A QB is not a savior but a saver

Football!

Catch it!

So football is back and I am on a craze after one fantasy draft and a few weeks of player movement. There was a debate today about quarterbacks and what they offer. The ones in question were Brady, Brees, Vick, Eli, and Roethlisberger, since they represented our favorite teams in the league. (Someone conveniently forgot Alex Smith...)

The question was something along the lines of what to expect from each QB and who was the most valuable. For fantasy purposes, the last person I want from that group is Eli, although I have Rothy and I am very worried about it. For real life purposes, I think Vick is the most unproven, and I guess I would take Eli over him, but that depends on what happens this year. This came about on some Giants-Eagles smack talk and it reminded me of an old debate I've been having with Giants fans: Eli vs. McNabb (now it will be Eli vs. Vick).

Giants fans love reminding the Eagles that they never won a Super Bowl. Correct. But does that mean Eli was a better QB than McNabb? Is Eli still someone you'd take over Vick? I don't know. McNabb put up better numbers for a longer time (Eli still has quite a few years left) and practically carried the offense by himself in the early part of his career. His '00 season made him a runner-up to the MVP vote in his second year in the league (and first full one as starter). I won't go into Pro Bowls, because people drop out of them all the time and the guys who actually participate are usually not the first or second choice. But, suffice to say, McNabb has a better record when it comes to MVP voting and postseason awards. I don't think anyone has ever considered Eli one of the best 5 passers in the league.

Oh, but he won the big game, you say? He came through when McNabb choked (or puked) and thus that's the end of it? It's not so easy. Eli led a Giants team that got hot at the right time and got some good breaks in the playoffs. Remember that the Giants had tight games with the Cowboys and Packers and had to go to OT to beat the Pack. Eli was solid, but it was also helping that he was facing even bigger chokers in Romo and old-almost-out-of-Green-Bay Favre, not the prime Favre. Those teams had good offenses, and the Giants D slowed them down. Eli was just good enough to keep them in it, and then those other teams made costly turnovers late.

Then, in the Super Bowl, the same thing continued. The Giants' defensive line ate up the Patriots, like no other team had done. They didn't give Brady time to throw, like he usually had that year. They pushed and prodded Randy Moss, and we all know how bad he can get when he's not happy. Eli made two amazing throws that worked, the Giants won, and everyone was shocked. But does that make him a superstar?

I think what he did in the 2007 playoffs was more akin to Trent Dilfer with the Ravens in '00 or Brad Johnson with the Bucs in '02. He rode a hot defense and played smart, mistake-free ball, and made sure to keep the running game going. This does not make him a star. Neither of those other guys are going to the Hall of Fame. I do think Eli is much better than them, and probably worthy of being in the top 10 in the league now. But a superstar? Meh.

I'll make another comparison this decade: Jake Delhomme in '03. He was a little more risky than these guys, but he also rode a great defense and running game to a Super Bowl. There, his team came back against a decent Pats team by chucking it late and hoping that Steve Smith would go get it. Watching Delhomme in that Super Bowl fling it up to Smith and Mushin Muhammed was like watching Eli toss it up to David Tyree and Plaxico Burress. The difference was that Eli made his passes (the Tyree catch continues to defy all logic) and the Panthers made a stupid kicking penalty late that let the Pats finish them off. If not for a few fluky plays, we could be looking at a world where Delhomme had more rings than McNabb, Hasselbeck, and Eli. Is he better than any of them? No. Absolutely not.

Let me defend McNabb in this situation some more. Yes, the Eagles blew a bunch of NFC championship games. But the fact that they made so many has to say something about consistently being pretty decent. Check this out - how many playoff games has Eli won with the Giants, other than that great run in '07? ZERO. He hasn't won since then, and he hadn't won before then. Included in those playoff losses are two at the hands of Eagles teams led by McNabb. I know he won it all, but doesn't it say something that he never made it back to even the NFC championship round? McNabb did that 5 times.

Finally, let us not forget who they were up against. I know everyone remembers the 2007 Pats because they went undefeated in the regular season and set a lot of passing records. They think that was probably the best team that Bellichick and Brady have had, even though they lost. I disagree. I will argue with my life that the best edition of the Patriots this decade was the '04 squad that beat the Eagles. You laugh, but think about it. The '04 team had just won the Super Bowl with a makeshift running game, then added Corey Dillon. Suddenly they had a balanced attack and a great defense to go with a super-efficient passing offense led by Brady. They won the same amount of games as the year before (14, which is still pretty damn good) but they were much, much better. The rest of the AFC had gotten better, too. In the playoffs, they showed their dominance, smothering the Colts 20-3 (they held Manning without a TD, which is pretty insane) and then destroying the Steelers, who had just won 15 games, IN PITTSBURGH. Yikes. They were tough. The Eagles played them hard but they just couldn't catch up.

The 2007 Pats, while more flashy, were not as balanced. That 2004 team had a running game. The 2007 edition did not. I remember this because I had Laurence Maroney and he was a gigantic bust. They had an amazing passing game with Moss over the top and Welker catching short passes, but part of the reason why they set records is because they HAD to throw all the time. They gave up on the running game often and had Kevin Faulk, a very good third-down catching back, in for more plays than they were planning. Don't get me wrong, this was a very good team with an outstanding passing game, but their numbers were just a little inflated because their run game sucked so much. And yes, early on, the Pats were running up the score on people and looked unstoppable. But as the season went on, they started to wear down a little. They went undefeated, but they had a bunch of close games that could have gone either way. It was dramatic to watch them survive each week, and it looked like someone could knock them off if they just got the breaks. (It happened.) Once the playoffs started, they had some good but unspectacular wins at home over two decent squads, Jacksonville and San Diego. Compare that to the 04' team, who got better in the AFC playoffs and killed great competition. The '07 Pats had an easier road in the AFC, as the Steelers were a year away and the Colts had some injuries and couldn't figure out the Chargers. The '04 team killed the Steelers in Pittsburgh; the '07 team handled a Norv Turner team at home. I don't think it was the same.

But that's just me.

Look, don't take this as an insult to Eli. The QB is the most important position and you can't win without someone good there. But it's not the end all. This is part of a bigger trend that has been going on a long time. Remember that John Elway, at the peak of his career, was able to get the Broncos through a weak AFC mostly by himself, with little talent.... only to be killed unmercifully in the Super Bowl by NFC teams with weaker QBs but much better supporting casts. When he finally won it, he was on the downside of his career, but his team had found a running game and defense. Remember that Aaron Rodgers was great last year, but he was also pretty good a few years ago when the Packers went 6-10 and had a terrible defense. You just didn't hear much about him then. Remember that the difference in the '06 Colts was nothing Peyton Manning did or anything the Colts had on offense - it was good as usual - but that Bob Sanders finally stayed healthy for a few weeks and the defense stepped up.

The QB is not the savior. He can be a big saver, but he is not the final answer.