Stats-deluded writer argues "there are no great defenses left in the playoffs" & NE doesn't count

[yukon cornelius]

After Rodgers and Brady, who is better than him?

really? even at this stage, Ben...Matt Ryan....heck, I still like even a woefully mediocre Eli....Flacco....**** i could keep going

he's high middle of the pack in my book...maybe low top tier



the media loves him, and he's a good QB.....but not much more

 

[I.M. Fletcher]

Matt Ryan, Derek Carr, drew brees

Brees could be a good argument. Ryan has had a great season after many average seasons. Derek Carr couldn't carry Russ's jock.

 

[fightingirish595]

Brees could be a good argument. Ryan has had a great season after many average seasons. Derek Carr couldn't carry Russ's jock.

The talent around Wilson dropped significantly as did his play. Derek Carr was an MVP candidate this year. And Matt Ryan is going to win it. And average seasons? I don't think so

 

[patchick]

I have to say, don't get what's supposed to be so terrible about this. The Pats DID luck into a bizarrely weak lineup of QBs, despite playing a 1st-place schedule. That's simply a fact.

I have a lot of faith in this defense and expect it to hold up well against a tougher opponent, but I can't blame anybody who has a "show me" skepticism. Imagine if it were the Steelers defense that had faced the craptastic QBs all season, wouldn't you take their stats with a huge grain of salt?

 

[pwes]

I don't understand how the Pats ended up playing such easy offenses. Don't they usually have one of the hardest schedules? I thought the schedule took into account your record and gave the better teams harder schedules?

That only accounts for 2 games (#1 seeds in the other AFC divisions we aren't scheduled to play). Would be Denver and Houston. And both had mediocre QBs this season. The rest of the schedule is based on rotation and this year the rotation just happened to have a lot of bad/mediocre quarterbacks playing.

 

[I.M. Fletcher]

The talent around Wilson dropped significantly as did his play. Derek Carr was an MVP candidate this year. And Matt Ryan is going to win it. And average seasons? I don't think so

Derek Carr had the 1a oline in the league. Seattle had the 32nd. And he played with a torn mcl, high ankle sprain, and rotator cuff. He was r healthy all season, and it was still his defense that let them down.

No qb since Brady came along has shown the same level of toughness and big game chops as Russ. If we didn't have the goat, I would take him instantly.

 

[fightingirish595]

Derek Carr had the 1a oline in the league. Seattle had the 32nd. And he played with a torn mcl, high ankle sprain, and rotator cuff. He was r healthy all season, and it was still his defense that let them down.

No qb since Brady came along has shown the same level of toughness and big game chops as Russ. If we didn't have the goat, I would take him instantly.

I think Ryan Brees and Carr are all better from the pocket than Wilson. So I'll take those guys

And I'll also take luck, who despite worse talent on offense, arguably a better division, and a worse defense, put up better numbers and only won 2 less games in 1 less start

 

[QuantumMechanic]

I don't understand how the Pats ended up playing such easy offenses. Don't they usually have one of the hardest schedules? I thought the schedule took into account your record and gave the better teams harder schedules?

Only two of the 16 games are schedule-related. Everything else is locked in years ahead of time:

• Home and away in your division: 6 games
• Playing a rotating NFC division: 4 games
• Playing a rotating AFC division: 4 games
• In the other two AFC divisions, playing the teams that finished in the same place you finished in your division: 2 games. These are the only two games that take into account how good or bad you were the previous year.

 

[PatsDeb]

I am tired of this "they didn't play anybody" crap. We beat three of the AFC playoff teams, two of them twice, and all by convincing margins. We came within a boned-headed goal-line stand of taking the only NFC playoff team we faced into OT. We helped knock Denver, Baltimore and Buffalo out of it when they were still in it. Who has anyone else beat?

 

[deroc5050]

Our defense has the potential to either get exposed or be remembered with the 2003/2004 defenses. The whole schedule argument will be forgotten if they perform well vs. the Steelers and Packers/Falcons.

Just to be fair though to the guy who wrote the article... he does bring up a legitimate and noteworthy point. The Patriots didn't play many top tier QB's this season. I agree with the article however I think the Pats defense has improved a lot. Especially in the secondary.

The only flaw with his comment was bringing up Buffalo, Buffalo was a top 10 offense at least they were for most of the year.

 

[Jackson 2]

Russel Wilson is a top-level QB?

He absolutely is.

 

[The Gr8est]

I have to say, don't get what's supposed to be so terrible about this. The Pats DID luck into a bizarrely weak lineup of QBs, despite playing a 1st-place schedule. That's simply a fact.

I have a lot of faith in this defense and expect it to hold up well against a tougher opponent, but I can't blame anybody who has a "show me" skepticism. Imagine if it were the Steelers defense that had faced the craptastic QBs all season, wouldn't you take their stats with a huge grain of salt?

Well, there aren't a lot of high quality QBs in the league.

If we'll get more respect by beating an elite QB like Luck then bring on the Colts!

Sounds scary even typing that.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Just to be fair though to the guy who wrote the article... he does bring up a legitimate and noteworthy point. The Patriots didn't play many top tier QB's this season. I agree with the article however I think the Pats defense has improved a lot. Especially in the secondary.

The only flaw with his comment was bringing up Buffalo, Buffalo was a top 10 offense at least they were for most of the year.

Who are the top tier QBs and who has faced the most of them?

