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

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Piotr Rasputin, Jan 27, 2008.

  1. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Sorry it has taken so long to get back to this. I've been busy and haven't had time to respond appropriately. Let me preface this by saying I don't necessarily agree with Plaschke's basic premise -- that Brady is some kind of robot creation and therefore inherently inferior to the old guys. I thinl Brady is one of the all-time greats, and I actually think some of the snarky comments make good points (because some of Plaschke's arguments are vague or mean nothing). It just bothers me when snark and alleged humor is used to excuse faulty logic or incorrect facts.

    I will say that the common response to columns like Plaschke's -- to dismiss them as the ramblings of an addled old-timer -- is usually 100 percent wrong. I agree with a point stated earlier in this thread that comparing players -- especially QBs -- from different eras is impossible because the game is completely different. I hate when people say things like, ``If you put Otto Graham in today's game he'd be eaten alive,'' or, as someone else here wrote, ``Put Donovan McNabb in a time machine and sent him back to 1950, he'd scare the NFL to death. He could've worn Eddie LeBaron as a boutonniere. Same with Brady. He'd've eaten the league alive.'' Well, that's not how it works, because the McNabb or Brady of 1950 wouldn't have had a year-round workout program (or any weight-lifting at all, for that matter), protein shakes and diet supplements, personal trainers, better medical procedures to avoid and recover from injuries. Hell, back then, coaches wouldn't even let their players drink water during practice or games. They wouldn't have had sophisticated offenses and checkdown progressions, nor as much protection from blockers (back then, blockers could not extend their arms or open their hands and defenders were allowed to head slap, among other things) or officials (defenders could hit receivers all the way down the field, and roughing the passer was condoned in many cases). If McNabb had been born in 1926 instead of 1976, he likely would have weighed 195 instead of 240 and been markedly slower and weaker. Let Graham be born in 1981 instead of 1921 and he very well could have been 230 instead of 196, with a stronger arm and better mobility. Put that guy in, say, the Colts offense, and would he be Peyton Manning? Better? There's no way to tell, but to dismiss Otto Graham and Bobby Layne and Johnny Unitas and Sid Luckman and Sammy Baugh from the discussion of greatest QBs of all time is ludicrous. Compare players to their era and the great ones rise to the top.
     
  2. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    Read my post more closely, Joe, and you'll see that I was actually making your point.
     
  3. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    Yeah, Joe. I'm not sure anyone disagrees with you.
    We -- journalists -- and fans do it all the time. We make comparisons. Fair or not.
    It makes for lively discussion. There is little objectivity in subjectivity.
     
  4. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    So, which comments are wrong? Let's see:

    The notion that the NFL of today is much harder to succeed in than that of the 1950s is wrong. First of all, the talent pool was not diluted by expansion. With fewer teams, each team had more great players. The Rams had two Hall of Fame QBs and two Hall of Fame receivers. Detroit had Layne, Doak Walker, Yale Lary, etc. SF had Y.A. Tittle, Joe ``the Jet'' Perry and Hugh McIlhenny. The Giants were loaded with talent. Yes, Graham only had to win one playoff game, but he had to face Hall of Famers almost every week. And the reasons mentioned as making things more difficult for today's players -- scouting, schemes, steroids, etc. -- also make it easier. What, Brady isn't part of that system, too? He's not scouting the defense while the defense is scouting him?

    Oh, yeah, and I haven't yet mentioned that the era in question -- the '50s -- was the most violent and dangerous in the history of the game. Far more players suffered catastophic injuries then than do now, for a variety of reasons. While the players were smaller and slower, padding was still rudimentary (face masks, for example, were rare until the late '50s), rules favoring the offense and protecting the QB were nonexistent and cheap shots were the norm. Guys like Ed Sprinkle, Bucko Kilroy and Hardy Brown would aim for the head and deliberately go after players after the whistle or away from the ball. Players would throw money into a hat and pay a bounty to the man who could knock one of the opponent's stars (such as Graham) out of the game. For example, in 1956, Bobby Layne, one of the game's biggest stars (won three titles and retired as the career passing leader) was the victim of one of most infamous cheap shots in league history. He was knocked cold by a blindside hit from Ed Meadows delivered on a running play when the ball carrier was already 7 yards down the field and in the process of being tackled. The referee, following the play, never saw it, and no penalty was called. Such hits were routine then. And remember, an injury that today would keep a player out a few months or even a few weeks could back then have ended a season or a career. Really, there's an argument to be made that if a pretty boy like Brady was thrown into a game back then he wouldn't have lasted a half (I don't necessarily agree with that because I think Brady is pretty tough, but there's a case to be made).

