Ben Roethlisberger

New York Giants QB Eli Manning

Last week was a week of QB overstatements. New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan said Jets QB Mark Sanchez is elite. New York Giants QB Eli Manning said he was in Tom Brady’s class of QBs (i.e. elite). And, somehow, the delusion managed to leave NY and travel all the way down to Baltimore where 3rd year QB Joe Flacco of the Ravens said he was a top 5 QB (i.e. elite).

Hmmmm

Hmmmmm

Hmmmmmmmmm

I’m all for players (and coaches) fighting to get a place in the top player conversation. I’ve blogged about that before in reference to Donovan McNabb. The truth is, once people say something enough, people start to believe it. And once people believe something ain’t much that will change their mind. So hats off to Flacco, E. Manning, and Rex Ryan for trying to drive the conversation.

I don’t agree with what they said though.

Which brings me to the point of this post. What is an elite QB?

One of the reasons I hate getting into debates about “who’s the best such and such” or “who’s the top such and such” is because there are NEVER any parameters. Someone arguing for Tony Romo will cite his completion rate, somebody arguing for Brady will mention Superbowls, someone arguing for Rivers will emphasize passing yards.

*Enter conversation that goes round and round and never ends*

That’s why those kinds of debates make great fodder…everyone can argue forever and the only loser is my last nerve.

Short on that kind of patience, I boil my analysis of elite QB down to one question:

Can the QB do something on a CONSISTENT basis that no one else can do?

And by no one I mean, almost no one. But you get my point. A QB needs to have some sort of talent that makes them unique or rare. That talent needs to be CONSTANT-not appear in flashes here and there.

From my perspective:

Ben Roethlisberger is agile and tough enough to defy almost any defender—though Richard Seymour might want to have a word with me about this. He also has an uncanny ability to extend plays.

Tom Brady’s decision making is top notch. He just has a feel for the game that is unmatched.

Michael Vick’s athleticism and ability to extend a play puts him in a class of his own regardless of what other weaknesses he may have. And long passes are effortless for him, so is scrambling when he needs to.

Drew Brees’ ability to create a play with his arm is as stunning as it is fun to watch. Pro Football Focus found that if you discount spikes, dropped balls and grounded balls, Brees and Brady were the most accurate QBs of 2010. Brees also knows how to find weaknesses and exploit them.

Aaron Rodgers’ versatility makes him a complete QB with some real strengths in every area of measure. In particular, he can threat the needle and he has a quick release.

I can’t think of any “rare something” possessed by Eli Manning or Mark Sanchez that impresses me game after game. When I can, I’ll consider them elite.

That doesn’t mean they’re not good. Mark Sanchez has accomplished a lot in a short period of time and shows flashes of brilliance. Eli Manning has a Superbowl under his belt and managed to do it with the entire New York media firing shots directly at his butt cheeks. And Flacco is still the only rookie in NFL history to win two playoff games.

But good is not elite. And by my measuring stick they fall short.

So now you have my criteria. What’s yours?

Update: Sanchez became the 2nd rookie to play in two playoff games. Thanks for the correction @klew24. Maybe I blocked that out because I hope the Jets go up in flames. ^_^

For the past 23948092343 years sports journalists and media outlets like ESPN have been working over time to tell us how big Brett Favre’s quarterback penis is. I maintain that Favre is one of, if not the most, overrated quarterback in the history of the game.

This is not to say that Favre wasn’t good-he absolutely was. But he’s also a beneficiary of golden boy deference. Over the years he’s charmed the microphones and pens right off your favorite journalists. But it’s not his fault that his aw shucks country boy routine has been effective, he isn’t in this alone.

Sports media scrambles like hell to crown to someone. Always in a hurry to have a debate about who’s the best right now, who’s the best ever. That’s the kind of conversation that dominates sports coverage. Personally, I find it tiring. I’m also not a man, so that could explain my disinterest in turning every.fucking.thing into a head to head competition and debate.

As you can see on this blog, I rarely ever write posts like that. To me, sports is bigger than that-I can appreciate one player for his individual contributions to the game and not just what he has contributed in comparison to someone else.

But I digress.

After so many years of lying in sports-writing bed with Favre, stroking his blond locks and rubbing his feet with the vigor of Rex Ryan, sports media has now decided that Rodgers is the best thing since sliced WHITE bread. And in order to make sure we all go along with the incessant cooing over Rodgers that will take place until another fair skinned rocket thrower appears on the scene, ESPN has to do just like every other man:  Tell everybody JUST HOW FUCKING MUCH BETTER HE IS THAN THE LAST GUY THEY FUCKED.

For your viewing pleasure courtesy of Sportscenter’s twitter account:

And for the record, Super Bowl 45 or none, Ben Roethlisberger still kicks ass!!

Congrats to the Packers. They lost key players to injury in the Super Bowl and still managed to pull out a victory.

LEAD UP AND PRE-GAME

Let’s start out by saying, I don’t give a damn about the Super Bowl unless my team is playing. I just watch because I love football. The Super Bowl becomes even more of a production every year. Now we’re up to two full weeks of Super Bowl talk all around mainstream media plus a weekend of stories and interviews and flashbacks etc.

I do enjoy “some” of it. But now that the NFL has replaced baseball as America’s sport, the level of attention paid to the Super Bowl from all spheres has become overwhelming. So much so, I really didn’t pay much attention to most of it.

