Merged x 1 Billion: All Things 'Suck for Luck'

And correct me if I'm wrong, but is anyone saying Luck is all pro? Sounds to me like a bunch of people recognize his value as a QB prospect and our need of an elite QB and are putting two and two together.

Nothing is guaranteed in the draft. Luck/Barkley/Jones/Griffin/whoever else could bust. As someone just posted, if you have the opportunity to draft a franchise QB, you don't say pass and draft Jamar Fletcher or Ronnie Brown instead. You scout your *** off and do your best to get it right. And you keep trying until you do (EX. Joey Harrington and then Matthew Stafford).

 

Steeler's needed Roethlisburger to win. Defense alone was not gonna do it, not when they gave up a bomb to Larry Fitzgerald near the end of the game.
Ravens have 2 first ballot HoF's on defense, and possibly the best defense of all time. If we can get them, sure we can build around them.
Giants had Eli making plays to win the game, much like the Giants. The defense gave them a shot, but the offense needed to make clutch plays to bring it home.
Eagles? Didn't they have that McNabb guy? Yeah he sucks now, but in his prime he was an excellent QB who basically WAS the Philly O.

It also seems as though people forget some simple facts - this game is SPECIFICALLY BUILT TO GIVE QB'S AND THE PASSING GAME THE EDGE ON A DEFENSE! The refs protect them like the secret service, WRs are now getting the same treatment. If a DB looks at someone funny they get flagged. If you are not building a team to take advantage of this stuff, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

Warren Sapp of all people summarized it best - Defense keeps you in it, and gives you a chance. You need the offense to cash in.

 

Yes the Pats allowed 29 points to Carolina. They also shut down one of the most prolific offenses in NFL history to beat the Rams while scoring only one offensive TD. And Philly scored a garbage time TD to pull within 3 (24-21 IIRC) in the other game.

This is the same Brady who is 0-3 in his last 3, elite defense-less, playoff games with losses to the Giants (14 pts), Ravens (14 pts) and Jets (14 pts). That'd be Eli, Flacco & Sanchez, by the way.

The teams I listed are good year in and year out and are always in contention. I'm not looking to narrow the discussion to only Super Bowl winners b/c IMO that's not as accurate a gauge of measuring how to win in the NFL and it implies that only Super Bowl winners are successful.

 

You know what you also get by Sucking for Luck?

It just isn't getting the best QB prospect since maybe Peyton Manning. It is getting that top pick in each round, and we all know having that first pick in the 2nd round is like getting an extra 1st round pick at a discounted price. In 2012 we have a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd round pick. That is HUGE! How many 2nd round picks have we given up over the years for this player or that player via trade? So lets say we Suck for Luck and end up with the #1 overall pick. Now we get Luck and can focus that #1 pick on a key defensive player such as Alfanso Dennard, Cliff Harris, or T.J. McDonald. 3rd could be used to address D as well, or even OL.

We have a lot of problems from ownership down to coaching and down to players. Ownership won't be changing. GM possibly could be changing. Coaching will be changing. There is skill at a lot of positions and with proper coaching they could succeed. Other players lack the heart to win. Yes Beast...I am talking about you. The drops have been horrible. Today's lack of effort on the deep ball by Moore that was easily catchable was shameful. If that one wasn't bad enough....on the TD pass into the endzone, rather than be a beast and snatch the ball out of the air....Marshall decides to glide into the endzone and let the ball come to him. Nice move as it was batted away while you watched it all play out like a fool.

The right side of the OL is a joke. No QB....and I am still not a Henne believer....can survive under that situation. In turn the running game suffers because there is nowhere to go on that side of the line. It is either left or middle and the rest is shut down. Nice when the D can take away 1/3rd of the field before the running game even starts a play.

