I agree. I've often thought the same thing, the knock on Eli was he was erratic but managed to pull out games in the 4th quarter, and he's grown into a great QB. I hate the Giants, but he is.
I think it was worse for Manning. He was in NY and his brother is seen as an all world QB. For once the Ginat fans really felt like they were gettign the short end of the sick and they let everyone know about it.
He also caught brunt of the Giants benching Kurt Warner at 5-4 to put him in, then not making the playoffs.
And probably most importantly, he was still making stupid mistakes in his third season and his fourth season and his fifth season and his sixth season and his seventh season and this year. Every QB makes stupid mistakes. They're called interceptions and almost all of them happen on bad throws, with about one in a hundred on an all-world play that some guy made to pick off a ball that was well thrown or a receiver falling down or something like that. I look at Tom Brady's 12 interceptions in 2003, when he was throwing for 3,620 yards and fumbling the ball 13 times for a team that finished 12th in points scored and 17th in yards gained, and ask what's different about Sanchez's very similar numbers this year. The only answer I come up with is that Brady had already won a Super Bowl in 2001 and so people saw him as great no matter what numbers he put up or how the offense functioned. Sanchez, on the other hand, lost his runningback in the AFC championship game in 2009 and saw the defense picked to pieces by Peyton Manning after a corner went down to injury and so the Jets didn't make the Super Bowl and Sanchez didn't have the opportunity to continue his hot streak that winter. If the Jets win a Super Bowl in 2009 99% of Jets fans look at what Sanchez is doing this season and call it a real improvement over what he's shown and they're all excited because they have one of the toughest, clutch young QB's in recent history. Instead half the fans can't see past the pitfalls the Jets setup this season and actually believe that one of the best QB's in Jets history at any age is actually failing somehow.
I really take umbrage with Neil O'Donnell mentioned in the same sentence as Kenny O and Vinny. Shame on you.
If you put Ken O'Brien on the 2001 Patriots he would have won 3 Super Bowls just as easily as Brady did. If Brady had gotten sacked 62 times in 2002 he never wins another.
Good post... as for the bolded, perception is a biotch. :breakdance: And I'm not intimating that Sanchez is as good as Brady... yet.
I'd to see the kind of numbers Kenny O could of out up throwing ton Toon and Welker with today's passing rules.
Haha, sorry. O'Donnell is the only one I mentioned who started a Super Bowl, just not for us. And he's a local guy here, nice family. I was trying to think that through, actually, those were the most immobile guys we had since I've been watching. Boomer could still move enough by the time we got him, Todd, Ryan and Pennington could run enough to get out of harm's way. Maybe. I used to make that same O'Brien/Marino argument for years but looking back I may have just been a homer. Brady gets the ball out quicker and is more decisive, more clutch. You can make the case that O'Brien had better WRs for more time, Brady had Moss for a while and has made a bunch of other guys better than they probably would have otherwise been. Walker and Toon would have both started for any of the recent Patriot teams without Moss. It's hard to really debate those hypotheticals to any conclusion.
All of this and we're not even done with the regular season yet. I'll bet you'll be singing a different tune if we lose to the Eagles this week. If the Jets make the playoffs and Sanchez plays good then I will give credit where credit is due. Until then there is no need for premature celebration after beating trash heap teams.
I'm talking 2001 to 2004. Troy Brown and David Patten were both good hands clutch receivers. He had multiple outlet receivers out of the backfield. He had good protection over that span. He got Corey Dillon's best season in 2004. The big factor was the protection and scheme though. The Patriots designed their offense even back then to be a quick release to one of the receivers or an outlet to their backs. The Jets spent way too much time trying to get Toon or Walker deep and that was a big factor in 1985 when O'Brien got roughed up by all the sacks. They got 8 yards a pass out of him but they put about 3 seasons of wear on him in the process. 62 sacks is 5th on the all-time list for sacks taken. The only guy in NFL history who thrived even under that much pressure was Randall Cunningham.
Win one superbowl and the qualifer goes away in that statement. Its scary to look over career numbers for our QBs and see that if Mark goes on this years pace and no better, for the next decade, he'll be right up there.
overall, I'm happy with the Job Sanchez has done this year. Unfortunately he came up very small when we needed him the most ... the 2nd half of the second Patriot game. Playing at home with a chance to take control of the division, and he was flat out awful - 7 points for us, and 7 for them. Hopefully he'll get a chance to redeem himself if we see those SOB's in January.
There are so many variables in football, that's what I mean about these hypotheticals. Obviously Brady was dealt a better hand, playing for Bill Belichick instead of Joe Walton. O'Brien was great when he stepped into a ready-made team, but as his line aged around him it exposed his greatest flaw. You mentioned 1985 and the 62 sacks, that was before the line even got really old, in a lot of cases he held the ball way too long and never felt the rush coming. Granted he threw only a few INTs and had a high completion pct, thus a high QB rating, but he also killed a lot of drives by taking needless sacks. That line wasn't a disaster like we've had in a lot of other eras, the team was 11-5 and McNeil and Hector both gained a lot of yards rushing behind them, a lot of those 62 sacks were on O'Brien. It's possible if you juxtapose him onto the Patriots of the early 2000s he has the success Brady had, but maybe if you put Brady on those mid 80s Jets teams he wins a playoff game, something O'Brien never did. Brady throwing to Walker, Toon and Shuler with McNeil and Hector behind him, that would be good. I noticed it but blew it off, although the very existence of Wes Welker irritates me. Wesley Walker was my favorite player when I was a kid.
