Don't know if the bold is true as least as it pertains to winning. Favre made terrible decisions; Eli does as well. Like with most positions on the field, it's aout making plays. Geno's TOs and mistakes wouldn't be as glaring if he was out there making plays, more importantly winning plays. I believe Foles has 1 less INT than Geno right now. No one is clamouring for him to be benched because he is making more winning plays than mistakes. If that ratio goes the other way, then best believe the pitch forks will come out. Getting off the bandwagon after 3+ years, doesn't make you more right or more wrong than those that got off earlier, later or still on.
Agree. I guess the way that I would put it is that you have to make enough good decisions to easily make up for your bad ones. Having said that, I'm not a big Favre fan. He was an excellent player in his prime (all-time great at his peak), but from about 2002ish onwards, I consider him vastly (and I mean vastly) overrated. He threw far too many game-changing interceptions for my taste, including some unforgivable ones in the last two championship games he played in. Favre isn't even in my top 5. Agree, but I was just stating it to point out that it's not like I always disliked Sanchez. I actually was a pretty strong believer in him for a while. My observations over time just added up . . .The more he had to throw the worse he (and the team) was.
It wouldn't a very good argument as Mark has pretty good footwork and anticipation which despite his other deficiencies you can work with in the right scheme. What they do share is poor decision making and inaccuracy, which I didn't list. I'd venture to say that Geno is naturally the more accurate passer but his mechanics are so wildly inconsistent that you end up with the same results. Also, I don't know if I ever said Mark was better than Geno in year 2 for you to agree?
Agree on footwork, but I thought Mark's anticipation was awful. For example, I'm pretty sure he was statistically the worst quarterback in the league against the blitz (more than 4 rushers) through his first four years as a tenured starting quarterback. This suggests to me (among other things) a failure to make good presnap decisions and "anticipate" what the defense was going to do. Perhaps this is semantics and you mean something different by "anticipation," but I never thought he was good at "anticipating" anything. You probably didn't. "Agree" was for the masses, I suppose. Regardless, it's definitely true.
Anticipation in his throws as in throwing to the spot the WR is going to be as a oppose to throwing at the WR like Geno does. You are talking about making the proper pre-snap reads. Note that requires more than just the QB having to "anticipate" what the defense was going to do. The OC has to have that right audibles installed in the game plan, the line and RBs have pick up their blitz assignments and the WR/TE has to break off the route accordingly.
Ahh . . . To be honest, I think they are both terrible at it. Mark's accuracy, in every respect, left a lot to be desired. Mark was terrible with rushers in his face. Every quarterback's game struggles markedly with pressure (obviously), but his was just . . . really bad. And it never got any better over the course of his four years here. The more he was forced to throw (as our running game deteriorated and became less of a priority), the more he was exposed to pressure, and the worse he played. I always got the impression he panicked.
You kind of defeat the argument that "they are what they are" by prefacing it with "players gain experience". And that's what progression is, gaining experience, learning from the experience and applying that learning and experience on to the field of play. Tools wise a player is what they are, their physical tools will almost never get better once they hit physical maturity. There's no questioning Mark's physical tools as a QB, it's his decision making, his reactions, his reading of defenses, and reading of situations while underfire that's been the issue. Junc likes to accuse me of using stats, and I do use stats but only to back up my observations from watching the games. I used to watch every game, I haven't the last couple of seasons because the Jets aren't worth paying the NFL pass fee for the last couple of years. But what you see is always subjective, two people can watch the exact same play and see two different things. Stats in and of themselves are more objective, but