He has all day to stand behind the line and tear up the middle of the field. Teams that play him aggressively and put their defensive backs on the line of scrimmage easily confuse him and tend to beat him.

NSD wrote:

The thread title may sound silly in the wake of all of the accolades for Aaron Rodgers these days, but one trend I've noticed on the radio and in print is that Rodgers is still not generally considered to be in the same category of Brady, Brees, and Manning. It's weird when you think about it. After three very impressive regular seasons, he was regarded as a notch below those guys, which was understandable, and now that he's put together one of the most impressive playoff runs for a QB in the history of the league, culminating in a championship and a Super Bowl MVP award...he's still not quite there. How do they figure this stuff?

The fact is, Rodgers can do everything those guys can do, plus he's much more mobile than any of them--and he's been doing it for three years now. Maybe his playoff performance just needs more time to sink in. By the time next season rolls around (assuming it does), I think our QB will be rightfully regarded as one of the very best in the league. If he isn't, I'll need to hear an explanation.

"Greg C." wrote:

NSD wrote:

Even if he never wins four Super Bowls, Aaron might give Joe a run for the money. He's already equaled one of Joe's accomplishments -- starting all 16 games in a season twice -- and he's a third of the way to matching another: starting 15 games thrice. Montana only threw for 28 or more TDs twice in his career; Rodgers has already done so in three consecutive seasons. The most Montana ever threw was 3944 yards in a season; Rodgers has already exceeded 4000 twice and thrown for 3922 this season. Like Joe, Aaron has thrown for over 300 yards and 3 TDs with no INTs in a Super Bowl, though his rating was a little lower.

I'm sure there are other interesting comparisons that could be drawn, but I'm way too tired to dig anymore.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to watch.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

Even if he never wins four Super Bowls, Aaron might give Joe a run for the money. He's already equaled one of Joe's accomplishments -- starting all 16 games in a season twice -- and he's a third of the way to matching another: starting 15 games thrice. Montana only threw for 28 or more TDs twice in his career; Rodgers has already done so in three consecutive seasons. The most Montana ever threw was 3944 yards in a season; Rodgers has already exceeded 4000 twice and thrown for 3922 this season. Like Joe, Aaron has thrown for over 300 yards and 3 TDs with no INTs in a Super Bowl, though his rating was a little lower.

I'm sure there are other interesting comparisons that could be drawn, but I'm way too tired to dig anymore.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to watch.

"Nonstopdrivel" wrote:

🇱🇮Only 27.8% of Roethlisberger's TD drives have gone 70+ yards. The average is 48.2%.[/li]
🇱🇮In four games, Aaron Rodgers has already lead more 80+ yard TD drives (8) than Drew Brees (7), Donovan McNabb (7), Tom Brady (7), Jim Kelly (5), and Ben Roethlisberger (4), among several others.[/li]
🇱🇮Steve Young (38.6%) and Troy Aikman (33.3%) had more TD drives start in opponent territory than anyone else.[/li]

"Pro Football Reference" wrote:

Is it surprising Brady, Montana and Manning rank in the top 5 in percentage of their passes intercepted in the red zone? Or that Montana (5) has the highest number of red zone interceptions? Bengals fans probably would say that number should be 6, referring to Lewis Billups dropping Montana's interception in the end zone in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Things that make you go hmm....

Jake Delhomme's pick parade against the Cardinals gives him the lowest average score margin for his interceptions at -11.60. Dan Marino is right there with him at -11.04. Only Rodgers (small sample size), Montana, McNair and Kelly averaged interceptions with a lead. Out of the experienced quarterbacks, Montana, Moon and Manning all threw at least 42% of their picks with the lead, yet only Montana has the winning record. No one averaged more INTs/drive than Jim Kelly.

Something that is not surprising: Brett Favre throwing 6 interceptions in the 4th quarter/overtime with a one score deficit or tie. Those must have been fun.

"PFR" wrote:

2001 - Brady needed the tuck rule followed by the greatest clutch kick ever to just get past the first game.
2003 - Brady needed Vinatieri to again hit a tough 45 yard FG on a frozen night to beat the Titans, and Drew Bennett dropped a big pass on 4th down to end the game.
2004 - Can't really say anything about Brady's performance here. McNabb's 3 picks sure helped win a close one though.
2006 - Vinatieri kicked 5 FGs in Baltimore, a game without any TDs. The defense had to stop Brady on a 3rd & 4 to get Manning the ball back for the winning TD. They had to pick off Brady to end the game.

