The Jets-Colts Super Bowl - a tangent

Hmmmmm

 

Fair point. I'd agree that, on the surface, there are some stylistic similarities between Favre and Namath on the "gunslinger, reckless decision-making attention-hound" type grounds.

BUT, at the same time, Favre's career resume is light years, INCOMPARABLY, better than Namath's on every measurable statistical ground. Nobody with any degree of fair minded objectivity could deny that that Favre's resume puts him in the HOF, conversely there's NO objective basis upon which one could argue that Namath deserved induction unless you heavily factor in the "special consideration for SB III/mega-celebrity/AFL icon/New York" type grounds.

 

Well, if Favre had sustained major knee damage in about 1999 and played about five more years of steadily declining effectiveness, they would have been much more comparable.

Once Namath started sliding downhill, the descent was steady.

Up until about 1970, he was a good, sometimes very good QB.

Whether it was injuries, better opposing defenses after the merger, too much boozing, or just the natural aging process, Namath went downhill fast.

 

Even if you just compare primes, Favre is way better than Namath. He was a multiple NFL MVP, went to two Super Bowls, winning one, etc.

 

favre vs. namath. NOT. EVEN. CLOSE.

c'mon, namath fanbois. love and support your guy. but please don't embarrass yourselves with romanticized images that can't be supported.

i get that they were both strong-armed gunslingers whose egos often wrote checks their arms couldn't cash. but in terms of their actual production, uh-uh. in terms of style, marino was really more namath-like, in that neither ran worth a darn but made up for it with their quick release. marino actually patterned his dropback/release after his fellow western pennsylvania icon, who was revered by marino's family.

 

And Marino proved that crappy knees don't have to result in crappy passing statistics.

 

to be fair to joe, the medical advances for treating knee injuries/conditions were light years more advanced by marino's time and even moreso now... though i agree overall with your premise...

 

And Marino did not have to deal with the swirling winds of Shea or spend half his career throwing to Richard Castor and Eddy Bell.

 

No, he just spent his entire career covering up for not having a running game and spent most of the 1990s trying to make guys like O.J. McDuffie look good.

 

Back to the NBA comparisons -- on Fark someone linked to a YouTube compilation of some of the 1976 ABA finals, Nuggets vs. Nets.

Some of the play is a long way from today's NBA, but you can see how the ABA influenced today's game. They're doing stuff in this game that you didn't see in the NBA in 1976, and I don't just mean 3-point shots (which are glorious to watch, with the rotation on that red-white-and-blue ball). At about the 1:30 mark, you can see David Thompson involved in two incredible plays. One is some sort of hesitation shot where he shoots on the way down and throws up a perfect rainbow. The other is an alley-oop from Monte Towe (looking like Itty Bitty Jesus) in a tight space -- right over Dr. J. Of course, that has a lot to do with Towe and Thompson playing every moment on their pro and college careers together -- some great timing. You can also see how the 3-point line really opened up the inside, and made the game as much about quickness as size.

Of course, Dr. J gets his throwdowns, too.

Oh, and you have to see Larry Brown's outfit.

 

Thanks for posting that, Bob, I enjoyed it. That clip captures so much of what was best about the ABA--Thompson skywalking, Dr. J powerjamming, the free flowing ABA style of play, even a taste of the 5'6" fun-ness that was Monte Towe (and the glimpse of Larry Brown with the mod hairdo and bell bottom 70s outfit is hilarious). And it also catches a bit of the worst of ABA, namely some piss poor team defense compared to today's defensive standards. The ABA in many ways was ahead of the NBA in seeing what pro basketball would become--the three point shot, the emphasis on one on one athleticism and above the rim slam dunk highlight reel stuff, etc--watching their mid-70s games often resembles today's pro ball far more than the NBA games of the same era. If only they'd kept that awesome red white and blue ball.

And, at the risk of being accused of beating the dead horse, it is stunning how VASTLY different this 76 style of pro basketball is from that being played only about 10-15 years before. There are plays routinely made by Doc and DT here that nobody had ever seen in the early 60s.

I've said this before, but what the hell, why not again: NO SPORT EVER CHANGED AS MUCH in just one decade as pro basketball did in the 1960s, not sure any others even come close in terms of being transformed so dramatically in such a short period. You watch games from 1960 (overwhelmingly glacially slow-footed ultra-mechanical white guys, shooting two hand set shots, unable to dribble with their opposite hand and often without looking at the ball, playing an entirely below-the-rim style virtually unrecognizable today) and compare them to games from 1970 (full of world class athletes playing above the rim, shooting jump shots, dunking, driving, etc.) and it's just shocking to realize that only 10 years passed in between.

And, of course, it's no coincidence that the 60s are also the decade when African-Americans took over pro basketball. I know that phenomenon also had a huge impact on football, baseball and other sports, but it didn't change the very way the game looked (and I'm not talking about physical appearance) and was played the way it did in basketball. In other sports it meant the infusion of better athletes, but in hoops it transformed the sport into something that was played entirely differently, and in a remarkably short period of time.

 

Mildly surprised that they didn't have this game on Hulu.