often they are without context, especially for individual games. But when taken season by season and you look at the whole body of the work within context to each other you get a more clear picture of that Quarterback. Personnel around that QB will change over time, but a clear midline appears. An accurate QB is nearly always going to be over 60% completion rate in this day and age. Take for example 2009, the average completion rate for all players who threw at least 1 pass was 60.9% The 20th ranked team in the league completed 60% of their passes, the bottom 4 teams? The Browns at an abysmal 49. (Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson) The Raiders at 52.6% (Jamarcus Russell and Bruce Gradkowski) The Buccaneers at 53.2% (Josh Freeman and Josh Johnson). The Jets at 53.4% (Mark Sanchez) (I only included Mark here because he's the only player with more than 25 attempts on the roster where as the other teams above all had two players over 150 attempts, or so). Let's look at the next 3 teams Lions 54% (Stafford and Culpepper) Chiefs 55.2% (Matt Cassel) Panthers 56.8% (Delhorne and Matt Moore) Of those QB's who still has Starting Jobs? 2 Stafford, and well technically Cassel (although Cassel never started more than 9 games after 2010 and is pretty much viewed as a backup of fill in while a rookie gains experience and 2009 was his worst completion % year by 3% points in any year he had more than 100 attempts.) Of those how many still even have NFL jobs? Stafford, the only player on the list still starting...2009 was his rookie year, like Sanchez's...the difference Stafford improved his consistency, 2 seasons well over 60 and 3 seasons mid 58% and higher...3% doesn't sound like a lot, maybe 1 or 2 more completions a game (depending on how often a QB throws)..but that's one or 2 extra first downs a game, on average...that can be the difference of winning or losing a one score game. and remember he had Calvin Johnson that rookie season so he had weapons. And that's the thing, you can watch Sanchez's games visually and you see a guy who's constantly late with throws and off target making players reach behind, dive, stoop, etc which limits a QB's best friend, YAC. This is especially true on screens and short passes under 10 yards....where highest percentage of a QB's attempts usually are. You never saw Sanchez adjusting and learning...in year 4 he was making the same misreads and poor throws that he was making in year 1. His accuracy was still shoddy, his understanding of game situations and ball security remained shoddy...he didn't progress. Now I don't believe in regression, per se..I do believe in skills declining over time but that shouldn't be effecting Sanchez or any other young QB (barring major injuries). What I do believe in are anomalies...like Maris's 61 home runs, rough double what he hit in any other season in his career..a remarkable feat, but an anomaly for Maris. Kind of like Sanchez's 34 TD season, roughly double what he produced in any other season (combination rushing and passing). Until he repeats or at least approaches that level it's an anomaly, same with his 15 turn over season, about 40% lower than his next best season...an anomaly...they occur fairly often, it doesn't meant he player regressed the next year..it just means he had a spike through happenstance until such time as the player repeats or approaches that level of play again. But the telling factor on Sanchez is he has never broken. His best season of 56.7% was within 1.5% of his career average...statistical noise. When these statistics are married to visual observations of play, it becomes pretty conclusive of who that player is at that time. I hope for Sanchez's sake that you are wrong, that he isn't what he appears to be and he eventually learns the mental aspects of the game, if he does (a Big if because after 4 seasons of starting if it hasn't turned on for most players it never does, though that may be because they've used up all their chances). I do believe Sanchez will start some games at some point, the questions are: 1) Will be be as a starter at the beginning of the season (for reasons other than injury to the presumed starter) or will it be as a backup? 2) Will the mental part of the game catch up and allow him to play at a high level when he does get a chance to start, for whatever reason. Judging by his sideline demeanor I'd say probably not, but hey I've been wrong before....but I've also been right before...time will tell.
