I agree Reefer, we don't know what would have happened with Brees and it's reasonable to assume we'd be better off, however there were two things going against Brees...1) He was coming off a shoulder injury. You can't assume that a QB will ever be the same once that happens. It happens that Brees was different and recovered nicely, but it was a guess at that time and 2) He was coming off ONE good year. He was not very good for the first 3 yrs of his career, but the light came on. There was a doubt that he would be an elite level QB. As it turns out, he's in a QB friendly system that suits his talents best, even better than the system in SD...and he has a LOT of talent around him... Don't get me started on CPep...that certainly was a poor decision by the organization...If Brees wasn't coming here, I'd have gone with anyone else...but that is all water under the bridge...
Not so, his numbers were essentially similar in Chicago in 2008, 18 Td's 12 int's 57%, compared to 20 and 12 and 60% and 21 and 9 and 58%, that "great offensive system" is like a unicorn egg or non alchoholic eggnog tasting good, a Myth. If one wishes to credit anyone with benefitting from a the system in denver it would be Brandon Lloyd who went from career journeymen to premier deep threat in it. but because Orton has not rolled over and peed on his tummy like a puppy to come to Miami, we probably will not make the deal, which is par for the course with us. the current thinking appears to be "keep rolling Henne out there and eventually he will get better..no refunds..no rainchecks fans.
Fact is that Brees wouldn't have even been blitzed as much as Culpepper was anyway. To me it's a moot point altogether.
I'm not just "theorizing". I know for a fact that systems have a huge impact on overall stats. When I was working as a scout I learned to discount overall stats when projecting how college QBs would do at the next level. As an example, that was why I never believed in Couch when he was coming out. If you want to know if a QB can be a franchise guy then you have to look at how he does when the system breaks down. B/c in the NFL, particularly the playoffs, defenses will usually find a way to take away what you like to do. The winning QBs will be the ones that can make the play despite the break down of the system.
Actually Brees had 2 good years Larry and people tend to forget that Brees got a much higher endorsement on his health then Culpepper did. Our medical staff decided to ignore the ringing endorsement of the most trusted Orthopedic surgeon that works with the NFL to gamble on Culpepper instead. Brees was a complete QB as well while the book on Culpepper's limitations was pretty well known. To me it was just a flat out bad decision.
And Saban WANTED to sign Brees, for once, can we please take "yes" for an answer, and acquire Kyle Orton?
If you think differences in offensive systems is a myth then there's no point in discussing anything else.
This is not an equation where saying no to Brees and looking back on that as a mistake makes a legitimate argument to trade for Orton now IMO. There are specific circumstances to each and every player acquisition scenario. I'm not against acquiring Orton either. Not at all..... with the right circumstances in price and with a lack of promises to Orton as to any guarantee of the starting job I'd welcome the deal. Just don't think either will be in our favor if we do get him and that's the problem for me.
Yes and No CR, meaning "yes" it is true, the past does not control the future, "no" there are similarities between the two situations and the opportunity that is being offered, Vet Qb who was good being replaced on his team due to the team using a #1 pick on a Qb and the need to then play them not due to skill level or poor performance the prior season. Healthy, ready to play successful Qb's do not hit the market very often and when one does, you make the move. But, we never...do..make the move.
That's interesting, but not how I remember it. The medical decision as I recall was that Culpepper's knee and Brees' shoulder injuries were both devastating, but with a QB the shoulder injury of that severity was worse, a major, major red flag. The medical staff said go with the lesser of the two evils- Culpepper's knee- and Brees proved them wrong. Huizenga once agian got tooled going with someone else's opinion, the worst example being relying on Jimmy Johnson as per hiring Dave Wannestedt- a year or 2 ago Huizenga gave an interview and you could see the thinly veiled disgust in his face when the issue of Wannestedt came up. Huizenga knew that he screwed the pooch on Wannestedt, same with Brees and AJ Feeley for that matter. I feel sorry for him, but he's a great businessman who was in the wrong business- he had no knowledge of the game, no feel for it. He relied heavily on outside opinions and got repeatedly screwed with bad advice. BTW, which ortho are you referring to?