D was supposed to be the strength of the team and yet they fail time and time again. Pass rush is not there. LB play is spotty at best. Sean Smith couldn't cover the bed if he was a blanket. However, he knows how to s*** the bed. The safetys are even worse. Jones has all the physical tools, but he is often out of position. Bell is a beast, but I feel he suffers from having to over comepensate for Smith and Jones/Clemmons. Bell has his bonehead moments though. Just a dreadful backfield, and no Vonte....you all aren't the best combo. Not even close.

Kicking....Carp, your days are numbered. Was listening to part of the game on XM and they said he missed 11 out of his last 26 FG's coming into the game. No kicker in the league has a stat like that and still has a job. You would think a coach that lives and dies by the FG like Sparano would have brought a kicker in at this point who can make more than 15 out of his last 26 attempts. As crappy as the team played, they still could have won 2 games this year if Carp makes a couple of those misses. Sad.

The whole team and franchise is a joke. Yet I still stand by them and will. However, you will not be getting my full attention the rest of the season. I am glad the bye week is coming up this weekend. It is Yom Kippur on Friday and Saturday... and the last thing I need to do is start off my new clean slate by cussing out this team on Sunday. At least I will have a week of bliss.

That being said....there are 2 plays that can happen at this point. Keep Sparano and Suck for Luck. Sparano is gone after the season and we get the #1 pick. OR....Fire him now and try to build something off this season. Might get a few wins and gain some mo going into next year with a new staff in place.

Either way....we will still suck horribly this year. At best there might be 2-3 wins in this team.

 

I disagree that not taking a QB means you've ignored the position. Sure we could take a QB every year, but it's not the fans' *** that's on the line if said QB busts out. GM's get fired for guessing wrong on top draft picks and that's not something that's lost on me.

 

So you draft a LT and then get fired years down the line? I wish there was a way to quantify how important the QB is in statistics.

 

What is, because we're 0-4, Alex?

 

I like how you bolded the QBs who took years to develop into great NFL QBs and needed OUTSTANDING running back play to win SBs.
Elway took 10 years to become the QB worthy of HOF and SB winning status, and he didn't do it until he had Terrell Davis rush for 38 TDs and 3700 yards in 2 seasons.


Then you have Aikman who was on a GREAT team with an outstanding defense along with the NFL's all time leading rusher.
93 & 95 Aikman only needed to throw 15 and 16 TDs!!!!!!!!! He was a game manager who helped move the ball between the 20's like Henne does so that the NFL's ALL TIME RUSHING TD LEADER could punch it in 52 times in 3 years!!! Aikman doesn't need to be elite with 52 Emmitt TDs and a defense that allows LESS THAN 16 PPG for those 3 years combined. The ONLY reason Aikman is a HOF QB is b/c of the team he was on!

And Brady hasn't won a SB since his defense dropped out of the top 5 or so. In fact he hasn't won a playoff game the past 2 years despite facing inferior QBs.

Roethlisberger 08 won a SB despite posting an 80.1 QBR with only 17 TDs & 15 INTs.

Warner? Did the Rams draft that guy and win a SB immediately following?

Young? Same question as above, only substitute 49ers.

Brees? Same question as above, only substitute Saints.

Ben is the only QB of that group who was a 1st round pick and won a SB in his first few years. If Miami fans had their way, Ben and Peyton would be the only QBs still on this team after 3 years of drafting them...... so don't tell me we'd win SBs with all those other guys.

 

Yeah last year was the opposite. Jones couldn't get on the field and now CC can't. I really would like to know tonys reasoning on this.

What really got me was jones' lack of effort on the jackson td. Had he not casually trotted with the ball in the air, he would have downed jackson.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

Would you pass on Luck at #1 overall? Barkley, Jones, Weeden, Griffin3 in the top 10?

Who cares what happened several years ago, it's irrelevant! The NFL is currently, now, today, basically begging teams to pass the ball. The rules are built to heavily favor a passing attack. If you don't take advantage of that and get a franchise quality QB, you are swimming upstream. Some teams may be able to pull it off and come somewhat close, but why fight it? What's the point?

