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I was having this "discussion" with a Michigan fan about Brady. I firmly believe that Brady is good, but was made great by Belichick. It got me to thinking about how many HOF quarterbacks had HOF coaches.

Just a short list from the top of my head:

Aikman - Johnson, Montana-Walsh, Young-Seifert, Elway-Reeves/Shan, Brady-Belichick, Favre-Holmgren, Manning-Dungy, Rodgers-MM, Brees-Peyton.

 

I was curious what the brain trust thinks regarding who is more important, Coach or QB.

 

 

 

 

 

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The best bartender can't make a great cocktail with crap ingredients.  And a crap bartender can't make a great cocktail with great ingredients.  

And Brady is more than good.  He is/was great and has been for a long time.  

Last edited by DH13

How about luck as well? Say Alex Smith lap falls instead of 12? AR eventually gets Harbaugh wins a bunch of titles 'cause Khaki wouldn't be dumb enough to leave a HOF QB. And then we never hear of Kaepernick...

Last edited by chickenboy

Judging by some of the stills of guys open on timing routes (when AR holds the ball) and in the secondary as plays develop, and then again by some of the other-worldly throws AR makes... it's still a tie.

QB school is not what it was when AR went through it. CBA significantly limits coach/player interactions in the off-season. 

Hundley's progress since AR went down tells me what we've known about McCarthy for a long time, he is slow to adjust.

To get back to the main point, it seems that most if not all HOF quarterbacks also had HOF coaches.   Even when you look back at the early years of the league: Starr, Staubuck, Bradshaw, Montana, etc...

If MM wins another Super Bowl is he also a HOF coach? 

I think it depends and is a bit of both. Look at how the Patriots have functioned without Brady - either the near season with his knee and Cassel at the reigns or the cheating suspension with Jenny Garrapolo and company. In both cases the team hardly skipped a beat. In the Patriots system, the QB seldom needs to make plays happen after the snap. It's all pre-snap match-up IQ and this is more of a team concept. Now compare that to AR and its almost a polar opposite environment. AR12 makes much of his hay after the play call has failed. 

The Patriots unlike any team I've ever seen win with IQ, strategy and preparation...plus a sprinkle of cheating. Brady is smart, Brady works hard but has below average throwing skills and mobility. AR12 has this plus top of the charts throwing skills and mobility. This debate really cast some doubts over MM. His teams do not seem prepared and the strategic element is hard to see. Strategic being planning for the team you play with the players you have. MM does not impress in this area of late - although I know he has it in him.

I recall a game within the past few years between the Patriots and Vikings, when nobody was running on the vikings - so the Patriots called zero running plays the entire game. Unheard of to have this level of week to week change. That can only be done with strategy, IQ and preparation. Brady is perfect for this system but hardly the GOAT QB.

Starr only had a winning record when Lombardi was his coach and only while he played in Lombardi's system.  Before & after then he had a losing record with a few memorable performances mixed in.  

The way I have observed it, great things happen when a perfect storm (metaphorically speaking) occurs between player, coach, system, and complementary players.  To the extent one of those things is missing the potential results will suffer.  

At 1-2 for games at the start of his playing career, Hundley is pretty much on track with Rodgers' 6-10 first starting season (where 2 of those wins were against the worst team in history). It came after riding the bench for 3 years (2 under McCarthy).

It's too early to say that Hundley is a bust. Or that McCarthy can't coach him there.

excalibur posted:

At his age Brady has taken his game to a new, higher, level. Outside of Otto Graham, he is the greatest ever.

Bull****.  Brady, like other QBs of the era, benefits from bull**** rule changes.  Brady is a excellent QB but outside of NE he's Joe Flacco.

Last edited by Henry

Rodgers first 3 games in 2008

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You knew right away he was a starting QB.

Contrast that with Hundley this season.....

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Maybe it's just me but I see a stark contrast in QB ability between each players first few games with about the same sample size. I'm sorry but the guy is simply not a legit starting QB.

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I've read many times that Lombardi thought Sonny Jurgenson was a better QB than Starr. But we will never know what Sonny could have become because he was only coached by Lombardi for 1 year before Lombardi died.   Starr has always said he only became what he did because of Lombardi.  He always said he owed everything to Lombardi.   

It's almost like Hundley and Rodgers are different people/players. I get wanting to compare them, but their skill sets are so different it's like comparing Nelson and Cobb.

Remember that Rodgers was 6-10 his first year as full-time starter. Everyone knew he'd be great, but it's not like he won the Super Bowl his first year. Rodgers also sat for three years like Hundley has, and yet he was a losing QB his first year. We have to give Hundley more than two or three games to judge him -- and MM's ability to coach a different QB -- fairly.

DocBenni posted:

I think that Hundley is evidence that AR made MM. 

 

Maybe. But MM was the guy that told Brett to pack up his things and get lost. 

This entire conversation is a conundrum. Don Shula won Super Bowls with Bob Griese but couldn’t seal the deal with a far superior QB in Marino. Griese won because of Shula but Marino didn’t because of Shula. 

Belichick would have fired Capers years ago. He’d never have a guy like Edgar Bennett running his offense. Bill has had some fine offensive coordinators through the years. 

Bill is cut from Parcells cloth. Defense First. Immaculate ST next. Find real talent to own the offense. 

Rodgers is so much better than Brady as QBs go. Belichick just understands staff far better than Mike does. 