Should be noted that Lombardi is the ONLY media member who nailed the Ross/Sparano/Harbaugh situation... Make it so Ireland, Henne is sailing passes already in camp...
James Andrews gave Brees his endorsement that he was on course for a complete recovery and stated he was ready while Culpeppers knee was still a question mark. You are right though that it was our staff that was scared about Brees' injury being the shoulder. It was the one issue that did in fact need to be considered as a risk. However, when you've got the most respected surgeon that works with the league giving you 2 thumbs up...... yeesh. As Larry said, it's water under the bridge. No changing it now. I felt bad for Wayne too. No owner's business is football. They all have to rely on their football guys. Wayne H. just failed in realizing who exactly it was that he should trust. No doubt in my mind that Wanny was the biggest negative turn Wayne and this franchise ever came across. I'd like to see that interview. Do you remember what organization did the interview with him?
My understanding was that Saban wanted Brees but the medical staff basically told him that the odds were extremely slim against Brees ever coming back. Saban went so far as to send Brees to multiple doctors and the three separate doctors (IIRC) all agreed. I know I wanted Brees over DC, but I can completely understand the logic in not going against the multiple the multiple medical opinions on that one. I can blame Saban for many things but that isn't one of them. And I see it as completely disingenuous to list Brees as an example of this team not valuing or ever trying to fill the QB position when they clearly were and simply picked the wrong guy.
It was just a reporter speaking with him for a minute or two at some function. YOu could see the sadness and disgust in his eyes, I felt bad for him. He deserved better- he tried hard, wanted to win for himself and the fans, and spent the money. He just trusted the wrong people, as you said. But anyone who would hand over the reigns of an NFL franchise to Dave Wannesdedt, especially after the mess that he made in Chicago and also just because of his general, obvious level of incompetence- man, you're just in the wrong business.
A rehash of the Brees argument is not what I'm after nor what the post was meant to illuminate, quite the opposite, Brees is just one name on the list, Hasselback was much closer to being a Phin then Brees imo. My point is, the Dolphins have had multiple chances to settle the Qb position on several occasions, the key moment is failing to say "yes" to the opportunity to do so...over...and over..and over again. This time..say yes.
Both Hasselback and Brees were extremely close to being Miami Dolphins. Saban lived in Rio Vista a couple of minutes away from me and was wining and dining Brees at a primo steak house (Prime, or something like that) a few minutes away on Las Olas Blvd. Saban was locked and loaded, so was Huizenga, and the medical staff gave the big evil eye to Brees' shoulder. Choice #2 was Culpepper. I felt bad for Brees- anyone remember him when the Fins picked in the first round that year? "One time baby, one time!" Brees COULDN"T WAIT to be a Miami Dolphin. And then ****head Wannestedt drafted a 5-9 third Cornerback with questionable speed. Dip****. As to Hasselbeck: "Hasselbeck's agent, Vann McElroy, said a deal with Miami was just minutes away from being consummated when Holmgren and Seattle re-entered the picture. The deal with Miami called for the Dolphins to send their first-round pick, No. 26, to Green Bay in exchange for Hasselbeck. "I figured if it got done today, I'd be a Miami Dolphin," said Hasselbeck, reached at home just after the deal was finished. "The Packers called and said, 'You're traded, but it's not quite official yet until Mike Holmgren does some paperwork.' And I said, 'Mike Holmgren? It's Seattle?' "But I'm fired up about it. I'm excited. They told me I was their starter. With that comes a lot of responsibility, and I'm well aware of that. But I'm ready to go." Hasselbeck said he will fly to Seattle on Sunday and take part in a news conference at the Seahawks team complex on Monday. "I thought it was all done with Miami," McElroy said. "Then all of a sudden, Seattle got back in it. It was no more than a couple minutes from being finished. They were on the phone ready to accept the deal, and then Seattle called and made another offer." http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/news/2001/03/02/hasselbeck_trade_banks/ BTW, I can't believe that the Bills hired Wannestedt at all, much less as assistant head coach. Idiots.