"Scot Kacsmar" wrote:

In fact, no matter where I set the minimum attempts, he still comes out at or near the bottom in YPA. I know the excuses by heart: wintry Foxborough weather, crappy receivers (pre-07), etc. But it's still surprising. In the absence of net YPA, ordinary YPA is probably the best indicator of ability (INT are random year to year; TD passes are often merely a function of playcalling), and the QB for the winningest playoff team in that span has very mediocre postseason YPA numbers relative to his peers.

"Neil Paine" wrote:

As a long-time Brady hater, I am well aware of those YPA numbers. If you look at the 62 QBs with 150+ playoff attempts, he comes in 45th in YPA, right behind McNabb and Kerry Collins.

He also comes in 60th out of 62 in yards/completion (10.4), only above notoriously bad playoff QBs Drew Bledsoe and Steve McNair.

I think he relies on the dink and dunk a lot, and plays conservative while relying on the defense to do the job in many of these games. Then sometimes he's just plain awful like the Baltimore game in January.

Starting with the Carolina Super Bowl and ending with the win over Jacksonville in the 2005 Wild Card round, Brady had a great playoff run of 5 games. But the games before that and after that, he's been average at best. Reminds me of what I said about Montana/Bradshaw/Aikman, but usually your hot streak comes at the end or beginning of your career, not in the middle (of your playoff career).

"Scott Kacsmar" wrote:

Neil, the Foxoboro weather argument doesn't work. And those receivers did a pretty good job of not dropping the ball unlike some bigger-named guys on other teams that blow it.

In 2001, Brady only had the one bad weather game (the Tuck Rule game). The weather in Pittsburgh was fine, and the SB was in a dome.

In 2003, it was a very cold night against the Titans, but the field was fine. Steve McNair, playing against the tougher #1 ranked NE defense, had a 8.08 YPA compared to 4.90 for Brady. For the AFC-C, the weather was not good, and having recently watched that game, I couldn't believe how many passes both QBs were throwing near the defense. Brady could have had 4 INTs himself that day. The SB was again played indoors in Houston.

In 2004, they got another bad weather day against the Colts, and both QBs played dink & dunk football. The Steeler game was cold, but no snow or anything. Roethlisberger had a 9.42 YPA in that game. The SB was played in Jacksonville, weather-free.

In 2005, both games were played in clear, cool weather.

In 2006, it was nearly 50 degrees when they played the Jets at home. San Diego had nice (January) weather. Indy was a dome.

In 2007, the weather was unusually nice and calm for both games in NE. The SB was played indoors.

Last year, it was cold, but the field was in great shape for the Baltimore game.

So you're looking at 3 games out of 18 where the weather was a factor, and the common link is snow. You can subtract those games and he'd still be at 6.55 in YPA.

"Scott Kacsmar" wrote:

The only game Joe Montana ever got pulled out of was in the playoffs against the Vikings in 1987 when he could do no right and the Vikings Wade Wilson could do no wrong. This was the 3rd consecutive dreadful game that Montana had in the playoffs. In these three games, Montana threw no TD passes and 4 INTs! Should we petition the HOF to throw Montana out on his ear?
Fortunately, Montana redeemed himself, but if we just looked at those three games, we'd have to judge him the worst of all-time.
Few QBs play enough post-season games to conclude very much. Even those who have played a lot of post-season games---those games form only a minor portion of their careers, and given the element of luck, most end up with about a 50% winning percentage. Only Starr and Brady stand out above the crowd---and Brady had extraordinary luck. Romo has only 4 playoff games under his belt. Give him another 8-10 playoff games and maybe we can draw a few conclusions.

"Clark Heins" wrote:

Perceptions of QBs can be downright strange even among supposedly unbiased experts. They often say it's all about winning (especially in the playoffs), but the exact same people give Aaron Rodgers a free pass for having Romo-esque regular season stats but with a worse winning % and 0 playoff wins. Heck, until he imploded in Chicago many people talked up Jay Cutler as being CLEARLY better than Romo...in spite of having worst stats in every area AND a worse winning % AND never even making the playoffs, never mind winning a game. People are only just now seeming to notice that Carson Palmer hasn't been an elite QB since 2006. Tom Brady was called a mediocre system quarterback when he was winning Super Bowls with B-list receivers (as a Pats fan I always loved that one), and now that he's NOT winning titles anymore he's considered super-elite.

"Sean10mm" wrote:

I said it before any of you, by the way.

"zombieslayer" wrote: