Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

The Dallas Cowboys were loaded with talented during the mid 60s to late 60s, but it took Roger Staubach to lift them to the next level.

Let's look at that a little bit:

In the late-60's, with Don Meredith at QB, they played the Packers (twice) and Browns (twice) in the playoffs. The Packers were one of the greatest teams ever, and the Browns were a fairly good football team with Paul Warfield, Milt Morin, Leroy Kelly, and efficient QB Bill Nelsen.

When Staubach took over in 1971, here is who they played in the playoffs:

1971: They beat the pop-gun Vikings and a nice (but not that great) 49er team in the NFC Playoffs before beating an inexperienced Dolphin team in the SB.
1972: The 49ers choked the game away to them, but they lost to the Skins the next week.
1973: They beat the choking dog Rams before losing to Tarkenton and the Vikes at home.
1975: They needed a push-off call to beat the Vikes, and then they were able to beat Choke Knox again before losing to the Steelers.
1976: They lost to the Rams
1977: They were able to beat teams with backup or lower quality QB's in the NFC Playoffs (Avellini, Lee) before beating an inexperienced Bronco team in the SB.
1978: Danny White came in to lead the Cowboys over Atlanta, and then they beat the choking Rams again before losing to the Steelers for the second time.
1979: Lost to Rams.

So, while Staubach did win two titles, those came against teams that never went to the big game before. And, in three of his NFC Title Game wins, he beat teams that had issues at QB or had a backup in (75 and 78 Rams and 77 Vikings).

I do think Brady would excel on another team with a different coach

There really isn't anything that would indicate that. Brady's career just as easily may have never took off if he was drafted somewhere else.

Someone on another board had an excellent synopsis of Brady (it was a Brady-Bledsoe comparison thread). Basically, he said that Brady fit what Belichick wanted better than Bledsoe. However, in a vacuum, Bledsoe is a better QB. The guy also went on to say that, while Marino scared him (he's a Bills fan), Brady annoys him, and he compares him to A.J. McCarron. And, in closing, he said that Brady's career was good enough to combine with Belichick for four SB's and countless AFC East titles, but it's nowhere near GOAT status. What he wrote was spot-on.

it's not a coincidence the Chiefs haven't returned to the AFC TG since Montana played for them.

That may be true, but Montana's absence isn't the only reason. And, the 49ers were able to win a SB without him.

7DnBrnc53 wrote:
Someone on another board had an excellent synopsis of Brady (it was a Brady-Bledsoe comparison thread). Basically, he said that Brady fit what Belichick wanted better than Bledsoe. However, in a vacuum, Bledsoe is a better QB. The guy also went on to say that, while Marino scared him (he's a Bills fan), Brady annoys him, and he compares him to A.J. McCarron. And, in closing, he said that Brady's career was good enough to combine with Belichick for four SB's and countless AFC East titles, but it's nowhere near GOAT status. What he wrote was spot-on.

I've watched Bledsoe and Brady throughout their careers, and I don't see how any unbiased can rate Bledsoe as the better of the two. He had a better arm, and that's about the only advantage he had over Brady. His release was slower and he was particularly slow in finding a secondary receiver when his first receiver was covered. He threw a ton of interceptions when he had to go to someone other than his primary receiver.

Do you really think it's "spot-on" to compare Brady to A.J. McCarron?

rhickok1109 wrote:

7DnBrnc53 wrote:
Someone on another board had an excellent synopsis of Brady (it was a Brady-Bledsoe comparison thread). Basically, he said that Brady fit what Belichick wanted better than Bledsoe. However, in a vacuum, Bledsoe is a better QB. The guy also went on to say that, while Marino scared him (he's a Bills fan), Brady annoys him, and he compares him to A.J. McCarron. And, in closing, he said that Brady's career was good enough to combine with Belichick for four SB's and countless AFC East titles, but it's nowhere near GOAT status. What he wrote was spot-on.

I've watched Bledsoe and Brady throughout their careers, and I don't see how any unbiased can rate Bledsoe as the better of the two. He had a better arm, and that's about the only advantage he had over Brady. His release was slower and he was particularly slow in finding a secondary receiver when his first receiver was covered. He threw a ton of interceptions when he had to go to someone other than his primary receiver.

