The 2016 NFL Playoffs Thread

Another sore loser

Im not sore at all I just hate the Pats but I feel the same hate for The Dallas Cowboys and The Colts. Except with The Colts I Respect Peyton. Brady IDk why I just dont like the guy. Comparing him too Elway, Bradshaw and Montana is a joke.

While there is some truth to that, in the case of the AFC East I don't think it quite works. The Bills, Dolphins, and Jets are absolutely in contention for the runner-up position to Cleveland in terms of the worst-run organizations in pro-football. Any organization that hires Rex Ryan as their head coach automatically qualifies for contention in that department, something both the Bills and Jets have done. The Bills haven't been to the playoffs in the last decade and a half. The Dolphins are a joke, thanks to Stephen Ross, one of the worst owners out there.

That's not to take anything away from the Pats. I'm a Jets fan, but I've grown used to the Pats winning, and can't really work up the hatred for the organization anymore that the rest of the fanbase seems to have. I reserve that for Rex Ryan and the Bills these days. It makes it easier to watch the NFL and deal with the Pats' continued success when you come to the realization that your team is never going to dethrone them or ever reach the Super Bowl ever again, something I've come to peace with in the last couple of years.

The Pats deserve recognition for what they've accomplished. You can only play who is on your schedule, and they've done that rather brilliantly the last 15 years or so, and they will continue to do so for the next 5-10 years, or until when Brady decides to hang it up. At that point, I think they'll come back to the pack a little, but will continue to dominate the division, winning it with 10-6 records each year rather than the 12-4 or better records they've become accustomed to over the years.

Saying that it's a joke to compare Brady to Terry Bradshaw who wasn't even the best QB of the 70s let alone of all time is a joke. Brady is greatest quarterback to ever play and the only other guy even remotely in the discussion is Montana. Brady has done more with less (look at how many actually elite weapons he's ever had, it's 4, at the most depending on your definition of elite, with Moss, Gronk, Edelman, and Welker, whereas Montana would on a regular year have around 3 pro bowl caliber weapons at his disposal every season, same with Manning and Elway and Bradshaw), won more than anyone when it counts, made it to the big game more than anyone else, and has the regular season stats to match. You don't have to like the guy, fine, I get it, it's easy to hate greatness I hate LeBron but I still respect what he's accomplished., Just face it, Brady's accomplished more in this league than anyone before him has, and the only guy who's close is Montana, and as Brady keeps on winning he's only widening that gap.

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Um yes but the names i mention had allot to endure more then todays qbs. Roughing the Passer in the old days was a right cross or a close line too the ground. Todays QB could not take classic beatings like the icons i mentioned. I'II Replace Farve with Bradshaw. Yeah I know only one Superbowl Ring. But You cannot tell me Brady is better just because he has more Rings.

That is a good point. I don't give enough credit to the guys that played in the other eras.

I have never been impressed with Manning after the snap. He could be the greatest pre-snap, defense diagnostic quarterback ever, but his play doesn't pass the eye test. I like the guy, but being a super nice person from football's first family doesn't equate to football greatness.

How do you know that? You watch much football back in the 70's and 80's? Anyway, it's a different sport now, and all of the offensive players have rules to protect them that didn't exist in the past. Quarterbacks have a lot more responsibility now, with less reliance on the running game and having to read exotic defenses, not to mention that defensive players are bigger, stronger, and faster these days.

These two comments interest me. Did you feel this way about Rex when the Jets were going to the playoffs and had one of the best defenses in the league? I used to live on Long Island so I know a lot of Jets fans. He was the toast of NY for like three years. I remember telling my in-laws he was the type of guy everyone would love for a couple years and then think he was a disaster. As a Bills fan I was on the record before the season startex of not liking Rex. His teams do some things well but they are undisciplined and he is unimaginative on offense. I was in Buffalo in October and I can already see all those excited Bills fans turning. He just has that kind of personality.

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Shamefully, I must admit that in the early going, I didn't feel that way. Now, that must be countered with the fact that Rex hadn't really shown his true colors at that point either, as he had not yet had much time on a national stage to show what he was all about as a coach.

I don't know how the Jets fans in and around New York felt about him or the team, but I can say that, after years and years of losing, being a punchline, and being the Patriots' whipping post, that the whole bully thing he brought appealed. That's not something to be proud of, but when failure is the default mode in which you operate, you'll cling to certain things that seem to be offering hope, as false as the hope may end up being.

The problem with Rex in New York is that it became quickly apparent that he's terrible at evaluating talent. He's also only a really good coach when operating purely on spite. As the years went on in New York, these sides of Rex began to show and that's what led to the disgruntled feelings towards Rex, as well as his self obsessive nature that puts himself above his team at every turn. It always has to be about Rex. It's rather off-putting.

The final straw for me with regards to Rex was him saying that a "true" Jets fan wouldn't root against the team. This came after it became clear that a large segment of the fanbase, if not a majority, were pulling for the Jets to lose to the Titans in Rex's last season, which would have significantly helped in the chance to acquire the #2 pick in the draft and, therefore, Marcus Mariota. Between that and his interview this offseason (SI.com I think) where he all but admitted to not putting in the required effort because he already knew he was being fired at the end of the year, and the sentiment against Rex had completed its turn from the initial wave of excitement to the correct feeling of disappointment and anger that the organization had stooped to hiring someone like that.