Physically I see the starting potential in both of them. Physically they both have all the tools, Sanchez a slightly more powerful arm, Smith a much more mobile QB. those are the measurable's. What you can't predict is whether the game will ever slow down for them....and by slow down I mean applying lessons learned through experience and the ability to quickly decide and react accordingly, to bring the mental clarity to each play and not just the instinctual reaction (which is what results in a lot of turnovers). I'd give Smith a slightly better chance of that because he's only in his 2nd year in the NFL...But only just slightly because while Sanchez has 4 full seasons under his belt he was limited in experience in college and played on a team that really didn't need him to read or react much since they so often totally outclassed the other team at the WR and OL spots. But generally speaking 1 season of full time starting in the NFL experience wise should wipe out the college experience difference so in essence Sanchez is slightly more experienced than Geno at this point (college and pro's combined) the Other factor here is I don't like to be critical of a player during his first 2 or 3 seasons...I didn't start expressing harsh criticism of Sanchez until his 4th season, before which I said 2012 was his make or break season..that he had to improve his completion percentage to at least 58 or 59% and cut down on the turnovers...of course he did neither. I generally consider years 3 and 4 the critical break out years for QB's (in the league with at least 2 seasons starting)..unless of course a QB hits the ground running and explodes right off the bat, but even then I want to see them repeat it or come close to a it a 2nd time before I crown him the next big thing. I've learned over my 47 or so years watching this game that it's easy to get fooled by 1 good year, or one year where they have a statistical outlier in some category. I've also learned not to be too rash in criticizing a player until they've had a fair chance of establishing "who" They are. though Geno's been bad it's important to remember he's only had 2 multi turn over games this year through 8 games with 10 picks. Sanchez had a 8 game span in 2010 where he threw picks 12 times with 3 multi pick games in that span, and he had a much better offensive line and a slightly softer schedule in comparison Not to mention having a defense that tended to keep games close (during that span the opposition only scored more than 20 points twice). During this 8 game span the defense has given up more than 20 in 7 of the 8 games. Remember both QB's during that span had pickoffs , 12 for Sanchez 10 for Smith. Sanchez had 3 multi pick games compared to Geno's 2 in those two 8 games spans. Does that mean that Geno's having a better season than Sanchez? No, not at all. But there is some contextual lessons here as well...the main one being that Sanchez played with a much better team on both the O-line (one of the best in the league in 10, one of the worst in 14) and one of the best defenses in 10, one of the worst in 14 (in terms of points allowed and passing defense). Again, not saying Geno's having a good year, he's not..turnover wise it would be almost impossible for Geno to duplicate Sanchez's interception total of 13 (because the 8 game stretch I used was his worst stretch of his 10 season, not fair for a whole season comparison but I used it to illustrate a similar 8 game stretch for both players in their 2nd years). Geno would have to play almost flawless the rest of the season to come in under 15 turnovers and that won't happen so in terms of Turnovers Geno's season will be worse, and that's assuming Geno gets another start this year, which in and of itself is indicative. The main two reasons I'm not giving up on Geno quite yet is it's his second year and he's played behind the worst offensive line the Jets have had in a decade (even Mangold and D'Brick aren't what they were 4 or 5 seasons ago, age is starting to catch up to them). It's not a mulligan, just something taken in to consideration (and I'd like to note that while I was Okay with the Geno pick I was never in love with the Geno pick, though I thought it was great value in 2nd round).
I know it's a statistical site that some who hate stats won't accept, football outsiders, but statistically speaking the Jets Oline pass protection in 2010 ranked 8th in the league, currently it ranks 20th in the league. That's a huge drop off. Football focus has them ranked ranked as the 21st ranked offensive line as well, but I don't have access to where they had the 2010 Jets O-line but since their ranking is pretty close to football outsides I'd say it's probably pretty close there too.
I really lack the necessary the attention span to read and respond to these long ass posts but since you took the time I'll try my best to engage. First off, you truth be told you lost a lot of credibility with me off the bat by admitting that you do not watch all the games. No matter how awful this team has been or where I am in the country, I haven't missed a single game in 30 years. So you get no sympathy from me. With regards to "progression", barring Father Time or injuries if you stick with any player long enough, he's going to get better on experience alone. If you want to call that progression then there really isn't any "regression". Their mental aptitude will dictate the rate at which that happens as well as good coaching, scheme fit and continuity; this especially true for the QB position. The stats may not always reflect it because of a myriad of factors but a QB in years 2+ 99 out of 100 times will better than said QB in his rookie year. This why it cracks me up when people try to convince themselves that Geno has either progressed or regressed depending on the outcome of a game. Geno became a starter having poor: footwork, anticipation and pocket awareness and will leave the starter job being that same player. He will; however, have more experience and a better grasp of the offense being in his 2nd year. Does that mean he progressed or regressed? For years, age 30 used to point where everything started to slow down for the rest of field-the top tier QBs much sooner. Now because the high school and collegiate passing schemes being so advanced, these kids are coming out the gate seasoned. Side note Sanchez had only 16 collegiate starts compared to Stafford who had 39; keep that in mind when comparing their "progression". Stats may be objective but they don't tell the whole story. You cite CMP, for example, as a measure of accuracy but you can scheme an inaccurate passer into a 60%+ CMP (see Michael Vick 2010, Donovan McNabb 2007-2009). I've already posted that Mark was not an accurate passer, even less accurate than Geno, but that's not based on his CMP% but because on his ball placement which to your credit you did reference. Note if Sanchez had a WR with the catch radius of Megatron, I'd bet my mortgage he would manage a 58%+ CMP% every year. That still wouldn't make him an accurate passer. Neither does completing over 80% of his passes this preseason. After seeing RPMs return in his ball this preseason, I'm convinced that Sanchez can a successful starter in this league. The most alarming thing I saw in his game during the cluster fuck that was the 2012 season was the lack of velocity on his throws. Lack of arm strength added to inaccuracy and inconsistent decision making would have been too much to overcome. So for his sake do you still hope I'm wrong about him? I'm not going to address your insinuations about his work ethic.
