San Diego, 10-9

OMG! Brady is coming off a slam dunk MVP year, Is the Offensive player of the week @ passing for over 500 yds. And the SD can justify that Rivers is better than TFB?

If we take their last 3 full seasons combined:

Brady: 1635 attempts 1093 completions 13104 passing yards, 114 TD, 25 INT, 108.0 rating

Rivers: 1505 attempts 986 completions 12973 passing yards, 92 TD, 33 INT, 103.8 rating

They're right though, Rivers 4009 yards in 08 was more impressive than Brady's 3900 last year, I mean if you put importance in a meaningless stat like exactly "4000."

 

[glm]

2007 and 2008 Saints

7-9
8-8

Brees didn't get it done. The Steelers were 6-10 the year before Roethlisberger took over and led the team to a 15-1 record. Roethlisberger's never QB'd a losing season, while Brees has done it twice, once fairly recently.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to rank Roethlisberger #6. The arguments for #4-6 can be pretty good no matter how you order them, IMO, and I'm always looking at ways to get comfortable with ranking the top QBs. I'm just noting that your reason isn't one that holds up as strongly as you seemed to be implying.

I'd like to point out that the 07 and 08 Saints had some of the worst defenses in the league.

The 07 Saints ranked 25th in points allowed and had an atrocious 95.309 defensive passer rating. But they gave up points much to easily, their bendability was a 14.356, which is absolutely horrible.

The 08 Saints ranked 26th in points allowed and had a better DPR, a 78.977. Their bendability was a 13.822, which is even worse than the previous years defense.

The year before Roethlisberger took over, the Steelers ranked 15th in points allowed. Their DPR was 80.613, so they're pretty average in those categories. But their bendability was a terrible 14.627.

But when Roethlisberger got to the Steelers, they fixed up their D, and he had the luxury to play for a defense that ranked 1st in points allowed, had a 66.090 DPR, and had a better bendability which was a 16.470.

So you can't really blame the 07 and 08 Saints seasons on Brees, he did his best with what he had.

 

[Deus Irae]

So you can't really blame the 07 and 08 Saints seasons on Brees, he did his best with what he had.

The point brought up to elevate Rivers and Brees over Roethlisberger was that those QBs could carry a defense, so I gave examples of when that didn't happen. Your information, while interesting for another purpose, isn't really pertinent to that discussion, since we're not using those years for comparing the QBs directly.

 

[condon84]

Brady choked last year? More like the O line.

IMO,
People have really forgotten Daniel Graham. Losing him was so underrated by us all.

Games where Freeney and other edge rushers have tortured Light make me long for the days when we'd have Graham to help throw a blocker on them. Perfect example was the MIA game. The second Wake started to break through on our rook we threw a blocker on him and he was neutralized. Daniel Graham used to have the same effect on the best pass rushers in the game. Hopefully with big Gronk that ability will be back.

It's not about Brady choking in the playoffs. We need to stop being so soft upfront getting beat. Same thing happened in 09, and it happened last year. Brady will look like **** again in this years playoffs (if we make it ) if the OL comes up soft again. Not trying to be Brady's mother but IJS.

Brady did get hit in the playoff loss, but you're making it sound like Brady wasn't hit during our run in 01 and 03-04. The big difference now compared to Brady then was that when Brady used to get hit, he'd still step up, wait for the last second knowing that he was going to get hit and step into his throws. Now, you can tell Brady gets rattled when he gets hit. Last year, after he got hit a few times, you see him ducking imaginary defenders which caused him to pull the ball down, waste valuable seconds, and then finally take a sack. At least three of those sacks in the playoff loss against the Jets were unnecessary. The the biggest difference that I've seen.

 

[TruthSeeker]

But Eli didn't get sacked and they lost. Like I said, they won playoff games and Championships (which were due to Brady in large part on his last minute drives). Maybe I should have added that little tidbit in my original post. Is Brady statistically better, the obvious answer is yes. However, I'd take the earlier Brady that was clutch over this Brady. Stats don't always tell the whole story. Yeah, he's putting up monster numbers and was the MVP, but Peyton has been doing that for years and the knock was always how he was a great regular season QB, but he could not win the big one. Even now that he has one, people say it's just one.