Do you really think it's "spot-on" to compare Brady to A.J. McCarron?

Yes. I have watched a lot of NE games the last 13 years or so, and my opinion is that Brady is a barely above average narrative driven QB that always gets a free pass from the media.

Case in point: In the 2003 AFC Divisional Round, Brady didn't play that well by halftime. However, Boomer Esiason is singing his praises and going on and on about how great he is.

I'll say this. Drew Bledsoe's prime was between the second half of 1994 and the first half of the 1999 season. (He had a lousy 1995, but some of that is excused by a shoulder injury he played through.) At that time, he was just as good as Brady was between, say 2001 and 2006. Bledsoe wasn't a bad two minute player (back to back GW TD's in the final minute of play...with a broken finger on his throwing hand!) but he wasn't as good as Brady in that aspect. The difference was, Brady took his game to a whole new level, while Bledsoe badly regressed. He held the ball too long and took an inordinate number of sacks. He really only looked like his old self in the first half of 2002, with Buffalo.
Brady got a number of weapons in 2007, with Moss, Welker, and Stallworth. He was/is fanatical about keeping himself in shape and fighting off Father Time, and he became smarter and smarter. Bledsoe seed to be shell-shocked.

conace21 wrote:I'll say this. Drew Bledsoe's prime was between the second half of 1994 and the first half of the 1999 season. (He had a lousy 1995, but some of that is excused by a shoulder injury he played through.) At that time, he was just as good as Brady was between, say 2001 and 2006. Bledsoe wasn't a bad two minute player (back to back GW TD's in the final minute of play...with a broken finger on his throwing hand!) but he wasn't as good as Brady in that aspect. The difference was, Brady took his game to a whole new level, while Bledsoe badly regressed. He held the ball too long and took an inordinate number of sacks. He really only looked like his old self in the first half of 2002, with Buffalo.
Brady got a number of weapons in 2007, with Moss, Welker, and Stallworth. He was/is fanatical about keeping himself in shape and fighting off Father Time, and he became smarter and smarter. Bledsoe seed to be shell-shocked.

It was surprising to see Bledsoe regress with Buffalo, but lots of aspects of sport are unexplained. Getting back to my earlier point of the difference between Roger Staubach and Craig Morton with the Cowboys, Staubach led so many comeback wins, he was a vastly superior QB. In my view, had Staubach played for Dallas earlier they would have had more postseason success prior to 1971.

The Cowboys did manage to win two 1970 playoff games with Morton starting, though he contributed next to nothing:

Lions, 5-0 win: 4 of 18 for 38 yards and an interception.
49ers, 17-10 win: 7 of 22 for 101 yards, one 5-yard TD pass.


The year before, he was awful against Cleveland. However, I'm not sure rookie Staubach would have beaten the Browns, either.

8 of 24 for 92 yards and two interceptions in 38-14 loss, played in Cotton Bowl slop.


Then there's Morton's blunder in SB V...

Morton always gets blamed for the late interception in SB 5 but I have always thought that Dan Reeves could have, or even should have, caught that ball.

L.C. Greenwood wrote:

conace21 wrote:I'll say this. Drew Bledsoe's prime was between the second half of 1994 and the first half of the 1999 season. (He had a lousy 1995, but some of that is excused by a shoulder injury he played through.) At that time, he was just as good as Brady was between, say 2001 and 2006. Bledsoe wasn't a bad two minute player (back to back GW TD's in the final minute of play...with a broken finger on his throwing hand!) but he wasn't as good as Brady in that aspect. The difference was, Brady took his game to a whole new level, while Bledsoe badly regressed. He held the ball too long and took an inordinate number of sacks. He really only looked like his old self in the first half of 2002, with Buffalo.
Brady got a number of weapons in 2007, with Moss, Welker, and Stallworth. He was/is fanatical about keeping himself in shape and fighting off Father Time, and he became smarter and smarter. Bledsoe seed to be shell-shocked.