Unless something insane happens, we WILL be in position to draft a potential franchise quality QB - if not Luck at #1 then another team in the top 10. Are you seriously suggesting we pass, or are you arguing for the sake of it?

 

Ireland is most likely going to get **** canned in large part because he failed to secure a franchise QB. A franchise QB is a coaches/GMs meal ticket - they erase weaknesses that other positions cannot cover for, they provide stability, they can make people forget a ****ty pick.

 

There are: adjusted Yards per Pass Attempt* and passer rating.

Winning the aYPA battle correlates with victory about 75% of the time (95% of the time when coupled with a better turnover margin). Having a superior passer rating is equally if not more meaningful, especially since the stat can be used to track defensive performance. Dom Capers and Dick LeBeau do that: they track the aggregate passer rating their defenses have allowed throughout a season, calculated with the raw statistics (every pass attempt, every completion, every passing yard, etc) rather than as an average.

Also keep in mind that volume stats, like total yardage, are meaningless. A defense can give up 200 yards and still lose, while an offense can rack up 400 yards and also lose. This is why the whole "#6 defense in the NFL" thing was so overblown: that ranking was arrived at by sorting by yards surrendered per game. As we see now in 2011, it means nothing.

* [(passing yards - sack yards) / (pass attempts + sacks)]

 

How does that dispute the fact you need a great QB, unless you have one of the better defenses in our generation, to win a Superbowl. No one is saying you get a great QB and your Superbowl bound, or else no one would believe Dan Marino is great, its a team game. Doesn't change the fact that you need a great QB, and we don't have one.

 

I'm not so sure. Sounds to me like a bunch of people heard his name on ESPN. I don't hear anyone talking about this or that quality, or how he shredded this or that defense. I just hear his name ad nauseum. Not saying he won't be a good player I'm just not 100% convinced that people have done their homework.

I totally agree. But if I see a guy who looks like the next Mark Sanchez and a guy who looks like the next Darelle Revis or Demarcus Ware then I'm passing on the QB. Not saying Luck is the new Sanchez or that there's a Revis/Ware in the draft, I'm just saying that we should take whoever the best player is, IMO. If it's Luck, great. Come on down. But I'm not expecting miracles from any one player, this team sucks and it's going to take a lot of changes to fix it.

 

If Ireland is fired it'll be for failing to produce a winner. If Henne sucked and we were 4-0 Ireland would be the toast of the town. It's all about wins and losses.

 

PS: I like how you say 2002 is "one instance" in which a defense wins a championship yet you refer to "see 2002" and "see 2007" for two others.

How about the 92, 93, & 95 Cowboys? Their elite, less than 16 PPG defense gets no credit?

Pitt's elite Steeler D that allowed less than 15 PPG gets no credit for 2 SBs?

And the 01, 03, and 04 elite Pats D that allowed less than 16 PPG while Brady wasn't the elite Brady we see now?

What about the Packers #1 1996 defense that allowed 13 PPG?

The #2 ranked 15 PPG 2010 Packers D?

And the 99 Rams defense allowing 15 PPG?

That's like 12 SB winners in your examples that allowed less than 16 PPG on average on Defense.
If these defenses were elite, why do you give the credit to the QB, especially when great defenses frequently shut out great QBs?

 

The only remaining game I'll be really pumped for is the MNF against the Jets. We're going down, let's help take the ****ing Jets down with us.

You bring up a great point. We have other problems besides QB, but if they do get #1, they have to take Luck and they still have a great opportunity to fill some other problem spots with great 2nd and 3rd round picks. There's also Free Agency, hopefully we can get a safety there.

 

You must be thinking of say Pittsburgh and Big Ben with his mobility. Or maybe Vick. Peyton has a ridiculously quick release and it helps even though he had a top O-line.

Whats the key to beating Brady? Smack him around right? Why doesn't everyone do that? Because they can't. If they Blitz he burns them, if they sit back he burns them. The Giants beat them because the front 4 was so damn good it actually just barely worked and they won. The Pats don't lose often, and thats because of Brady. But Brady has an elite O-line and has had one for years.