I find no value in comparing their seasons statistically; you and Junc can have that debate if you want. I was really only interested in the bold which I disagree with. Both are flawed and system dependent QBs. I'm fully aware that all QBs are flawed and system dependent to some extent but they are more than most. Sanchez's advantage is that his flaws are manageable in the systems prevalent in the NFL. Unless the spread become the new rage in the NFL there's not much you can do to manage Geno's flaws. MM has been able to make every QB his worked with look like a quality NFL starter with exception for Joey Harrington and now Geno, that's not the kind of company any QB wants to be associated with. BTW it's pretty much accepted among all football circles that Geno has the stronger arm.
If credibility is lost because I've not been watching all the games the past two years then I don't care if I've lost credibility in your eyes, especially since with Sanchez it's irrelevant because I WAS watching all the games during those years and before. I'm sorry you think it's necessary to spend a couple hundred dollars in order to keep your respect. But when you get in to your 50's and you have a new car payment and you wind up with a lot of medical bills Paying a couple hundred to watch football isn't worth it...the money is needed on more important things. But back to football, yes progression is IN PART experience, but it is also learning to apply that experience and learning lessons from those experiences...You would be amazed at how many players/people who think they're already good don't apply the lessons of experience, they think they're better than what experience has shown and NEVER LEARN. Some never learn because they never mature enough emotionaly and or mentally to learn the lessons of experience. As far as Geno goes, if you had truly read anything that I said it's not that Geno had progressed, and I also stated explicitly it is my policy NEVER to be overly harsh on ANY QB his first 2 or 3 seasons in the league. I am consistent on that, I will stay consistent on that. But, just like with Mark his first 3 years, I said he needed to cut down on his turnovers and he needed to improve his accuracy and decision making...I also said that I'm not sold on him as a starting QB. I've watched Sanchez and Stafford, you'd lose that bet and your mortgage. take for example the year Stafford hit 63% of his attempts, Megatron only caught 60% of the passes he was targeted on...(that's not to say he dropped 40% of passes, but simply that 40% of balls targeted to him were incomplete that year.). Pettigrew caught 65.9% of his targets, Burleson caught 66.4% of his targets, and Titus Young caught 55.8% of his targets. (That's all at least 50 targets and is in the order of most targets to least targets). The next year when he was at 59% completion it was Megatron 59.8% of his targets, Pettigrew 57.8%, Scheffler 49.4%, Bell 75.5%, Young 58.9%, Leshoure 69.4%. The point not being that Megatron isn't a great player, he is. but that attributing Staffords accuracy in CMP to him is a foolish mistake as the completion to him has generally been equal or below Staffords overall completion rate, which means the completion rates are coming from other players...lesser players... It's a funny argument coming from someone who admits Sanchez's accuracy problems. And all I'm hearing are excuses about Sanchez, "If he had this, if he had that, if if if if if..." This is the NFL, after 4 years there are no excuses. Regarding Geno's progression/regression. I've seen neither, Like Sanchez I've seen occasional flashes (more last year than this year) but on a game by game basis they're just statistical noise. I've seen lots of flashes from very poor QB's over 47 years. I've seen a QB have their career year 1 or 2 years in to their careers and never come close to that type of performance again. It's funny, you knock me for using statistics and give me kudos for referencing Sanchez's ball placement...evidently you missed the part that says stats alone don't contain context, but when married with observation of the game play they do balance out and reinforce the story. Because Sanchez is inaccurate (and a lot f that inaccuracy is due to his being slow to recognize the defense and to recognize an opening, he has never adjusted to the fact that in the NFL you generally don't get a big amount of separation like you do in college and when you do get separation that window of opportunity generally doesn't last long, and because he's slow to recognize he then rushes his throw.) I've seen him throw in practice and his accuracy is there, but it disappears in game time when he's having to make quick reads and assessments, and that's what concerns me so much about Sanchez, the game has never "slowed down" for him...he's always in a rush even when the pockets clean, and in near panic (not fear but the racing thought process that comes with panic, but not fear) causing very poor choices. By now after 4 years the game should have been slowing down for him....