As far as the pre-game was concerned, I get making Super Bowl a distinctly Americans event-we love holidays and nostalgia. But this year’s Super Bowl was full of unwelcome and uncomfortable propaganda. All sorts of lines about “freedom” and “independence” read by players, coaches, and military men and women, among others. It felt like it was airing on the history channel, only the Fox News version where there are colonies and colonizers but no small pox blankets or slaves.

In fact, they actually talked about the colonies. Awkward. The tone of pre-game production wasn’t my cup of tea. I suggest the NFL keep the history references to a minimum unless they’re referring to the evolution of the game.

The National Anthem And Whatnot

In a show of shameless promotion, Fox decided to have Lea Michele from the sitcom(?) “Glee” sing “America the Beautiful.” Unfortunately, it sounded ugly. Too bad the NFL doesn’t have any Canadian expansion teams, cause that would have been a good reason to drag Tamia out to sing “Oh Canada.” ANYTHING would have been better.

Christina Aguilera’s rendition of the Star-spangled Banner was simply awful! She oversang, messed up the words, and looked like a goth blob. Most people who sing the anthem choose to pre-record. That eliminates these sorts of embarrassments. But alas she sung her rendition live. I’m sure she wishes she had a time machine.

Speaking of the anthem, Americans will bet on anything, and by anything I mean the over/under on how long it would take Aguilera to finish the national anthem. The two big gambling sites bodog.com and Bookmaker.com clocked the time differently (1:53.7 and 1:54.2 respectively), sending the online gambling world into a frenzy.

I may or may not be exaggerating.

HALFTIME

I thought the Black Eyed Peas did a good job but they put quantity over quality, opting for a effect-driven show rather than a talent-driven one. 500 dancers and I don’t even know how many songs were in their medley-7 maybe? They also bought out both Slash and Usher. I thought both were great, but Fergie’s singing wasn’t as good as it normally is and the songs jumped genres and had no real flow.

But luckily I like their party music, so I jigged a little and was satisfied for the most part. I think if you like BEP, generally speaking, the performance was good, if you don’t it was a tragic mistake.

Kind of hard to please anyone who’s seen Michael Jackson and Prince perform at halftime.

THE GAME

The first quarter simply wasn’t competitive. The Packers ran over the Steelers scoring two quick touch downs. The rest of the game was much better, but turnovers and dropped balls pervaded it making the energy a bit uneven.  Still a a good game overall (probably not in the top 10 of those I’ve seen in my lifetime though).

I remain kind of in disbelief that defensive titans Harrison, Polamalu, Farrior, and Clark made very little impact on the game.The Packers Defense played well-they looked confused for a bit after CB Charles Woodson left the game with a broken collar bone, but eventually pulled themselves back together and continued to apply pressure.

Ben Roethlisberger made some crucial errors and turnovers including 2 interceptions. The Packers converted Steelers’ turnovers into 21 points, and I think that really tells a lot of the story. Rodgers looked to be heading into his normal bad-second-half routine that he’s had throughout this year’s playoffs but it didn’t last very long. He really put together a good game.

RODGERS VS. FAVRE

I think it would be a nice gesture if Favre called Rodgers personally to congratulate him. Favre has been a hard act to follow in terms of winning the hearts and minds of fans. But as you can see from Rodgers’ play this year and Favre’s stints with the Jets and Vikings, the Packers made the right choice in sticking with Rodgers.

I’m sure Packers fans will have no problem coming to terms with this now that that they have another Lombardi trophy to show for it. Besides, after only 3 years they have a QB that gets to be in the ranks of the “chosen ones” that analysts shower with deference and positivity. A land where no black man shall ever live. Just one more thing to celebrate.

DEPRESSION

I do watch other sports; however football is the only sport that matters. The lockout that is looming is like a dark cloud over my life. Speaking of life, unfortunately, with football season over I have to get one.

I’m glad that the combine is coming up soon because that’s always a good time, well, to me anyway.

Even though the season is over I will still be busy on this blog. It’s in the process of being redesigned and I’m working on some special projects to introduce that will make next football season even more fun for me and hopefully for my readers as well.

When asked about the pain in his injured foot, Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger said: “It hurt a lot, but the broken nose took some of the pain away.”

That quote sums up the death-match that takes place any time the Steelers play the Ravens.

Oh and so does this hit on Heath Miller that almost brought a fucking tear to my eye.

To summarize:

Baltimore lost Heap on the first play from scrimmage. The Steelers lost Sepulveda in the first half. In the second, Miller left with a concussion after he took a shot to the head from linebacker Jameel McClain. Carl Johnson, the NFL’s head of officiating, told NBC that McClain should have been penalized on the play.

For most of the game the Ravens were in the lead and by the time the Steelers went up by 3 and there was under 2:30 minutes on the clock, I knew the Ravens would lose. If two teams are scoring about once every 20 minutes, it’s hard to imagine one of them getting another score within 2 minutes.

From the beginning I said that this game would come down to Flacco, and boy did it. Flacco was strip-sacked by Polamalu with 4 minutes on the clock and with under 2 minutes on the clock threw somewhat of a bounce pass that obviously wasn’t caught by the receiver.

To be fair, Flacco had lots of completions last night-even on long passes which he typically struggles with. He passed some real beauties to Donte Stallworth and Anquan Boldin.

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