I have to agree with H5 here.  Rodgers was a first round pick.  I didn't even know UCLA had a football team when Hundley was drafted in the 5th.  Rodgers was the starter from jump street once we crossed the Rubicon and the train left the station and the horse got out of the barn.  I highly doubt Hundley ever, ever took snaps with the first team short of a month or so ago. 

Rodgers also sat for 3 full years, this is Hundley's 3rd year, so he only sat behind Rodgers for about two and a half years.  He's playing about as well as I would expect for a young back up with zero real game experience.

Doubt MM and Hundley if you will, there's certainly a case to be made.  I don't.

Regarding the initial post, I don't know.

 

Hundley was also injured for most of last pre-season/season. So while he was in the room(s), he did not see the field (practice or game) much.

I expect another step forward from him this weekend. In each of the last 4 games (MIN > CHI) he has improved on the previous performance. Some of that is Hundley's growth with live action, and some of that is with McSloth adjusting to the other QB.

And, some of that is the level of the competition. But improvement is improvement.

I expect a similar CHI type game for the Packers. Dom's bend don't break D will be on full display and the offense will find enough success to out-score a fairly anemic BAL offense.

Last edited by H5

Hundley looked better last week, but mostly because he appeared to l lock onto Adams and go there with the ball when he needed to make a play.  He does not appear to be good at recognizing coverage or reading when guys are open. He has the physical talent to execute simple reads and making some tough throws. 

Hungry5 posted:

It's almost like Hundley and Rodgers are different people/players. I get wanting to compare them, but their skill sets are so different it's like comparing Nelson and Cobb.

This point is where I give some benefit of the doubt to MM on offense coaching (not on defense where blind loyalty to Dom probably cost them). Favre and Rodgers are very different personalities, yet MM was able to get both of them to at least the NFC Championship game. MM has proven he can win with different guys. One can argue that a lot of coaches would have succeeded having those two, but Favre failed badly under several other coaches (Rhodes, Sherman, and Mangini).

 

The coach - QB question is an interesting debate. I think it may be as much how much the personalities of the two match. 

Starr-Lombardi. Disciplined, tough, no frills. 

Montana-Walsh. Technical, cool, detached. Patterns and drops are coordinated precisely. 

Stabler-Madden. Rebellious, don't give a **** about convention. 

Belichick-Brady. My daughter hates Tom Brady. When I ask her why she says that "he was dating a beautiful actress who seemed nice, but as soon as he had a chance to date the world's biggest supermodel he left Bridget M - even though he had knocked her up." Belichick thinks the same way in football. It doesn't matter what a player has contributed. As soon as a player is no longer of use, Belichick discards them, even superstar level players who have laid it on the line for the team for years (Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Vince Wolfork, Randy Moss, Lawyer Milloy, Wes Welker, Jamie Collins) if he thinks he can do better. Both Brady and Belichick use every trick in the book, up to and including cheating, to win. They don't give a **** what other people think or have any sentiment at all. 

Having said all this, I think the best coaching job of all time with a QB was probably Holmgren with Favre. Holmgren literally changed Favre's personality on the field to make him a winner. The Favre of 1995-1997 was amazing to watch after thinking about where he had been in Atlanta. I really think if Holmgren's ego would have let him stay in Green Bay, he'd have won 2-3 more Super Bowls with Favre. Favre didn't listen to anyone for almost a decade after Holmgren left (which I would say mentally was in 1998) and we gave Favre a pass as fans from about 1998-2006 when he threw 184 interceptions in 9 years.  In retrospect, he was awful until MM got him somewhat under control.  

MichiganPacker2 posted:

 

Belichick-Brady. My daughter hates Tom Brady. When I ask her why she says that "he was dating a beautiful actress who seemed nice, but as soon as he had a chance to date the world's biggest supermodel he left Bridget M - even though he had knocked her up." Belichick thinks the same way in football. It doesn't matter what a player has contributed. As soon as a player is no longer of use, Belichick discards them, even superstar level players who have laid it on the line for the team for years (Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Vince Wolfork, Randy Moss, Lawyer Milloy, Wes Welker, Jamie Collins) if he thinks he can do better. Both Brady and Belichick use every trick in the book, up to and including cheating, to win. They don't give a **** what other people think or have any sentiment at all. 

 

It's almost like there's some kind of analogy in there considering who their close personal friends are.  

Last edited by Henry
MichiganPacker2 posted:

Belichick thinks the same way in football. It doesn't matter what a player has contributed. As soon as a player is no longer of use, Belichick discards them, even superstar level players who have laid it on the line for the team for years (Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Vince Wolfork, Randy Moss, Lawyer Milloy, Wes Welker, Jamie Collins) if he thinks he can do better. 

 

I can’t wait for BB to dump Brady when age finally catches up with him...and that day is coming. 

My question has always been whether oxygen or hydrogen are more responsible for water.  Granted it's two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen, but without the oxygen, hydrogen is just a bunch of gas.

Dr._Bob posted:

My question has always been whether oxygen or hydrogen are more responsible for water.  Granted it's two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen, but without the oxygen, hydrogen is just a bunch of gas.

If Oxygen was bonded with Iron would you even know your transmission just fell out on the road a mile back?  IT'S ALL ABOUT DEVELOPING YOUR TRANSMISSION! . . . or something. 

Last edited by Henry

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