NFL 2013 Season Week 10 Picks

vs Cleveland - Avoided Hoyer

@ Minnesota - Ponder thrown back into things following a concussion, mid shortened week, in middle of QB carousel clusterfuck

As for the article, given that the Packers neglected the backup qb position for ages, and then this year jettisoned everyone on their preseason roster and picked up Wallace, it's hard to take anything he says seriously after "Yet, no organization would be better equipped to handle [a injury at QB] than Green Bay."

However, you really saw no homerism in that article?

Also, is that link still not working for you? Seems ok for me.

It seems like it might be pretty flawed rational to go "look how many pass catchers we can cycle through without missing a beat, we can overcome Rodgers too." and overlook the fact that maybe it's because the Packers aren't particularly good at "plugging anyone in anywhere", but maybe Rodgers, and the system designed for him, just makes any jackass look pretty good.

Rodgers has never needed to do that, yet. He has had a really good group of receivers from the very beginning.

Lots of people wanted McCarthy fired, or at least considered him a middling buffoonish type coach, until they won a Superbowl,

you can't have success on the field without good front offices and coaching staffs.

So They are winning because Ted is a pretty good GM. And in turn they keep winning because he's pretty good. Even if it follows your exact wording, those statements can both be true. They aren't mutually exclusive. They can stand as independent statements on their own merit.

Has he? Isn't the point we just agreed on that we don't know that's true?

To clarify, I don't think all GM's are the same, the best GM is as good as any jackpine off the street, and so on. I do however think that in that one aspect (finding players) that it's pretty much just all luck. Some guys can be better at the draft, some guys can have different mentalities as to when, if ever, to take a chance on a boom/bust type deal, but when it comes normal picks I don't think there's any real "I'm taking this guy over this guy because I have good player detecting super powers".

We could debate how much credit they deserve for pulling the trigger on a guy that could have been the number one pick because they were the first team that even had a conceivable need at QB in the next 3-4 years to come along. They had more immediate needs I'm sure, but I don't know what they are and what the board looked like for those positions at the time. Many would also argue 3-4 years is the perfect time to sit and learn making it actually an ideal time to pick one.

Put it this way, as maybe this would help determine if we are indeed just at an impasse as to how important we think the people not on the field are.

Would you rather have Aaron Rodgers and a terrible coach*, or Blaine Gabbert and the accumulated geniuses of every head coach to ever coach in one mind?

I'll take Rodgers. Hell, I'd probably take Rivers/Romo and the terrible coach*.

*Assuming of course we mean bad but theoretically capable/trying coach, and not "only has punts, kneel downs in the playbook" active sabotage type stuff.

Sure you can. Even if you actually meant "can't have success on the field with bad front offices and coaching staffs" I'd probably disagree. It's hard to tell, because we define good and bad staffs BY the success, but I see no reason to think a good team couldn't overcome a bad coach, and/or be the happenstance result of a crummy GM. It's not like there's no type of consensus on who is a better player than someone else.

You'll take Rodgers now? Or Rodgers pre-draft? And are choosing between Gabbert now or as a rookie? Maybe Rodgers is really that good. Or maybe he has a good set of coaches that create great schemes and systems for him to succeed. Or maybe it's both. My guess is that there is a lot more wrong with Jacksonville than Gabbert. In fact, Gabbert possibly is a result of the crappy management that is left the Jaguars the laughing stock of the entire state of Florida.

Besides, Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl. So a bad QB (he proclaims himself as a bad QB) can win a Super Bowl given the right pieces around him. I'd probably take Rodgers over Gabbert (I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know what I currently know). So a good QB can make a bad team good. But a good GM and a good coach can make a team good in spite of the QB (the Broncos won a playoff game with Tim Tebow as their QB in what might be the most ingenius run of coaching in a long time).

Furthermore, Brett Favre would have been a lot more gunslingery without Mike Holmgren reeling him in hard core. In fact, Favre's worst years were under Mike Sherman who made basically no effort to correct his wild quarterback. So I think coaching can play an enormous role in this.

I meant knowing what we know, but fine, throw names out.

Would you rather have best-QB/worst-coach or best-coach/worst-QB?

