NFL 100 All-Time Team Co-Hosted by Bill Belichick
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I don't agree with your characterization of my position here (from a very old argument). I would never say play caller doesn't matter. I think it is a difficult thing to introduce into a discussion like this because it's almost impossible to quantify. I think it's likely Brees benefitted from Payton more than Brady or Manning did from their offensive playcallers, but I have no idea by how much.
I don't have global data for it, but I did a piece on the best per-drive offenses of the past ~30 years (the time period for which we have drive data) and of the best offenses in that time period, Manning had the slowest, two of the three slowest, three of the six slowest (with two NE teams in there also) ... and also the fastest.
http://insidethepylon.com/nfl/2019/12/08/ravens-2019-offense-witnessing-greatness/
IMO per-drive data is one of the largely-uncharted frontiers for learning more about how football works, so maybe I'll dredge up more info in the offeseason.
I'm not saying you're wrong on Brees, but the level of terrible defense he was dealing with was on another level. The 2015 Saints allowed opposing quarterbacks to play at basically an MVP level over the course of the season: 45 TDs against only 9 INT, 68.4 completion %, 8.7 YPA, 116.2 passer rating, etc. Going 7-9 against that is actually kind of impressive.
The causation arrow runs both ways here. Quarterbacks on trailing teams throw more interceptions, because the D knows they are going to pass and because they have to take more chances: http://www.footballperspective.com/analyzing-interceptions-2000-to-2012/
(Weirdly, Aaron Rodgers DOESN'T throw more interceptions when trailing ... and he has a weak record in comeback attempts compared to his peers, suggesting that he doesn't take enough chances when losing)
Manning is the best QB of the SB era statistically and by accolade (MVP, All-Pro, etc.). YMMV on how much to weigh that stuff but I'm not looking askance at anyone who puts him #1. I have him #2 behind only Brady.
The insane thing about the top QB argument is that, when you compare Brady, Brees, and Manning, Brady has arguably the best numbers (the INT are wayyyy less than the other two) and he’s done it In the worst conditions of the three and with significantly inferior weapons on offense to the other two. If you traded Brees’ weapons now for Brady’s, Brees would probably just retire. Brees has had insanely good weapons his entire tenure, as did Manning.
Now, of course, Brady has had the best coach ever, but the other two have had HoF coaches, too (Dungy whatever, but he’s in), and I’m not convinced BB is the mastermind on offense anyway. It’s just amazing to me to look at the numbers themselves, because everyone always just focuses on the SB (which is fine, too!).
Now, of course, Brady has had the best coach ever, but the other two have had HoF coaches, too (Dungy whatever, but he’s in), and I’m not convinced BB is the mastermind on offense anyway. It’s just amazing to me to look at the numbers themselves, because everyone always just focuses on the SB (which is fine, too!).
Start with two premises that I think are not controversial:
- The game of football is more complex today than ever before and the athletes who play it are bigger, stronger and faster than ever before.
- Quarterback is the most important position in the game if not in all of team sports.
If you believe these, it’s crazy to think that a list of the 100 (really 90) greatest players can include only two QBs who played their best football in this century.
There are reasonable arguments that Brees isn’t one of the two best QBs of his own era. I can’t see any argument that Brees isn’t obviously one of the 100 best players ever.
The whole NFL 100 list has a weird anti-recency bias that seems to overvalue the era the voters grew up watching. It’s also kind of a bummer that the voting was so long ago that Brees has thrown for 6600 yards, 56 TDs and a 115.7 rating since the voting but even that is sort of understandable if you want to make these shows - which have been great - with BB prior to the 2019 season. They’re fun shows but the whole list implies some cockeyed ideas about when football was at its best.
- The game of football is more complex today than ever before and the athletes who play it are bigger, stronger and faster than ever before.
- Quarterback is the most important position in the game if not in all of team sports.
If you believe these, it’s crazy to think that a list of the 100 (really 90) greatest players can include only two QBs who played their best football in this century.
There are reasonable arguments that Brees isn’t one of the two best QBs of his own era. I can’t see any argument that Brees isn’t obviously one of the 100 best players ever.
The whole NFL 100 list has a weird anti-recency bias that seems to overvalue the era the voters grew up watching. It’s also kind of a bummer that the voting was so long ago that Brees has thrown for 6600 yards, 56 TDs and a 115.7 rating since the voting but even that is sort of understandable if you want to make these shows - which have been great - with BB prior to the 2019 season. They’re fun shows but the whole list implies some cockeyed ideas about when football was at its best.
Brees has had at least equal (if not better) weapons than Brady.
I mean even in SD, Brees had Gates and Tomlinson.
I mean just look at this year, Michael Thomas is better than any receiver Brady has.
The idea of the thing was to identify the best players, who stood out the most in their times, not the best athletes ever (bigger, stronger, faster). If you did the same thing in baseball, with your selection process, you might throw out, or seriously degrade Babe Ruth because he didn’t look like a great athlete, probably never had to hit a fastball over 90 mph, certainly no sliders or night baseball or 3 timezone changes between series, or anything but white competition. And, of course, he had the luxury of hitting homers to the shortest porch in baseball (still there). In basketball, Bill Russell as a 6’9” 215 pound center? How could he have been great?
Right, and if you take that approach to its logical conclusion you end up with mostly players in the last 20 years. That’s not a particularly exciting exercise. We know athletes are always getting better.
You don't have to agree with my characterization, but you've now adopted my position so that kind of speaks for itself. I agree with you it is tough to quantify the impact of coaching or playcalling. To me, this says we need to be very aware of our incoming biases in these kinds of discussions because we don't have a lot of data to cite to rebut those presumptions.
I don't know what to make of Payton's impact---we don't have a ton of data to suggest he's excellent other than his work with Brees, for example. I tend to agree with you about it (based on rep and on my own observations about him and that offense) but I'm pretty leery of putting the weight on it you appear to since (as you note) we don't have any way to quantify it or really even to validate the hypothesis.