For me, it is not about Hasselback (GM nixed the deal iirc, or the capologist) or Brees, or Flynn or whomever, it is the decision making process coupled to a curious blind spot to the possiblities of saying "yes" to a deal for a Qb. We go wth extremely inexperienced Qb's (Feely, Beck) or washed up Qb's (C-Pepe, Green) and only once have we went with the 100% healthy, ready to step in, experienced Vet Qb, that would be Pennington, or to a lesser extent, Gus Frerotte, both times it worked out great for the franchise, sadly it also has never been repeated. Frerotte was injured in 06 and Penny was injured in 09, and we never bothered the "3rd way" of acquiring a Qb, Young Vet who is good, otherwise. Let me add, the other thing that always worked in Miami is..1 running back...270 or more carries, never had a losing season when that happened, and yet both ways are eschewed currently
I see the whole list as irrelevant. If you want to say that Wanny didn't value the QB position then you'll get no argument from me, but I fail to see how that has any relevance to this regime. I also fail to see how past bad decisions have any impact on whether trading for Orton is a good idea. If anything I would say that those past decisions have made fans desperate and that the desperation is making them reach for a QB like Orton.
You can't learn and truly develop if you're holding a clip board. If (hypothetically if) Henne doesn't turn the corner, this team is solid enough in every regard to NOT need to sit a young talented QB. He would have enough Oline protection and enough weapons to learn on the job in order to get him up to speed as quickly as possible. There's no need for overpaying Orton and sacrificing a draft pick on a guy who might actually NOT beat Henne out. If Henne has turned the corner (which is more likely than not) he will be as good or better of an option than Orton. If Henne hasn't turned the corner, it makes more sense to find this out for certain rather than sacrificing his future on an average QB like Orton and then never seeing what he was truly capable of b/c we draft his replacement in 2012 when Chad's a free agent. Bottom line: find out what you have in Henne with a healthy & improved team around him and new OC. If it doesn't work out, move on, throw all the chips on the table with his replacement, and stop *****-footing around with stop gaps. It's that simple. I do NOT want to hypothetically win 10 games with Orton, miss the playoffs, and then be less likely to trade up for a QB b/c we have less ammo to work with and are in a lower draft position to boot. Either way, it's a win-win if Henne's our man. We either get a Chad Henne who's ascending toward his potential (which is higher than anything Orton could hope for) or we draft a franchise hopeful QB (who also has more potential than anything Orton could hope for).
You get it, or you don't, one is hung up on players' names, I look at situations, you care about why Brees wasn't signed, I'm more concerned in not making the same mistake. Apples to oranges bud, past is gone, save for the lessons it should teach us.
I believe that you can and should develop a QB on the bench. I think Rodgers is the best QB in the game right now, but I also think that if Rodgers had been drafted by SF that he'd be thought of as highly as Alex Smith is. That time on the bench in GB was instrumental in helping him become the QB he is. I do agree that whether Henne prospers or fails miserably we are in a better position than if we had traded for Orton. I hope that we have and use the opportunity to draft a 1st QB regardless. I don't care if we win the SB with Henne this year, we should still draft that first round QB. It would much like when we drafted Marino despite coming off the SB in that much heralded QB class.
The lesson is don't trade for the not good enough QB and instead save your draft picks to have the opportunity to move up in what is expected to be a great QB class.
But if you were running the Broncos and not committed to Orton would you be giving him the 1st team reps and not Tebow? Given this is Tebow's second year in the NFL, if the Broncos coaches are more concerned about a power play to get a draft pick out of Orton and not get the team and their planned starting, young QB ready in a shortened off season they ought to be fired now.
Interesting you think this FO would move up in the first round for a QB. They'll use their first round pick on a lineman and go bargain shopping for a QB later. If it's a good QB class then that's the perfect excuse for them to do what they did in the 08 draft.
I guess if youre ok with Henne and Moore at QB youre already conceding the Division and most likely a playoff spot. At least on the bright side I wont waste money on Sunday Ticket this year.
In the years before FA, that was how it was done and there were some pretty good QBs that held a clipboard for their first 3-5yrs...I'm not saying that was the case for everyone, but it was the preferred way of NFL coaches to develop a QB...Things have changed, no doubt, but it's not such a bad thing to sit and learn from the game from the pines...