The Jets, however, do deserve more benefit of the doubt for hiring him than the Bills do. How Rex would handle a team on his own wasn't know when Woody Johnson hired him. The Bills saw it for six years. They also had a front-row seat to his incompetence, with that Monday Night fiasco in Detroit where the Bills were the "home" team after not getting to practice for an entire week because they were burried in snow up in Buffalo. Rex had an entire week of practice and got his butt kicked by about 40-points, and then a month later the Bills decide that he's the man they need running their franchise. Luckily their owner has realized what he's done and given Rex the playoffs-or-fired ultimatum for this season. Sadly, this plays right into Rex's hands, as he operates best out of spite and when his back is against the wall.

Honestly, personality was the reason I knew he would wear out his welcome in NY. They love blustery until you lose two games in a row which is inevitable. Even if he did the ultimate and won the Super Bowl, the first time he lost in the opening round they would have wanted to hang him. I won't say most finicky because I haven't lived everywhere. NY fans have to be up there though.

I agree the Bills shouldn't have hired him. They were trying to make a splash though, and he fits the bill. Hiring solid guys like Mularkey doesn't sell season tickets.

Can't say I agree with you saying he's better than Montana, but I have no problem with people saying he's one of the greatest.

What I've always wondered though is if it really is Brady's talent or more him being a "product of the system" because I honestly do think all the Patriots' success is more Belichick's coaching than it is Brady being QB.

Remember that one season the Patriots took a mediocre QB in Matt Cassel for a whole season and still managed to get 10 or 11 wins out of him.

We will never know if it is more Brady than Belicheck. Well, until Brady retires.

Yeah, this is what I wonder about most, too. There seems to be a lot of evidence to suggest that the team's success has a lot more to do with Belichick than any one player, even Brady. A lot of other great QBs worked with multiple coaches or played on multiple teams and had success elsewhere, which makes these comparisons a little tricky.

Someone else mentioned guys like Montana or Manning having elite WRs, but that naturally leads to the question: were they just elite because they played with Montana or Manning? Some guys seem to have elite WRs no matter what; Rodgers loses Greg Jennings and two other guys step up. Roethlisberger loses Burress, Ward, and Wallace, and they're somehow replaced easily. When the QB does this and stays in one place, it could be them or it could be the system. When they switch teams and do it (like Montana and Manning both did), you have to assume the QB is the driving force.

My suspicion is that Belichick is the biggest single reason for the team's success. Having a very good QB has probably taken that success to another level, but if I'm a Patriots fan I'm much more worried about the retirement of Belichick than of Brady.

I would be more worried about losing Belichick as well if I were a Pats fan. He's already proven that he can succeed there with an an average-to-below-average QB when he went 11-5 with Matt Cassel in 2008. Even without Brady and another team in the division bringing in the future Hall of Famer Brett Favre, he still tied for the best record in the division and only lost out on the playoffs due to a tiebreaker.

There will probably be something of a dropoff when Brady leaves, but it won't last long, assuming Belichick doesn't leave with him. And it won't be a huge dropoff, as they'll still be heads-and-shoulders above the rest of the division.

Yes, the Pats went 11-5 without Brady, but that's a pretty substantial drop off from the year before when they went 18-1, only losing in the Super Bowl.

It's difficult comparing players from different eras, but I think it would also be difficult to argue that someone else is or was better than Brady. I watched a lot of games with Favre, Montana, and Marino, but I've never seen a QB take as much responsibility and be as consistent as Brady. He is exceptional in everything you look for in a QB; arm strength, accuracy, clutch play, toughness, leadership, reading defenses, durability, commitment, etc. He has unprecedented Super Bowl success, and he also has the numbers. He also plays in an era that has rules designed to promote parity. He's had to get used to many different receiver and offensive line combinations, whereas teams of old could keep their teams intact for many years.

If you want to consider era, then the most relevant context is: what are other people at the position doing in that same era? That accounts for all the circumstantial stuff about parity, rules, whatever. QBs in general put up significantly better numbers these days than they used to, so the baseline for QB play is higher.

The player who benefits most from this fact is (probably) Marino. He was putting up numbers in the mid-80s that would be elite today, in an era where that kind of thing wasn't happening several times every year.

Yea Marino was great. I still remember him giving my 85 Bears their only loss of the season, 38-24 on MNF. I always think of him in the same general way I think of Manning; great numbers but struggles in big games. I heard an interesting stat today; Marino was something like 5-12 when throwing the ball over 50 times, while Brady is 17-7. I don't think that really means much, other than to show the differences in philosophy and how the game has changed.

Another oddity is that Joe Montana only took 1 career snap out of the shotgun, and that resulted in a fumble. That's not a negative towards him in any way, but again, it just shows how the game has changed.

I loved watching Marino despite him being on another team I hate. The Manning comparison is a good one. I was a huge Steve Young fan and I think the only reason he doesn't get mentioned in these conversations is because he got stuck behind Montana for those few years.

Young was unbelievable. I think it's just that he had a lesser amount of games played as the reason he's not usually in these discussions. Imagine those two guys on the same team.