NFL playoff thread

Who should be favored in a spitball and pissing contest between OOP, 3_Octave and LTL? Now that would really be worth watching. It's what makes these threads so much fun.

 

There's a guy I play tennis with who looks freakishly like Manning. Even has the frustrated look. Spooky.

Well, Fouts was 3-4, too. Jim Kelly's 9-8 pretty close. Steve Young comes in at 8-6, Drew Brees 5-4. Just 1-2 games that go the other way make a difference. Elway was 7-7 until surrounded by a championship cast. Obviously he didn't become an all-time great at age 37. He was an all-time great long before who happened --- for whatever reason --- to have an average playoff record.

Many of the all-timers played on dynasties (or near-dynasties): Starr, Staubach, Bradshaw, Aikman, Montana, Brady. Teams with no weaknesses, superior front offices.

What's interesting is if you look at it from the other perspective: What QBs have outstanding playoff winning percentages who AREN'T considered all-time greats. Jim Plunkett 8-2, Trent Dilfer 5-1, Ben Roethlisberger 10-4, Mark Sanchez 4-2, Flacco 7-4. How to explain it?

 

I don't think you can cavalierly dismiss the results as "just 1-2 games," though. If Steve Young and the 49ers don't beat Dallas in '94, his career looks totally different and I think rightly so. And in the case of a guy like Kelly, they lost three games at least to teams that were light-years better than them. (Giants SB, I'll give a toss-up.) In Manning's case his teams have routinely lost to teams that were by any reasonable definition far inferior going into the game. It's very strange and has been too frequent to just say, "Eh, shit happens, whattya gonna do."

And regarding Brady as one of those dynasty guys ... the 2001 team was in no way a dynasty team, and even in '03 or '04 you wouldn't find necessarily superlative talent. Coaching and front office, yeah.

EDIT: Also, BTE, I think you're casting your net far wider than I did when I mentioned the guys to look at as best ever and those who ended up near .500. I doubt any of the guys you mentioned would make anyone's top-five list and a few of them might be top-10, but Manning is often discussed as possibly the greatest of all time.

 

LTL, it's not just Manning and I didn't mean just here. I'll bet there are plenty of people in Houston saying Schaub is the reason their team will never get to "the next level" today. Manning did not have a particularly good game by his standards at all. That's a given.

 

I watched Saturday's game with my son. After one incompletion they had a tight shot of Manning and he was making that exasperated, can-you-believe-that-just-happened face. I said, "He's really got that look down pat." My son turns to me and says, "That's really not a good thing to get to be good at."

 

He's often discussed as one of the greatest of all time.

Which is really as far as you can reasonably go with these things. If you peruse 100 "GOAT" lists, I doubt more than a couple would put Manning at No. 1. Heck, most would rank Unitas No. 1 before they would Manning. Montana is pretty much the consensus there. I say he's Top 10 and possibly Top 5. Give him Bradshaw's teammates and he wins 4-5 SBs. Give him Marino's and he probably wins zero.

 

There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis
Just like you swore to me that you'd be true
There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis
But he's a liar and I'm not sure about you

 

Of no relevance to the discussion here, but it was funny that while we were watching the game Saturday night, my wife's first comment about Kaepernick was: "Wow, you don't see quarterbacks with tattoos very often, do you?"

She has a future as a national sports columnist.

 

Classy.

 

Bill Barnwell does it for me. (and no, I am not Bill Barnwell)
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8842329/bill-barnwell-weekend-divisional-games

 

I forget which Bay Area paper had the headline "A Star is Born" on Sunday.

It will be interesting to see who has the better season next year, Kaepernick or RG3. Obviously, RG3 is the better player, but CK may be able to stay upright longer than RG3 thanks to his offensive line. Then again, he could get hurt against the Falcons...

 

Neither one of you are right.