Minus the interceptions that should have been catches, last season was one of Tom most efficient seasons throwing the ball. Can I prove he would have been better had his receivers had not dropped so many in this fictional scenario... no.
If Tom comes out this season, a year older, and has an amazing season in relation to last year then I've proven my point. I believe with this collection of WR's, health provided, he will.
I "liked" the post, but it would be silly not to acknowledge that "contrafactual methodology" again leaps to the fore once you succeed with a highly talented group of receivers, coincidentally erasing years without
any premiere receiving options.
"Oh yeah my QB woulda been great with Welker/Moss/Stallworth too!"
Yeah, after the fact. Before the fact, Moss was a washed up locker room cancer, Welker was a glorified punt returner, and Stallworth... well okay, he was the guy whose value slipped in reality vs. woulda shoulda coulda world.
This next part will make it really hard to get your head around who's "good," but... it's rare that guys who were "good" in NE go somewhere else and stay "good." This is the ultimate team game, but the "greats" in this game are elite athletes, 1-in-a-million talents.
I think TFB could go somewhere and as an individual, with a coach who accepts that he would re-form the team around his memory of greatness, he could drag a team with him to a title... but I hope we never have to test the theory. But your average so-called "skill player" is the opposite of a "skill" player. They're basically talent players, with some modicum of work to sharpen a talent.
The guys who have to have truly perfect technique and never get it wrong are in the trenches, from what little I understand about the game. They're the ones you hold accountable if they let the golden boy get sacked twice in a game... yes, get beat twice in an afternoon, and maybe you need to move to a new city. Compare that to a bad day where you drop 2 passes. Naturally you can pad that by previous periods of productivity... but, mental exercise: Name a receiver who's "streaky" or "might take plays off." Got it? Why do they keep him? Well, it's those moments of brilliance innit?
Right, now name a "streaky" lineman. Way worse concept.
Those brilliant instincts to stab an arm into the air at the right time to grab the ball only you could possibly reach, well, how much of that is the 10,000 times you did it in practice, how much is the advantages of gym and diet, and how much of it is what you came out of the womb with? At the elite level, you're looking at guys with freakish natural gifts and instincts. "Same species my a**" -type ability. But super-skilled they ain't, not necessarily. They can work really hard and get that extra result out of the talent, but you came down the chute
with potential to be better than 99.999% of people. (But, eat a pizza a day and sit in front of a computer, and you'll probably get only slightly better results than yours truly - understood. No dis on the super-talented; you can ruin talent too.)
All I'm saying in my roundabout way is that something gels for the Pats beyond what people can do on their own elsewhere. There's a culture in NE, and there's an uncanny ability on the part of the coaching staff, to get the most out of each elite talent.
Really, they coddle their prima donna divas in one dimension only: They will bend over backwards to put you in the perfect position to optimally contribute to the outcome. They will get the best football outcome out of you that you can imagine. They will measure it by your contribution to a team goal, and
you will measure it that way, if you recognize the luxury of being coddled in this sense. If you understand that this is the highest respect anybody can ever pay you in a team game, New England will put you in that position. But it's hard, because if you measure individual vs. team, "the team is selfish." Sounds funny, right? Because it is. Your ego has to not count. Humans aren't built for that kind of mind-frak. People want individual validation.
You have to be really grown up, or you need to be capable of really growing up, to flourish in NE. That's in addition to the elite talent proposition and the elite training and work requirement, to make sure you don't throw away how far you could get with your talent.
Damn, even thinking about these guys' world makes me feel like $XX million/year isn't enough to make a living that way. I guess it's good they only have to do it 20 years at the absolute outside (avg. of more like 3.)
