Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . . . .

I'm not disagreeing with you as much as you may think. Obviously this cast has made Brady incredibly successful, and as you pointed out made him much more productive than he's ever been. All I'm saying is that he had as great an affect on those guys. Look at what Moss and Welker did with Brady. Then, go look up the numbers of David Patten, Reche Caldwell, David Givens, Dan Graham, Deion Branch, etc. after leaving NE. I'm guessing you'll find an equally great drop-off playing without Brady.

Bottom line this season has been the perfect storm of a great QB finally getting a worthy cast and the results speak for themselves.

 

Re: Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . .

I agree with you Boobie. Brady's throwing right now to 3 receivers who were all No. 1 receivers on previous teams (Welker the exception). The biggest comparison that CAN be used, in my opinion, are the rule changes that make it so easy for receivers today. Since the change in 05, Manning and Brady were OFF THE CHARTS stat-wise. Receivers in Unitas' era were MANHANDLED off the line.

 

I think it's impossible and futile to compare athletes from different eras. One thing I'd love to hear Plaschke explain the A-Rod-Brady comparison. I don't see that one at all.

 

Once again, I remind all that the NFL was around before 1983, before the 1970 merger, before the Super Bowl and, yes, before the AFL began in 1960.

Please find me a better set of receivers/pass-catching backs than the Rams of the late '40s and early '50s: Tom Fears (HOF), Elroy ``Crazylegs'' Hirsch (HOF), Vitamin T Smith, Bob Boyd, Glenn Davis. Fears led the NFL in receptions in '48, '49 and '50, setting league records for most receptions in '49 and '50 (the 1950 record of 84 catches lasted until 1964). He also led the league in receiving yards in '50. Hirsch led the league in receptions in 1951 while setting league records for receiving yardage and touchdown catches (17 in 12 games). He averaged 22.7 yards per catch that season and 18.2 for his career. Boyd led the league in receiving yardage in '54 and averaged more than 20 yards per catch for his career. Smith was an excellent receiver who also averaged 33.7 yards per kickoff returns with three TDs in 1950.

Those Rams, BTW, had not one but two HOF quarterbacks -- Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield. Despite alternating at the position, both had multiple seasons in which they led the league in passing (the Dutchman in '50, '52 and '54; Waterfield in '46 and '52).

Oh, yeah, and regardless of what anyone says, the '50 Rams offense is still the greatest in history. Sure, several teams have scored more total points (which is how the NFL lists its records), including this season's Patriots. But the Rams only played 12 games. No one has yet touched the Rams' average of 38.3 points per game (which included back-to-back games of 70 and 65 points and another of 51). LA broke 40 in six of its 12 regular-season games. The Pats averged a mere 36.8. Nice try, guys.

 

Re: Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . .

I think Firejoemorgan.com pretty much exposes this article for the silliness that it is. Some of this made me laugh so hard, especially the line about Billy Joe Dupree being football's Kevin Tapani.

The first thing you notice about Tom Brady is, well, nothing.

Really? I notice that he is the world's most handsome man. I might also notice his league MVP award, his 3 Super Bowl rings, his 2 Super Bowl MVPs, or the fact that his smoldering eyes and dimpled chin have forced me to take a long hard look at my own sexuality and conclude in like 5 seconds that although I love Mrs. Tremendous with all my heart, I would trade her and our unborn child and everything I own to kiss Tom Brady on the mouth for fifteen seconds, because then I would know what it feels like to melt into perfection.

He doesn't have a nick on his face because today's referees won't allow it.

Also, his offensive line is quite good.

He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.

I just looked at the HTML coding for this sentence, and it reads like this:

{PlaschkeStyle ="nonsense-level: total; meaning: none; point? no; faux-poetry: yes; garbage garbage garbage"}He doesn't have a growl to his voice because today's huddles don't require it.{/Plaschke}

He doesn't have fire in his eyes because today's teams don't need it.

What claptrap. Ugh. You've killed the mood. I don't even want to kiss Brady on the mouth anymore. You ruined it.

Tom Brady is fantastic, but he's formula. He's a champion, but he's a creation. And to anoint him as the best quarterback ever would be to forget that his position was invented, inspired and made famous by those who were neither.

He's a creation who had 50 TD passes this year. He completed 26 of 28 passes in a playoff game. He has led game-winning scoring drives late in the 4th quarter of like 9 Super Bowls. He is 14-2 in the postseason. So, yes, he is a creation...of Football Jesus.


If Brady leads the New England Patriots to a Super Bowl win over the New York Giants next Sunday, everyone will celebrate his four world championships.

They will forget that Otto Graham won seven league championships.

Graham was an incredible athlete and a great winner. But when he played, there were like 12 teams and the average LB was 4'8", 120 and played his college ball at Yale. It's a different game. There are now 32 teams, and the average placekicker can curl 900 lbs. Players sprinkle steroids into their protein shakes, which they pour over bowls of steroids. Free agency, scouting, PhD.-level offensive and defensive coordination schemes, illegal videotaping of other teams' signals...it's a very different game. A harder-to-succeed-in game.

Everyone will marvel at Brady's 15-2 postseason record.

They will forget that Bart Starr was 9-1 in the postseason with a record 104.8 passer rating.

I like that he italicizes 9-1, as if (a) Brady didn't start his postseason career 10-0, and (b) 9-1 is so much more impressive than a theoretical 15-2.

Everyone will wax about how, in two Super Bowls, Brady led his team on late fourth-quarter game-winning field-goal drives.

They will forget that, in one of his four Super Bowl championships, Joe Montana drove his San Francisco team 92 yards for a last-second, game-winning touchdown.