    Oops. I'm out of time for now. I'll post a few more examples later.
     
  5. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    Plaschke's entitled to his opinion, but you don’t compare things solely on the basis of anecdotes and unmeasurables. How was Unitas compared to his peers? How is Brady? What about stats that figure in adjustments? Stuff like that.

    For a career, Unitas, for example, has a higher yards per pass attempt (7.8 to 7.2) and yards per catch (14.2 to 11.5). And a higher TD% (5.6 to 5.4).

    Brady's best yards per pass attempt occurred this year (8.3).

    Well, Unitas had three years higher than that, and Brady will probably never have a year like this one again.

    Unitas's best year was 1959, when he threw for 2,899 yards and 32 touchdowns in 12 games. That was 12 more than anybody in the league that year.

    Well, stretch that out to 16? Somewhere around 4,000 yards and 45 touchdowns. In that era - that's insane.

    That's a comparison. Not Plaschke's crap.
     
  6. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    You'll have to sit over here by me, Alma. Looks like the stool by the jukebox is taken.
     
  7. fishwrapper

    fishwrapper Active Member

    You're still comparing statistics over time in a sport where statistics is a distant second to performance.
    That argument is just as empty to me.
     
  8. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Oh yeah, as for the illegal videotaping of signals: Nobody was spying or stealing signals back in the '50s. ::)
     
  9. joe king

    joe king Active Member

    Once again, please understand that I am not defending Palschke's premise or his column. I just don't like promoting misconceptions and obscuring facts in the name of snarky humor.

    So here are some more probems with firejoemorgan's retorts to Plaschke.

    Nobody said you should penalize Brady for not playing both ways. Just don't forget the Sammy Baughs and Sid Luckmans of the world when you make your lists of all-time greatest quarterbacks.


    Until the '70s, quarterbacks had to make the same reads and make all the same decisions -- after they called their own plays to begin with. For years, it was actually illegal for plays to be sent in from the sidelines. Graham had plays sent in from coach Paul Brown, but Layne, Unitas, Tittle, etc. all did it themselves, an entire additional layer of strategy, knowledge and, yes, instinct.

    It is true that defenses were less sophisticated then, but as noted in a previous post, QBs had less protection and therefore less time to make decisions while their receivers were being smacked around all over the field by DBs.

    Here's my favorite part:

    This statement is incredibly dumb. Incredibly ignorant, actually.

    Please try to remember the game was in 1958, not 1998. Back then, teams had only 33 players, so a kicking specialist was a luxury teams could not afford. The kicker was a position player who happened to be able to get the ball in the general direction of the goal posts. Colts kicker Steve Myhra, for example, was a guard. These days, kickers are pretty much automatic inside the 40. Those days, not so much. Want to know what Myhra's FG percentage was in 1958? .400. That's right, 40 percent. He missed more than he made. In fact, coach Weeb Ewbank had so little faith in Myhra that he attempted only 10 FGs all season. He also missed three extra points. And while Myhra made a 20-yarder to send the game into OT, he previously had missed two FG attempts in that game.

    Ewbank had kicked at the end of regulation because of time issues -- there were only seven seconds left -- but in OT, time was not a factor. Nor was the down (it was second down). If the Colts had gotten to fourth down, Ewbank probably would have kicked. Before that? Well, on a chewed-up field (remember, it's 1958 -- no artificial turf, and it's December in New York) in a high-pressure situation, do you put the ball in the hands of perhaps the greatest passer who ever lived or an unreliable sub-.500 kicker/guard who has already missed twice that day?

    We know what Ewbank, a Hall of Fame coach and one of football's best minds, chose. Maybe not a no-brainer, given the distance, but close.
     
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