 

[SVN]

I dont know why to get so sensitive about. What is written is kinda true. If steelers put on 30 pts next week, will you then say this defense has been exposed.? We will probably find excuses about refs or some other way to justify that the defense "did its job". In the end who cares about all these stats and respect the defense stuff . Last week we got all offended why everyone was calling Houston the #1 defense but they played as good as any defense in the league. Yeah pats gave up 16 but compare the opposition.
Imagine if the steelers came in with the #1 scoring defense. We would poke all kinda holes in their schedule vs browns/bengals/KC and all that.

 

[TB_Helmet]

People around here are definitely on edge. Every other post is about someone slighting the Patriots, whether it's this article taking shots at the D, or people saying Aaron Rodgers is the new GOAT, or Tomlin calling us out.

I get it; we are fiercely protective of our team and our players, and we get a lot of grief from everyone outside of New England. But in my opinion we are wasting a lot of energy trying to come up with counter-arguments. There is only one counter-argument to any of this and that is to win the next two games.

Why bother responding to a guy who says we don't have a great defense because we haven't shown we can beat a top offense yet? We have a chance to show we can beat a top offense on Sunday! That's all the argument you need! That will settle it and shut everyone up. Or maybe we win 42-35. That's great, but then you'll have to admit that the writer of this article has a good point, right?

People are nervous about Green Bay. I say bring it on; you want to shut everyone up who is trying to make a case for Rodgers over Brady? How about the Pats beat the Packers in the Super Bowl. That will be more of a referendum on things than anything else I can imagine (of course, even if the Pats lose you can still make a strong case for Brady but let's cross that bridge when we hopefully don't get to it). Let's win that game 35-20 and leave the hot "Rodgers=GOAT" takes twisting in the wind.

In my opinion, it's not worth arguing over anything that will be decided by events that will take place in the immediate future. Just let those events take place and then the argument will be decided. In the mean time, appreciate what we have, watch some hype videos, and goof around with some of the crazy people on this board.

 

[SVN]

Who are the top tier QBs and who has faced the most of them?

Matt Ryan- Russel Wilson,Brees X2, Derek Carr,Philip Rivers,Aaaron Rodgers
Ben R - Flacco x2, Eli manning,prescott,AFCE -minus pats., Alex smith,Dalton x2
Rodgers- Eli,Prescott,Matt Ryan,Luck,Russel Wilson
Brady - Wilson, AFC-E , Simian, OSweiler x2 , Carson Palmer,jared goff, Kapernick,Flacco,Dalton

You can decide who is a top tier and not but clearly Pats havent faced as much as IMO as say matt ryan/falcons.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

As the old expression goes, there are lies, damn lies, then statistics.

I do think that DVOA can be an interesting metric, but it has limitations. And rather than recognize those limitations, the author intentionally twists it into something totally different.

Look at the 2016 Cardinals. They are 3rd in defensive DVOA, I guess because they played some tough offenses. Certainly wasn't from their division. Seattle was 12th in yards, and San Francisco and LA finished 31st and 32nd respectively.

BUT THEY PLAYED REAL TEAMS! Unlike us pretenders.

Oh yeah? How did that go?

They gave up 363 yards and 23 points to our backup QB and a team missing a bunch of starters. Gave up 33 to the Bills, who finished in the top 10 in offense. They gave up 30 points to Vikings and Panthers offenses that weren't particularly good, although the Vikings benefited from some turnovers, while the Panthers ran for 141 yards and 349 overall in a blowout.

But they played the top two offenses in the league! Unlike us!

Oh wait, they gave up 488 yards and 48 points to the Saints, and 360 yards and 38 points to the Falcons.

So DVOA seems to give them an awful lot of credit for playing good offenses, even though THEY SUCKED against them. Being blown out by a good team is better than beating up a bad one apparently.

 

[ausbacker]

After Rodgers and Brady, who is better than him?

Drew Brees
Ben Roethlisberger
Matt Ryan

And arguments can be made for the following: Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Well, according to DVOA (and VOA, the unadjusted-for-opponent version) the Patriots had the best performance of the weekend (scroll to the bottom of the article):

FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Week 19 DVOA Ratings

 

[drewskie]

People around here are definitely on edge. Every other post is about someone slighting the Patriots, whether it's this article taking shots at the D, or people saying Aaron Rodgers is the new GOAT, or Tomlin calling us out.

I get it; we are fiercely protective of our team and our players, and we get a lot of grief from everyone outside of New England. But in my opinion we are wasting a lot of energy trying to come up with counter-arguments. There is only one counter-argument to any of this and that is to win the next two games.

Why bother responding to a guy who says we don't have a great defense because we haven't shown we can beat a top offense yet? We have a chance to show we can beat a top offense on Sunday! That's all the argument you need! That will settle it and shut everyone up. Or maybe we win 42-35. That's great, but then you'll have to admit that the writer of this article has a good point, right?

People are nervous about Green Bay. I say bring it on; you want to shut everyone up who is trying to make a case for Rodgers over Brady? How about the Pats beat the Packers in the Super Bowl. That will be more of a referendum on things than anything else I can imagine (of course, even if the Pats lose you can still make a strong case for Brady but let's cross that bridge when we hopefully don't get to it). Let's win that game 35-20 and leave the hot "Rodgers=GOAT" takes twisting in the wind.

In my opinion, it's not worth arguing over anything that will be decided by events that will take place in the immediate future. Just let those events take place and then the argument will be decided. In the mean time, appreciate what we have, watch some hype videos, and goof around with some of the crazy people on this board.

Couldnt agree more, to be the best (again) you have to beat them and what better way than to win the next two games. One at a time though.

Rodgers is a stud and if the GOAT wasnt leading our team, he'd be my next choice easily with all due respect to Brees (criminally underrated historically), Ryan and Wilson. GB is a legit threat but I like our chances against anyone, even if anything can happen in any given game.