I'll pull a Dwight Schrutte: False, a top tier coach/GM doesn't draft a bottom tier QB.

Anyway, I'll take the twice dodged question as a concession that you agree "you can't have success on the field without good front offices and coaching staffs" and even the more strongly worded "you can't have success on the field with bad front offices and coaching staffs" aren't necessarily true.

When did I dodge the question? What question didn't I answer? I believe those are true in general. A few anecdotal exceptions, if they exist, don't disprove anything.

Why one without the other?

and if I say "Rodgers" you'll say "a-HA!"

Could Rodgers win with a bad staff?

Sarah:
"Mike Shanahan destroyed the RGIII that was so fun to watch."

I feel like this needs explanation. I thought it was the injury that did that. Are you blaming Shanahan for the ACL injury?

I have heard that from other Redskins fans too.

I never implied that. I've heard it from others, DC fans, too. There. That should be better.

According to Sarah, who got it from somewhere, Tolzien is already named the starter for next week.

It's called the internet, look it up some time.

Tolzien is QB until he gets hurt or Rodgers comes back.

don't say that too loud. He has to get through a week of practice unscathed.

Let me take this chance to chew out a spoiled subsection of Packer Fans: Everyone who thinks Tolzien "sucked" on Sunday, and that the Packers have to go get Flynn, or anyone else. You have been far too spoiled at the QB position for far too long. Yes, he threw an INT in the endzone, but you know who else does that? Almost every other QB not named Rodgers about every 3 weeks. His other INT was batted up (which is still his fault to some extent, and he had way more than his share batted up mercifully find grass).

There is no "the answer".

I don't think he's even healthy

Packers are signing Matt Flynn... I don't think he's the answer either.

There is no "the answer".

I think he's "The Backup"

So let's analyze a few plays. Right at the end of the first half, the Packers had 3rd and goal at the Philly 8 yard line with only about 10 seconds left. James Jones catches a ball (on a play where he was likely being interfered with). He caught it, but his second foot was about a toe's width out of bounds. Jones is a good receiver, but honestly, I've seen more sideline misses by him where it looks like a little tad more effort and he keeps both feet in bounds. That is a play Jones is very capable of making. If he does, it's 7-7 at half time.

2nd play was the 4th town pass to Jordy Nelson in the endzone. That would have been a pretty amazing catch, and could have very easily been called a touchdown initially which would have initiated a review. Now, I think if it's called a touchdown initially, it would have been a little hard to overturn. It may have hit the ground, but the replay wasn't conclusive. The fact that it was called incomplete on the field though made it nearly impossible to overturn it that way either. Maybe it wasn't a touchdown, maybe it was. The point is they were mere centimeters away from scoring on that play.

I agree that with Rodgers they win that game going away, even if the defense catches malaria at the start of the 4th qtr. But the fact is, Tolzien was probably a combined 1.3 inches away from having 3 TDs vs 1 TD. So I'm all for getting mad that the Packers lost. But being upset with Tolzien is sort of misplaced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Iverson

So let's analyze a few plays. Right at the end of the first half, the Packers had 3rd and goal at the Philly 8 yard line with only about 10 seconds left. James Jones catches a ball (on a play where he was likely being interfered with). He caught it, but his second foot was about a toe's width out of bounds. Jones is a good receiver, but honestly, I've seen more sideline misses by him where it looks like a little tad more effort and he keeps both feet in bounds. That is a play Jones is very capable of making. If he does, it's 7-7 at half time.

2nd play was the 4th town pass to Jordy Nelson in the endzone. That would have been a pretty amazing catch, and could have very easily been called a touchdown initially which would have initiated a review. Now, I think if it's called a touchdown initially, it would have been a little hard to overturn. It may have hit the ground, but the replay wasn't conclusive. The fact that it was called incomplete on the field though made it nearly impossible to overturn it that way either. Maybe it wasn't a touchdown, maybe it was. The point is they were mere centimeters away from scoring on that play.

I agree that with Rodgers they win that game going away, even if the defense catches malaria at the start of the 4th qtr. But the fact is, Tolzien was probably a combined 1.3 inches away from having 3 TDs vs 1 TD. So I'm all for getting mad that the Packers lost. But being upset with Tolzien is sort of misplaced.