NFL playoff thread

If you look at all the people you'd look at in the group of best all-time QBs, whoever they may be, I think Manning and Marino are the only ones whose playoff records are below .500. But Marino never had very good regular-season teams either. The others are not only above .500 but well above .500 (except Favre, whose mid-career swoon left him only a little bit above .500).

 

That's because there is no argument for you to make. At best, "Manning played poorly" is a matter of opinion. But I pointed out the flaws in many of your supporting points.

You blamed Manning for two sacks late in that game when Joey Porter came unblocked from his blind side on both plays. He had no chance at all on either one. Yes, there are times when a quarterback is at fault for a sack. Plays on which the offensive line leaves the other team's best pass rusher unblocked are not among those times.

You mentioned the two incompletions before Vanderjagt's miss, but failed to remember or realize that at least one of them was exactly the right throw. The Colts weren't just playing for a tie there. Manning saw a great matchup for his team and tried to exploit it for the win. That was exactly what he should have done there.

You mentioned the distance of 46 yards on Vanderjagt's miss as if it was a big deal, which it wasn't normally. Do you even remember that kick? He hit it so badly it practically went sideways. This from a guy who hadn't missed in the dome all season.

So much for me relying on the stat sheet rather than remembering the game.

 

Yeah, that 14-2 Dolphins team in 1984 sucked. So did the one that went 12-4 the next year, and the one that went 12-4 in 1990.

 

Right. He was 4-3 those playoff years, the Super Bowl loss coming to possibly the best team in NFL history. Never did the Dolphins gag away their first playoff home game. OK they did in '83 when he was a rookie. You got me.

 

"I'm trying to be a good teammate here, but this thread has some logic problems."

 

The beauty of Kaepernick was not so much the running, which was spectacular; but we've seen Vick, Cunningham, even Bobby Douglass run before.

What was special was pairing the way he ran that 56 yd TD with the perfect throw to Crabtree for the 20 yd TD and the 44 yd er to Vernon Davis.

 

The LOSERS in the four games this weekend averaged 30.5 points per game. The over/under bet may be on the verge of obsolescence. Predictably, most people think these teams lost because of their quarterbacks.

 

Yup. It's the throwing, stoopid, as James Carvill might say. Eventually people are going to realize Kaep and Griffin's explosive mobility is great and all, but only because they also both throw a more accurate ball than, say, Andrew Luck.

 

Belichick + Kraft > (Dungy x 370 squared) + (Caldwell x 100 to the 100th power) + Irsay

 

This is not true at all. You won't find one person who thinks Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers was at the root of his team's loss. And Schaub and the Texans were clearly overmatched along the entire 46-man roster and in coaching.

When a guy leads his team to three touchdowns but gives one to the defense and then sets the defense up for the game-winning field goal in overtime, that's going to draw some attention. He isn't solely responsible, the lion's share of it would go to the safety who whiffed like a 10-year-old trying to track a flyball, but he is a big part of the reason too.

 

Go back to your post, LTL. You claimed that Marino "never had any good regular season teams, either." I was simply pointing out that you might have had that particular bit wrong.

I never said the Dolphins' loss in 1984 was comparable to some of the losses by Manning's teams in the playoffs. But you certainly can't say that wasn't a good regular season team, either. So yes, I actually did get you.

 

All right. By "never" I mean "for no more than 25 percent of his NFL career." You got me! Burn!