Jim Plunkett Playoffs: 8 and 2 SB MVP downfield passer Doug Willimams Playoffs: 4 and 3 SB MVP downfield passer Ben Rothlisberger Playoffs: 8 and 2 2 SB victories downfield passer Eli Manning Playoffs: 4 and 3 SB MVP downfield passer All 4 1st round picks, all had incredible physical ability. All when put in position to win delivered great winning plays. None of these guys were game managers, all of them threw the ball down the field. None of them have great TD to INT's or great passer ratings. All of them had incredible arms and made huge plays in playoffs to lead their teams to the ultimate victory. Game managers don't win with great teams great talents that can make great plays when controlled choas is happening around them win SB. There have been exceptions but they are exceptions because rarely are teams so talented that they outclass the field without a top notch QB. Terry Bradshaw didn't win SB becuase of the great Defenses. Terry Bradshaw made incredible backbreaking plays against equally talented teams and was as key a part of those SB as the great D. The Bears won nothing with their great D when McMahon was hurt and they were limited in their SB appearances because he was hurt most of the time. The Jets won 1 SB because Namath was healthy enough 1 year when the rest of the team was good. A game manager losses in the playoffs that same year. Joe Namath had a crappy passer rating a bad INT to TD ratio and the only SB this team has in it's trophy case came whith him at QB. Joe Namath by the very arguments people have on this board couldn't start ahead of Chad Pennington on this team in the years he was healthy. The one thing we have going for us with our untested QB's is at least they appear to have NFL quality arms and Clemens has one of the quickest releases in the league. Talent doesn't mean squat except when it performs up to it's level. If you don't have it you can't lift your game and win in the playoffs unless your team is better in almost every other facet of the game than every other team in the league.
Williams was drafted by a horrible team, but they made it to a conference championship game in his second season. His NFL teams' records- 1978 Bucs: 5-11 1979 Bucs: 10-6 (won division) 1980 Bucs: 5-10-1 1981 Bucs: 9-7 (won division) 1982 Bucs: 5-4 1986 Redskins: 12-4 1987 Redskins: 11-4 (won division) 1988 Redskins: 7-9 1989 Redskins: 10-6
The two years prior to getting Williams they went 0 and 14 and 2 and 12. Williams was a key reason they made the playoffs. They ranked 28th in the league in scoring and yards the two years prior to Williams arrival and jumped to 25th in scoring while still 28th in yards his rookie year and 21 his second year in scoring and 14th in total O and made the playoffs year two. They were always a good defensive team but the were awful on the O side. They got better on both sides of the ball and Doug Williams was a key reason the guy while statistically awful on a terrible Offensive team was a threat to any defense. The argument is always you need a good team and a game manager can win but the facts show very few game managers do win it all. The other side of that argument is a franchise QB on a terrible Offensive team is proof that he isn't a franchise QB. Obviously a game manager on the Bucs teams that Williams QB would have been killed and managed a lot of losses as did Williams. The difference is when Williams was sourounded by good talent he had the single greatest SB performance on record.
there are elements that a QB brings to a team that can't be measured in stats. Williams is a guy who proves that theory when he was with the Bucs.
Wiliams was not a good QB. Average at best. His TB teams won with defense and as far as I know he only started one game his entire career as a Redskin....the superbowl for an injured jay Schreoder. Backups to Jay Schreoder were not and never will be considered "franchise QBs". If you want a good example of a franchise QB on a bad team then look at Archie Manning.
Huh? He started about 15 games as a Redskin, including the entire 1987 postseason and most of the 1988 season. He even started 2 games the year they won the SB. He lost both, but had better numbers than Schroeder, even in limited time. Go figure.
The fact that you would compare a choker like Pennington to a clutch player like Big Ben makes this entire paragraph worthless. Greatness shows in the clutch. Big Ben has proven his greatness, and wears 2 Super Bowl rings as a result. Namath also proved his greatness, and his stats sucked.
Dude your right, I forgot about when Schreoder got benched in 1988 and Williams becaame the starter. I beleive it was more like week 6 when he became the starter. So tech that is most of 1988. But the guy was still an average QB. The next season he was benched again. All this talk about how he was a franchise QB that wound up on bad teams is way off. He was an average QB that had an avarage career. And when Williams played in the superbowl it was the single greatest performance ever.....for the legendary Timmy Smith.
