Yup, when talking Namath you're really talking about 2 different QB's. There's the young pre-injury Namath who was just coming in to full blossom when he suffered two devastating injuries (one to his leg one to his wrist/shoulder) and after those two he was never the same again but he stayed in the league as a starter for 6 years that really killed his career stats and on field performance. People that never saw him play have absolutely no context other than stats.
after doing all the reading about the extra super confidential workout/chill day that hack had with Mac, Gailey, Bowles, and our QB coach.. I'm starting to think they are prepping this kid to start right away. In the workouts they had Hack running OUR offense, and they fell in love with him. The fell in love with the QB and the person. Now Bowles is saying he wouldnt even be doing the on field mini camp drill with the rooks had he not drafted hack. they want him spending as much time learning this system as possible. I don't remember them doing all this for Bryce. Just saying, seems like they are going above and beyond for this kid. He may just get the go from the beginning. Fitz is soooo gone.
I thought Bradshaw wad extremely over-rated in about every possible way. If he wasn't on the team he was, I have a hard to buying into him winning a Super Bowl let alone four of them. He was fortunate to be on that team, to have the receivers he had, and the coaching staff he had. The guy wasn't a hall of fame QB in my eyes, however, I understand it's hard to ignore the success he had, but as a player, I thought he was mediocre overall.
Not saying you're wrong about Namath or Bradshaw neccesarily BUT the average completion percentage for a QB in 197o was 51.1% and the TD/INT ratio was 22-26 for the league (427 TD's-510 INT's) http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1970/ In 1977 the numbers were even worse...51.3 completion percentage with a whoppingly bad 388-562 TD/INT ratio. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1977/ By 1979 it improved to 54.1% on average, but the TD/INT ratio was still horrid in general with 538 TD's and 597 INT's http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/1979/ That's just the era they played in. Having an even split between TD's and INT's actually rated as good. QB's weren't interested in checkdowns and short passes and you could mug receivers until at least 1977 plus there was only one dome stadium until the Kingdome iirc and not a lot of warm-weather sites either....so of course completion percentage numbers aren't going to be high and turnovers are going to be high. Looking at QB stats in the 1970's is like looking at power numbers in baseball pre-steroids. Honestly if these guys played today Bradshaw's probably a less durable version of Favre, which is still a pretty good QB. btw the 2015 numbers? 63%, 842 TD's and 436 INT's...you can't look at numbers in 1975 without looking at the landscape and say these guys are overrated. They're all putting up video game numbers now. The QB's of yesteryear would be putting up similar videogame numbers in the systems today with the rules the way they are today. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2015/
I would be livid if they played Hackenberg on Opening Day, cause that would show this regime is repeating the mistakes of the past regimes with Sanchez and Geno. We draft guys that aren't ready to play, play them from day one out of desperation to show off the new toy and then wonder why they never pan out.
You have to also accept that maybe the coaches will think Hack is ready to play now. Some QBs are even though most are not. Maybe we will get lucky and Hack is one of those who is ready now. It will play itself out in the summer and the best QB plays.
There is no point to looking at quarterback stats pre-illegal contact changes in 2004. Before 2004, almost everyone's numbers look pedestrain, especially to the numbers that are being put up now.
rules of the game started to change in favor of the passing game in the early 70's. One big one in 1974 was moving the goal posts from the front of the endzone to the back. this opened up the middle of the field and allows for many of the crossing patterns we seen in the redzone today. They weren't an option in many cases back then. In 1978 the 5 yard bump rule was enacted for receivers. and offensive linemen were allowed to extend their arms and use their open hands...made for big changes in the passing game. Really one can't compare the game prior to 1979 to later eras in terms of passing. and really once the 2000's rolled around the passing game rules opened up even more.
Bingo. As far as I've read into, 'checkdowns' barely even existed as a concept for offenses until the 1980s.
yes and no, but it wasn't the west coast offense version we see variations of today, it was usually a safety valve check down as I recall. The other thing that really affected QB's play back in the day is they weren't protected, no roughing the QB calls or anything so by midway through the season the QB's were usually pretty beat up.
Can you imagine some of the pussies that are playing QB today playing back then? I could see Rothlisberger or Rodgers or Luck succeeding... But that's about it. The rest would be curled about in the fetal position after two plays.
The photo is in keeping with something I read in NJ.com relating to the Gruden Video posted earlier • That left foot thing. If you haven't yet watched Hackenberg on "Gruden's QB Camp" with ESPN analyst Jon Gruden, do it when you have 25 minutes or so to kill. Gruden had noticed that during Hackenberg's freshman season at Penn State—when Hackenberg played for current Texans head coach Bill O'Brien—that Hackenberg had positioned his left foot behind his right as he awaited shotgun snaps. This made it easier for Hackenberg to step into quick throws. But during the last two years under a different coaching staff, Hackenberg positioned his right behind his left. On Friday, he was back to the left behind the right.
