NFL Week 12 -- I Wish Turkey Only Cost A Nickel

Is Luke Getsy Caleb Williams' agent?

 

Buck refuses to use the phrase "athletic training staff, " he's my new favorite pxp guy.

 

It was, but you could argue that by then Manning was the type of caretaker quarterback BYH was referencing in his post.

 

Everyone two weeks ago: How could so many teams give up on or not acquire Josh Dobbs?

Everyone tonight: Never mind.

 

There is a 100 percent chance the Bears do not trade the top pick. Fields is a serviceable quarterback who has flashed brilliant playmaking at times, but you don't build a winning franchise around flashes.

 

That was a very Josh Dobbs moment.

Guy wide open deep for a TD but Dobbs' pass is wide and the catch is made out of bounds.

 

I knew exactly why people gave up on Dobbs, though I kept my mind open to the possibility that he had finally figured out how to apply that intelligence on the field as well as off it. I still think if the Jets had gone after him, they might still be in contention right now.

 

More likely, it's double racism

 

It's a little hot taeky to boil this down to QBs, but I think we can all agree that QB is the most important (or has been made into the most important) position in professional sports and how a coach fares with and without a HOFer behind center is a direct reflection of his job performance. Thus, just among active coaches:

--Pete Carroll's directed teams w/four different starting QBs (five, if you count Charlie Whitehurst) to the playoffs.

--So has Andy Reid, and two of them were post-peak Michael Vick and Alex Smith.

--Mike Tomlin will likely have his second straight winning season without Ben Roethlisberger--Belichick's never had two straight winning seasons w/o Brady--and he once coached the Steelers to an 8-8 record with Rapey McRapist starting two games and people named Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges combining to start the other 14.

--John Harbaugh almost made the Super Bowl with a rookie QB, won it all with Flacco in 2012, rebuilt the Ravens into a perennial powerhouse with Lamar Jackson and made the playoffs last year after Jackson bolted on the team.

--Doug Pederson lost Carson Wentz in the middle of an MVP year and won the Super Bowl with Nick Foles. Nick fucking Foles!

--Even dingbat Sean fucking Payton has figured out to get to 6-5--after a 1-5 start!--with zombified Russell Wilson.

As for a handful of retired or no longer with us legends of the Super Bowl era:

--Don Shula made the playoffs with five different QBs and made the Super Bowl with David fucking Woodley and Dan Marino within a three-year span.

--Bud Grant made the Super Bowl w/two different QBs and then made the playoffs twice with Tommy Kramer.

--Bill Parcells made the playoffs with five different starting QBs and won his last Super Bowl with a sixth. And the Jets were one or two defensive stops against the Broncos in the 1998 AFC Championship Game of dethroning them and then destroying the Falcons in the Super Bowl with Vinny Testaverde, the only QB not named Tom Brady to win a playoff game for Belichick.

--Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls with three-and-a-half non-HOF QBs in a 10-season span. Sixteen years after Washington's last Super Bowl win, Gibbs got a team quarterbacked by Todd Collins into the playoffs. TODD FUCKING COLLINS, who was almost a decade removed from being Jim Kelly's heir apparent.

The standard here is not Gibbs and it's not win the championship or else. It's just to compete and make the playoffs w/o the best QB to ever live. In other sports, it's can he do what Pat Riley did from the Lakers to the Knicks to the Heat and win with entirely different rosters? Can he do what Terry Francona did? He has not come even remotely close yet. Belichick is now 62-79 prior to and following the Brady years (which include the 11-5 mark with Matt Cassel, an outlier if there ever was one). That's a winning percentage of .440.

Dick Jauron coached 142 games and went 60-82. John Madden coached 142 games and went 103-32-7. Bill Belichick, without Tom Brady, is Dick Jauron. He needs a perfect season just to basically be Jeff Fisher, the epitome of 8-8. Jeff Fisher's also made the playoffs with as many different starting QBs as Bill Belichick: Three.

 

I’ve watched most of this Vikings-Bears game. It feels like a punishment and I need to contemplate what I’m doing with my life.