I'd take the less flashy (statistically) Brady any day of the week, as opposed to this Brady. Am I saying he's bad or terrible or any of that. NO! I'm just saying that using the term better can be a bit of a misnomer in this instance. He is statistically better, but I don't know if that means he is truly better.

I'd argue that this is a very results oriented analysis, not a player oriented analysis.

Tom Brady in 2007, 2009 and 2010 well outplayed the 2001 - 2004 player. As you rightly point out, statistics clearly reveal this. As you neglect to mention, the rest of the team was quite different, specifically the defense.

Sure, we all want championships. But not winning a championship doesn't mean an individual player - even the most important player on the field - was necessarily playing worse when they got knocked out of the playoffs. There's a lot more to this than the statistic of Super Bowl victories.

 

[Tom + Bill]

I think tommy will pass for 8000 yard this year because he got 500 in week one against the dolphins.

 

[Ring 6]

Brady did get hit in the playoff loss, but you're making it sound like Brady wasn't hit during our run in 01 and 03-04. The big difference now compared to Brady then was that when Brady used to get hit, he'd still step up, wait for the last second knowing that he was going to get hit and step into his throws. Now, you can tell Brady gets rattled when he gets hit. Last year, after he got hit a few times, you see him ducking imaginary defenders which caused him to pull the ball down, waste valuable seconds, and then finally take a sack. At least three of those sacks in the playoff loss against the Jets were unnecessary. The the biggest difference that I've seen.

That is 100% totally incorrect.

 

[Ring 6]

The added part seems quite important, costing them many games last year.

Not enough for a great QB to overcome and at least earn a playoff berth, with the #1 ranked defense. At the very, very worst the combination of being supported by the #1 D and #32 special teams is an average combination of the 2.
This is the thing, IMO, with Rivers. He puts up a lot of stats, but they have a hollowness to them. His team has done the best when his stats have been lesser, and their is a lesser reliance on him. Its hard to quantify, but its a Bledose-esque quality. You put up big numbers between the 20s and throughout the day, but those numbers don't quite turn into wins as opposed to other QBs who play their best when winning or losing hangs in the balance.

 

[lightningbolt]

Not enough for a great QB to overcome and at least earn a playoff berth, with the #1 ranked defense. At the very, very worst the combination of being supported by the #1 D and #32 special teams is an average combination of the 2.
This is the thing, IMO, with Rivers. He puts up a lot of stats, but they have a hollowness to them. His team has done the best when his stats have been lesser, and their is a lesser reliance on him. Its hard to quantify, but its a Bledose-esque quality. You put up big numbers between the 20s and throughout the day, but those numbers don't quite turn into wins as opposed to other QBs who play their best when winning or losing hangs in the balance.

I'm going to chalk this criticism of Rivers up to ignorance since Patriots and other non-Charger fans don't get to see Rivers play very often. Last season our defense was overrated in my opinion. We gave up lots of touchdowns on special teams, which decreased the amount of yards and points that opposing teams put on our defense.

If you give up 2 special teams touchdowns in the same game to the opposing team, you don't think that will help pad your defensive stats? Case in point, the Seattle game last season when we had two special teams touchdowns put on us and lots of big returns that didn't result in TDs but gave their offense a short field to work with.

The second one was the most brutal because Rivers had a great drive to tie up the game with just over 6 minutes left and they get a special teams TD on our kickoff, effectively nullifying our TD. You don't think Tom Brady would have lost a lot of games if his special teams kept giving opponents free TDs and short field position? Here's the highlight video of the game:


San Diego Chargers vs Seattle Seahawks Week 3 2010 - YouTube


I don't know how Philip Rivers is perceived by opposing fans but in San Diego, he's definitely developed a reputation for stepping up big when our team needs him the most. He's actually ranked 2nd only behind Brady in terms of 4th quarter performance, meaning that he steps it up when the game is on the line.

Watch the highlights of these two games for instance where he brought us back late in the game to win it, and then tell me that Rivers doesn't play his best when winning or losing is on the line:

NFL Videos: NFL GameDay: Chargers vs. Giants highlights


Philip Rivers week 15, amazing comeback - YouTube

 

[condon84]

That is 100% totally incorrect.

I don't expect for you to understand anything.