No one will forget that. It's like the most famous thing that has ever happened in football history. Also, Montana needed a TD. Brady did not. Apples and oranges. Or, apples and different-but-equally-delicious apples.

Everyone will applaud Brady for his tough defender's mentality.

They will forget that Slingin' Sammy Baugh actually played defense, picking off 31 passes in his career, which is more than he threw in his last three seasons combined.

Different game, man. You really can't penalize Brady for not playing both ways, a thing that has not happened in decades. And speaking of Brady playing both ways, I would like to kiss him on the mouth.

Yeah, everyone will forget Johnny Unitas.

No, we won't. Swear.

[Unitas] was football's Babe Ruth, and Bart Starr was its Lou Gehrig, and Sammy Baugh was its Ty Cobb, and Joe Montana was its Joe DiMaggio.

Dan Fouts was its George Sisler. Rich Gannon was its Paul Molitor. Rob Johnson was its George Kendrick. Jim Zorn was its Mark Loretta. Al Toon was its Wil Cordero. Marc Edwards was its La Marr Hoyt. Joe DeLamielleure was its Rick Rhoden. And, most obviously of all, Billy Joe DuPree was its Kevin Tapani. That's just a no-brainer.

Tom Brady is football's, well, um, Alex Rodriguez.

...right. He's the best player in the game. Except that Alex Rodriguez, as boneheads like you are fond of pointing out, has never won a championship. So defend this statement, please.

"I hear all these people talking about Tom Brady and I just sort of smirk," said John Unitas Jr., the late quarterback's son. "It's an entirely different game. I'm biased, but what my father did, you can't compare it to anything today."

Tell that to Plaschke. He's devoting an entire column to doing just that.

While Brady is famous for his "decision making," many of those decisions have actually been made for him by his offensive coordinators.

The Patriots' game plan is more homework than instinct, more science than scrabble.

Late in the season finale against the Giants, Brady threw deep to Moss on second down, underthrew him, and Moss dropped the ball. On the next play, 3rd and long, with the Pats losing, their perfect regular season in jeopardy, they ran a play designed to check down to Welker to try to get the first. But Brady, in the 0.8 seconds a QB has to make a decision, saw that the Giants had not rotated safety help over to Moss (perhaps expecting the check-down?), meaning Moss would be single-covered by a CB. So Brady said, calmly, handsomely, to himself: "Fuck this noise," and uncorked a 60-yard pass that dropped into Moss's hands like a day-old helium balloon. Two records fell, the Pats went ahead for good, and all was right with the world.

Please don't say that Tom Brady -- or any modern QB -- doesn't employ "instinct." That's all they have out there, really. Watch how the man preternaturally senses and avoids blind-side pass rushes, and then write Whitman-style poetry about his instinct. Because that's the only logical response to how good his instincts are.

Here's my favorite part:

Brady is playing in an era when the following scenario would never happen:

Playing in overtime for the league championship, having driven his team to his opponent's eight-yard line, a quarterback decides to pass.

That was Unitas, 50 years ago. His Colts were in position to kick a field goal to beat the Giants for the title. Yet he saw a hole in the defense and threw a seven-yard pass to Jim Mutscheller to set up Alan Ameche's one-yard touchdown run.

This is incredibly dumb. Kick the field goal. It's overtime.

 

I think New England's merely utilizing Welker as he should have been in Miami. Remember that he had over 1,800 AP yards each of his three years there when you include his return yardage. Welker's ypc average is the same as it was in Miami.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WelkWe00.htm

Moss has had a season similiar to this many times, other than touchdowns. He's led the league in TDs three other times.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/M/MossRa00.htm

And Jabar Gaffney and Dante Stallworth have proven themselves elsewhere:

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GaffJa00.htm
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/S/StalDo00.htm

 

The receiving corps are debatable. But the 1950 Rams, yes, had the best offense in NFL history. Although the 83 Redskins were as good as any.

 

DD,
Seriously, one could go through each one-line quip and refute it in accordance with Plaschke.
Not saying I agree with Plaschke, but it is easy to dissect a column that is written as a contrarian piece. It's a column. It's not a statistical examination and it ran as a package with a story the Times did comparing the 1972 Dolphin team and the rest of the league and this Patriots team and the rest of the league.
Give me/him a break.

 

There are always excuses why Plaschke's sports writing is a big pile of dung. "Give him a break"... so that's what its come to when defending Plaschke's POS sports analysis? Give him a break?

 

Re: Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . .

I agree with fishwrapper, too. I'm trying to make more friends here. I'm a lover, not a fighter (but I do not want to kiss Brady. Neither does my wife. She says his chin dimple is gross and he's too much of a metrosexual)

 

Re: Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . .

FishW,

I like Plaschke very much, both professionally and personally. Without question, he's one of the nicest people I've met in our tiny business. A contrarian piece, though, can certainly standup to criticism since it's essentially inviting it. This is firejoemorgan's modus operendi, going through columns or chat wraps line-by-line and making humerous quips in the name of, well, contrarianism. I'm happy to give Mr. Plascke a break because I admire him very much. In fact, I used one of his older columns this week as a teaching tool with a young sports writer I'm mentoring. But I don't have a problem with someone being a playful smartass and using humor to discect what I think is/was a weak argument, even by one of the masters. That's why I posted the firejoemorgan thing. For humor's sake.

 

Re: Plaschke tries so hard to avoid lauding Brady, he rambles on strangely . . .

Poindexter, there's just as many people out there who agree with Plaschke as disagree.