Philly also had a much better offensive line during MM's stay and in general better receivers to work with, there's also a very big question as to how much of that QB development was MM and how much was Andy Reid, who's always had the better reputation at developing young QB's. So if you want to talk about finding no value in comparison of situations.... It's not so much about comparing their statistics to each other, thought I did use them in this case to compare statistics and records and they were nearly identical within normal statistical noise, of each other...and I did point out beyond the straight statistics that Sanchez by far had the better O-line and the better defense. and those factors led to more wins...plain and simple. Even in the wrong system you should see gains in a QBs play, it may not be their full potential but you should see improvements on the field...And while statistics don't tell the whole story, and i'm the first person to say they don't tell the whole story, those who dismiss stats completely are foolish, because while stats don't tell the whole story, when applied broadly and in detail they do tell 80-90% of the story.
Oh and the most telling thing about that 09 post....in the NFL the only player still starting is Stafford,that's not conjecture, that's not stats....that's just fact.
Of the 6 lowest ranked passing attacks (completion percentage as a team) in 2009 only 1 player is still full time starter in the NFL. 2 if you include fill in starter up in Minnesota....but really you could take that all the way back to the bottom 8 teams and none of their starters that season save for Stafford is a full time starter, and only Cassel has started a game this year, most of them are no longer even on teams. In the NFL a players window to establish himself is short. Sanchez will get one more shot, but what he does with that shot is anybodies guess.
Actually if you read the Philly papers there are comments about how maybe Foles isn't the answer but those same papers also say that the dont' think Sanchez is either because of his turnover history, but some say to try him anyways if Foles keeps turning it over. But the real message here is that Philly is a good team overall, the only good thing on the Jets is their front 7 on defense and the teams Center and maybe Left tackle (though most think Brick is on the downside now, but still above average on pass blocking). But your right, winning helps ease the calls to remove bad play...but it just reinforces the point that wins and losses are mostly team stats, though a QB who turns the ball over a lot definitely costs his team)....but most of what I read in philly is about how the Eagles are off of their game plan. Last year the Eagles were really a 50/50 run/pass team. 508 pass attempts, 500 rush. This season they're a 61% pass 39% run team. Foles already is within 13 attempts of all his attempts last year, and Foles is a QB who needs the play action to thrive, this is the first year (where he's had at least 100 attempts) that he's been over 1.9% interception rate (currently 3%) and I don't think it's a coincidence. His rookie year they also passed about 60% of the time and they lost all but one of his starts and he had 6 TD's to 5 picks in 265 attempts...Reid and MM"s system had him in a more conservative pass game, but it was still 60% pass. In his career he's had 8 games where he had 40 or more attempts, in 6 of those 8 he's thrown at least 1 pick, 4 of those 40+ attempt games have come this year and 5 of his 9 interceptions have come off of those 40+ attempt games. In fact 9 of his 16 career interceptions have come in those games where he threw more than 40 passes, or in other words 1/2 of his interceptions have come off the 1/3 of his games where he attempted more than 40 passes. In other words, Foles is at his best when the team runs about 50% of the time and passes about 50% of the time, when teams sit back because the Eagles are passing too much bad things tend to happen to Foles. BTW Yes, he does have 1 less interception than Geno but his interception percentage is a full 1.7% lower than Geno's, many more pass attempts.
I know the Philly fans booed Mike Schmidt and all, but if they're unhappy with 5-2 and the 4th best offense in the NFL at this point, well that's a *tough* crowd.
actually there has been talk there about Sanchez taking over at some point. Philly is very high on him based on his outstanding camp and preseason plus they know he is a guy you can win with as it has been proven.
Thats interesting, do you have a source for that? I know a bunch of Eagles fans and none of them are contemplating the idea. But that doesnt mean the FO isnt.