I wouldn't expect Luck to come in and win 11 games and take us to the playoffs. I would expect it to be a process but I think he would progress well. I think its obvious we should have picked up guys like Gerode or McKinnie in FA and guys like that are out there every year. All it takes is a couple of them to replace some bad Olineman and you can be atleast halfway decent up front. I think its correctable, we already have 2 guys set for some time.

 

We need lots of ****, but no matter where we pick in the 1st round, u need that Franchise Qb no matter what. luck, jones, Barkley.

 

Yeah, nobody is saying an elite QB is the only thing we need, Just ask Marino. But we need one, and if we can get Luck (or Jones, he could be great as well, gets lost behind Luck), then we DO IT.

We want a complete team. That means finding a Franchise QB. Then filling in the problem areas. Hope it's Andrew Luck, and hope the new staff has a good draft after him. And hope they make a splash in FA. And you have to imagine Pouncey and Daniel Thomas will be even better next season.

 

Is it April already? Are we a few days away from the 2012 NFL draft?

 

Parcells took Long, because he's an idiot, which explains why we're so bad now.

 

He wasn't an idiot. I just don't think Ryan was all that special and he hasn't been.

 

And here I thought there were these things called the draft and free agency where you could take care of team needs after drafting a franchise QB, which there's about a 5% chance you're going to find in anything but the 1st round of the draft. Silly me.

 

He is, and he doesn't need some all world offensive line to do it.

 

We don't need to exclusively think of 2008 as Jake Long vs Matt Ryan. We should start thinking of it as Jake Long and Chad Henne vs Jake Long and Joe Flacco. We could have traded picks #33 (Phil Merling) and #57 (Chad Henne) up to the Texans for #18 to take Joe Flacco. Those two picks had more chart value than the assortment of half-eaten Twinkies the Ravens successfully offered Houston.

 

You're absolutely right! There has never been busts at OL, WR, TE, RB, DE, DT, LB, CB, or S. Should definitely draft one of those instead!

 

Fair enough I suppose.

I agree with some of this. That said, if we're using Luck as the example...

I'll be 100% honest. If Revis and Ware were allowed to re-enter next years draft, I'd still take Luck over them. Neither of those players, because of the position they play, are capable of contributing to wins in a season more than the QB position. Sam Madison and PAtrick Surtain (and Tbuck before him) would regularly pull 10+ picks a year combined (not to mention the other DB's like Brock). Jason Taylor lead the league in sacks one year (with Ricky leading in rushing) and we didn't even make the playoffs...

And with the rookie wage scale, it's almost idiotic not to draft QB's... It's like a get out of jail free card for the franchise.

 

More like a replay of Ted Ginn where there were so many cheerleaders making excuses until he was finally gotten rid of for being ****ty.

 

The talent on this team is overrated. The sooner people realize it the better.

 

Some people just never learn. Sadly, those same people have been running this organization into the ground.

 

Pretty much. They had PLENTY of time to put a competent defense around Marino and they didn't. Draft bust after draft bust.

 

By the very definition of success in the NFL only Super Bowl winners are successful. Every other team has failed.

 

Take off the homer glasses. The season is OVER. This talent you speak of is made up in your mind. We will get a top 5 pick, guaranteed.

 

There's some talent I agree but it's not that great talent either. I'd say this team is a 7-9 team talent-wise. They're missing critical talent at important positions and the talent they do have is mismatched especially in the defensive front seven.

 

If the Chiefs or Colts are picking ahead of us, I'll personally do everything in my power to get you on their staff as a scout.

 

Not every team picks #1 overall like we're about to do.

 

Who needs a QB who can convert 3rd downs? Who needs a QB who can score TD's instead of FG's, especially in the redzone? Who needs a QB who comes to play in the 4th quarter, and gives us the best chance of winning in close games?