NFL offseason thread

Particularly quarterbacks.

 

Having covered Brady in the first five years of his career and having of course watched him closely since, it is my opinion he would have succeeded wherever he went. He may not have wound up with four Super Bowl titles as a Raider or Jaguar, but he would have been no worse than one of the league's top 10 quarterbacks and probably top five. His career would probably resemble that of Brees. And if one of those franchises had had Brady, they might not have won multiple titles, but they wouldn't have been downtrodden clusterfucks, either

 

I don't think the organization is everything, but I would say 25% of a player's success can be attributed to where they land.

Some players, like Lawerence Taylor, Joe Greene, Marino, Elway and others are just so great it didn't matter, but a guy like Marvin Harrison, for example, would he be a HOF player on another team? I think he would have been a very strong player, but probably not HOF.

 

I like the Brees comparison.

 

I'm not so sure. Brady certainly has the intangibles, but if he was a sixth-round pick of the Jaguars or some other shitty team with no offensive line, it's just as likely that he would have gotten the shit beat out of him for a few years and then never be heard from again.

 

Don't forget, the Pats sucked in 2000 and Brady rode the deep pine the whole time. And in 2001, once he got the job, they were a running team and he was asked to do relatively little. Only AFTER that first Super Bowl did he get turned loose. The thing is, he kept on improving every day until he reached the plateau of all-time greatness. No coach controls that development, that's from within.

 

True. That's what's frequently overlooked in the NFL. One the one side there's talent, then there's how coachable a guy is and how driven he is. I think a lot of teams overshoot on some players because they convince themselves that they can get through to a player who seems uncoachable.

 

I'm of the "you did not get there by yourself / someone helped you along the way school.
Clearly Brady is driven but he has had a lot of good coaching along the way in his development.

More common now but Brady seemed ahead of his time in having an off season QB coach
in Tom Martinez who it sounds like played a big role his his development.

 

Brady, Brees and Rodgers are all very similar players. They all play like they have a score to settle, but all three are very coachable and driven, which I think accounts for a lot of their success.

I'd give anything for Colin Kaepernick to have a fraction of what those guys have in terms of being coachable and driven.

 

Dez must have met the asking price for the video -- Cowboys apparently feel comfortable putting the franchise tag on him, and Jerrah signals they're just buying time for a long-term deal.

Dez Bryant of Dallas Cowboys to be franchised - ESPN Dallas

That'd be $250,000 well spent for Bryant.

 

That was the first thing that crossed my mind when that rumor was going around. If I'm Dez, I get someone to pay for the video or buy it himself. Apparently, there are stills that were sent around to multiple news organizations, but one of the places alluded to not wanting to be sued by the Cowboys for posting them. I don't know if someone has threatened to sue or not.

 

This means Murray is almost certainly gone.