To note the midseason point of the NFL, and the inaugural post of this blog, I asked three of my friends to rank the Top 12 QB's in the league as part of a small experiment I will conduct.
(Note: Friends were chosen in direct relation to how much free time they have at work and therefore will remain pseudonymous.
Note-within-a-note: I am writing this at 8 PM because I have no free time at work.
Note-within-a-note-within-a-note: There must be a correlation between having a good job and having plenty of free time because they all make more money than I do. At least the two of them who are employed do.)
I also ranked the top 12 and we will pool their rankings to make the definitive midseason rankings, since four people doing 5 minutes of research each are known to constitute a representative sample.
The rankings
(A first place vote is worth 12 points, 2nd-11, etc.) :
1. Brady 48
2. P. Manning 44
3. Favre 35
4. Roethlisberger 32
5. Romo 30
6. Palmer 24
7. Brees 22
8. D. Anderson 21
9. Garcia 16
10. E. Manning 15
11. Kitna 12
12. Hasselbeck 6
13. McNabb 5
14. Griese 1
14. Rivers 1
There a few interesting revelations from this list.
Firstly, all four people put Brady ahead of Peyton. What was probably about a 70-30 in Manning's favor a year ago, has probably turned into a majority for Brady, despite the fact that Peyton got the monkey off his back.
The fact that only fifteen QB's got named shows how weak the current quarterback crop is ( I'm not sure what Brian Griese being on the list shows other than that Friend # 3 needs to be reacquainted with Donovam McNabb.)
In fact, the lists are pretty consistent; the only real anomaly is Friend #1 picking Kitna 4th, and leaving off Carson Palmer.
For purposes of comparison, here are the top 12 QB's of the list I compiled before the season began:
1. P. Manning
2. Brady
3. Palmer
4. Brees
5. McNabb
6. Romo
7. Hasselbeck
8. Rivers
9. Leinart
10. Roethlisberger
11. Delhomme
12. Garcia
Leinart and Delhomme's seasons ended quickly, though Leinart still had time to play himself out of a job. The other ten have acquited themselves respectably- indeed all 10 got votes in the midseason survey.
Amazingly, the only players to get 20 points whom I didn't include preseason were Derek Anderson, who couldn't even beat out Charlie Frye for the Browns job, and Brett Favre who was not even in consideration for my preseason list.
Looking at the Survey Rankings you get the feeling that this is not exactly the Golden Age for quarterbacks, past the Big 2, plus Favre as a legacy.
The top 4 all have rings but Romo and Palmer, 5 and 6 respectively have yet to win a playoff game, and #7 Drew Brees has won just one. Anderson, Eli, Kitna, Rivers and Griese have all yet to win in the playoffs as well. That's 7 out of the presumed Top 15 in the league who have yet to win a playoff game.
That seems awfully low, and next week we will look back at the QB crops that existed in 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1997 to see if this is a particularly weak group.
4 comments:
I may only be friend #3 out of 3, and I may (or may not) be the one without a "job" (what a dirty word) but I know pocket presence when I see it. Thusforth, I am OWaS's self-appointed guiding light and voice of reason.
The Griese pick:
You criticized me placing Griese at the 12 instead of McNabb. I only have this to say.
1- In 3 less games Griese has thrown the same amount of tds as Donovan.
2- Griese (.400) has a better win % than McNabb (.375)
3- Because I watched Eagles/Giants I can only remember McNabb as having his face in the turf. I need to watch a few more games where he remains upright to counterbalance this.
4- I didnt take into account Week 9. Griese looked completely terrible, throwing 4 picks and about 300 incomplete passes.
5- Thus; I was wrong. May he be pruged from the list! (Only to come back in a couple of weeks when half of the list is on IR.)
- "friend #3"
All those top QBs you listed who have all won in the playoffs are either veteran QBs who put in their time and had the team built around them (Favre and P-Man), or had the keys to Daddy's Cadillac handed to them (Brady and B-Roeth).
As to those promising QBs that have not had success in the playoffs, they are mercenary-journeyman- stopgaps (Griese, Garcia or the Kitmonster) or young QBs on teams waiting to reach maturity. This could be the year when Rivers, E-Man or Toini Roimo take it to the next level (by leading their squads to W's in January).
As for Palmer, the Bungles are just Bungleful. It's too bad he's a 26 year old multimillionaire, because otherwise I might have had sympathy for him.
I meant to write "purged" not "pruged"
David, wasnt it jeff garcia, and not brady or big ben, who was handed the keys to "Cadillac"?
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/2007/11/18/2007-11-18_nfl_gms_eli_manning_far_from_being_what_.html
link here ranking QBs in the new york papers
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