It was surprising to see Bledsoe regress with Buffalo, but lots of aspects of sport are unexplained. Getting back to my earlier point of the difference between Roger Staubach and Craig Morton with the Cowboys, Staubach led so many comeback wins, he was a vastly superior QB. In my view, had Staubach played for Dallas earlier they would have had more postseason success prior to 1971.

I recall reading at the time that Bledsoe was having a grand old time with the Bills, and then they played the Patriots, and Belichick's scheme basically laid out the blueprint for how to shut him down. Certainly looking at the game logs for 2002, that seems to be somewhat borne out.

So if that's true, it's maybe less regression and more reversion to the mean.

As for the Brady - A.J. McCarron comparison, I don't know what to say. That strikes me as a chapter out of the Illuminati Theory of Football Analysis... Either that, or something out of an Ali G. segment -- "My mate Dave sez that Brady's only a quarterback becoz he had dem three brothers and three sisters...."

Jeremy Crowhurst wrote:

L.C. Greenwood wrote:

conace21 wrote:I'll say this. Drew Bledsoe's prime was between the second half of 1994 and the first half of the 1999 season. (He had a lousy 1995, but some of that is excused by a shoulder injury he played through.) At that time, he was just as good as Brady was between, say 2001 and 2006. Bledsoe wasn't a bad two minute player (back to back GW TD's in the final minute of play...with a broken finger on his throwing hand!) but he wasn't as good as Brady in that aspect. The difference was, Brady took his game to a whole new level, while Bledsoe badly regressed. He held the ball too long and took an inordinate number of sacks. He really only looked like his old self in the first half of 2002, with Buffalo.
Brady got a number of weapons in 2007, with Moss, Welker, and Stallworth. He was/is fanatical about keeping himself in shape and fighting off Father Time, and he became smarter and smarter. Bledsoe seed to be shell-shocked.

It was surprising to see Bledsoe regress with Buffalo, but lots of aspects of sport are unexplained. Getting back to my earlier point of the difference between Roger Staubach and Craig Morton with the Cowboys, Staubach led so many comeback wins, he was a vastly superior QB. In my view, had Staubach played for Dallas earlier they would have had more postseason success prior to 1971.

I recall reading at the time that Bledsoe was having a grand old time with the Bills, and then they played the Patriots, and Belichick's scheme basically laid out the blueprint for how to shut him down. Certainly looking at the game logs for 2002, that seems to be somewhat borne out.

So if that's true, it's maybe less regression and more reversion to the mean.

As for the Brady - A.J. McCarron comparison, I don't know what to say. That strikes me as a chapter out of the Illuminati Theory of Football Analysis... Either that, or something out of an Ali G. segment -- "My mate Dave sez that Brady's only a quarterback becoz he had dem three brothers and three sisters...."

Thanks for a much-needed laugh

One small comment about Bledsoe's supposed prime between the second half of 1994 and the first half of 1999: In the second half of the 1994 season, he threw 16 interceptions! That's more than Brady has ever thrown in an entire season.

BD Sullivan wrote:The Cowboys did manage to win two 1970 playoff games with Morton starting, though he contributed next to nothing:

Lions, 5-0 win: 4 of 18 for 38 yards and an interception.
49ers, 17-10 win: 7 of 22 for 101 yards, one 5-yard TD pass.


The year before, he was awful against Cleveland. However, I'm not sure rookie Staubach would have beaten the Browns, either.

8 of 24 for 92 yards and two interceptions in 38-14 loss, played in Cotton Bowl slop.


Then there's Morton's blunder in SB V...

You're giving the most extreme examples of cases where QBs don't make a difference in trying to argue that they don't matter. I don't think anyone is arguing that ever single win was as a result of the QB. QBs aren't interchange and they have to make some difference; teams obviously feel they do and so do most fans. QBs do handle the ball every play on offense, audible, decide where to throw the ball and physically run or pass. They have to have some impact. The correct question should be how much of a difference do they make? SABR type of analysis has done a good job of answering how valuable a player is to his team in baseball; football needs to find a way to quantify the formerly unquantifiable. It might not be 100% accurate but it would be a start.