Also, every QB is a game manager. Its a misleading term. Teams with a weak offense or at least avarage or below average WRs just use the term more often. Game managing is more related to the talent on your offense then the talent of your QB. Your offense has holes and suddenly the term is widely used. John Elway was a gunslinger but what made him great was his ability to manage a game. Same could be said for Monatana or Aikman or Peyton Manning....etc.
Exactly, and this point gets completely lost on this board. Moving the chains with what you have around you, knowing the clock, the score, etc, are the key elements of playing the position. Way more important that being able to throw a pick 55 yards down field.
In my opinion, the definition of a franchise QB is one who brings stability at the position for a sustained amount of time (to the extent you can win now and build for the future), helps your team much more than he hurts it and makes plays when it counts. Those qualities don't directly correlate to statistics. When looking at SB-winning QBs nearly everyone falls under that definition except Hostetler, Dilfer and Williams (who was one prior to joining the 'skins). Guys like Rypien and Johnson had some longevity in their position at the teams they won with and they were reasonable expected to be above average QBs while at the helm. Now when you look at the Jets, I'd say the last franchise QB was Kenny O. Pennington would have been if not for injury. Boomer was one, just not with the Jets.
Doug Williams was booed everyday he played for Tampa Bay because he was black. He got hate mail by the bag full and he was paid less the most NFL back up QB's while getting the absolute shit kicked out of him and being the single best player on the O. They used to discuss on national TV weather a black QB could compete in the NFL during his games. The guys wife died a couple of months after his child was born. The man went through hell in the NFL for being black and being a QB. He got the start over Shroder for the entire playoffs and in the SB had the single greatest game every played by anyone at the position. I always think of Doug Williams as one of the classiest players in the NFL for taking the worst abuse of any player in the league, suffering personal tragedy and enduring and when the stage was set rising to the highest level possible against the absolute best the league had to offer. http://www.nfl.com/videos?videoId=09000d5d8012b88f
It can be defined any number of ways, but Pennington had a better Jet career than O'Brien did. Vinny did, too, didn't quite play as many years but had more success and brought the same stability to the position.
No kidding, which is why I wrote "in my opinion." I don't think Vinny brought stability to the QB position. He had one terrific year and then blew out his Achilles. The Jets never planned to build around him...if so, the Jets wouldn't have drafted Pennington. Likewise, if Pennington was a franchise QB, the Jets wouldn't have drafted Clemens in round 2.
Well, they don't last forever, and they're always one hit away from being out. We got Vinny at 35 and Pennington showed himself early to be injury prone, so a franchise always has to be thinking a step ahead. The Devils have drafted goalies #1 while they've had Martin Brodeur, just in case, you have to. But Vinny was the starter for 4-5 years and Pennington for about six years when they weren't hurt. That's pretty stable when you look at a lot of teams, two main QBs in a 10-year span barring injury. Namath got hurt a lot, too and other guys had to play, but he was a franchise QB.
I certainly will not argue whether Namath was a franchise QB. I think he was in a sense of, as Namath goes, so goes the Jets. In some fairness, the game and player long-term team committment and vice versa have changed drastically since the days of Namath. After the SB III win, I do not think Namath's knees would be tollerated nearly as long in the current era.
Wow, thanks for the story facts winston. I always had respect for what Williams did in the SB, but I had forgotten a lot of the other things that were going on around him. Good stuff.
I understand the idea of planning for the future, but with the salary cap as it is, teams don't spend first and second round picks on players they hope are never going to start for the franchise during their first contract. Vinny was the starter out of camp for three season, one of which he only he blew out his Achilles in the first half of the first game. After he did that, all bets were off as he was 36 / 37 when he returned from that serious injury. Pennington was the starter out of camp for four season and last the faith of the organization after his shoulder injury. If not for the dumb contract the team gave him, he probably would have been cut long before last offseason.
I was stating facts. Maybe when I have time I'll get into this whole discussion and chime in with my opinions. winstonbiggs wrote that Williams was drafted by a horrible team. That's fine, but the way he presented this seemed to indicate that winstonbiggs was unaware of the fact that Williams made the playoffs more often with Tampa Bay than with Washington.
That reads like NHL standings. 0 wins 14 losses 2 overtime losses 12 shootout losses This is a nitpick obviously, but why do you write records in such a manner?