Yeah, one good year, one PB year...sorry but you are right, it turned out to be a bad decision on our guys parts, but the reasons for not going with him weren't that cut and dried...you have to be wary of any shoulder injury of any QB... and there were differing reports as to how serious his injury was, bottom line though, our guys dropped the ball. CPep was a decent QB before his injury...what we (fans) didn't know was exactly how bad that injury was and the fact that he did not rehab that injury properly...the medical staff should have seen that...
yup. sadly October hockey is my focus. and the regular season means nothing for the Nucks. if the Phins actually go into the season with Henne and Moore, I wont even waste my time or considerable frustration on them this season.
Giving Orton first reps in TC given the situation doesn't really strike me as being all that far fetched- they have to create a sense of value and urgency- marketing bs. Their initial plan for unloading Orton backfired on them, but you never know, we'll see what happens. To this day I'm still of the belief that Parcells- a huge Tebow fan- would have taken him at #28 last year. When Tebow went #25 to Denver I couldn't effing believe it. I think that Parcells- not a big Henne supporter- would have been energized by Tebow's arrival if we got him and would have been more likely to stick around. So we needed a QB and ended up with a DE- Jared Odrick. Good player, but Tebow- for all the negativity and near or actual hatred surrounding him- is the guy who Denver loves and the reason why Kyle Orton is being shown the door in Denver. Tebow was the subject of ridicule by Dolphins fans, the likes of which I had never seen and most of them, if they can think and see straight, surely wish that we had him now. Welcome to the light, boys. Denver has clearly seen it, and now you're begging for their scrap meat Orton like a dog at a back door. If anything I wish that we could have moved Philip Merling, a former 2nd rd pick at a need position for Denver especially since they picked Von Miller over Marcel Dareus, in exchange for Orton. I'd imagine that they need DE and DT help accross the board, and maybe they should have made a move for Broderick Bunkley, maybe they'll pick up Amobi Akoye. Anyway, that would have completed two cycles-the QB/DE cycle as I see it with Tebow/Odrick and the headcase cycle, quid pro quo, Philip Merling for Brandon Marshall. Not exactly poetic justice, but closer to it than we are right now. I'd buy that for a dollar.
They moved up for the player they wanted in Thomas so if there's a QB they think is worth it, I see no reason to believe they wouldn't move up to get him.
Absolutely, for a couple of reasons. First, I'd want to preserve whatever market there is for him. Second, he's the better practice player so he helps the team practice the most. Orton is a smart guy who can produce in the system. In practice I want the system to go off as smoothly as possible so the maximum number of players see how it's supposed to work. Now I'd still make sure Tebow gets as many reps overall, but I want him to continue watching Orton and learning. Orton is incredibly valuable to my team as a mentor and good QBing example. In fact, if I did score a trade for Orton, I would look for a vet to bring in to replace that mentor role. Now I would move Tebow up to the starting role in a week or two b/c I and everybody else knows that he's going to be the starter this year. Tebow impressed many people last year when he started those last three games. Not with his passing, which was average, but as a football player. He made plays and he led the team to a higher percentage of wins than the team had achieved up to that point (won 23% of games with Orton and 33% with Tebow). More important than one or two wins is that he's the face of the franchise and the fan base loves him.
That wasn't into the top of the first round though. We hear a lot about several QBs they supposedly liked over the past couple of seasons yet all of them were picked in front of Miami's pick at some point.
I am starting to feel the same way. I can't get excited nor optimistic about this tandem at Qb. It just isn't there. Don't get me wrong, I still love my Phins, but my frustration is growing daily.
I have been a big proponent of drafting a QB. Before Luck passed on the draft I was lobbying that we should trade our whole draft and then some for him. But I wouldn't have traded up for or taken the guys that fell to us. I liked some of them but I simply didn't feel they were worth trading up for. Yet if I were in charge some fan would be claiming that I wouldn't trade up for a QB based on a rumor that I liked a QB.
Rafael, you obviously believe that Orton is not superior to Henne. Still you have to admit the numbers are close enough that you can debate the issue. Isn't that what we want? A QB who is good enough to push Henne? Kyle Orton on paper looks like a better QB than Chad Henne and whether he is or not he's at least good enough to be real competition and that is what we really need. I think Kyle Orton is the best move we could make to boost this team. If you don't have a QB you keep trying until you get one.
