Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I watch tennis (at least the major tournaments), and I have been amazed that Federer, Nadal & Djokovic have been at the top of their games for so long. I think all three have a case for being the best men's tennis player ever, which is odd since their careers overlap.

It got me thinking about how we may have witnessed the same 'golden age' with NFL QBs...Tom Brady, Peyton Manning & Drew Brees have/had been consistently great for so long that their accomplishments were unprecedented. I think a case could be made that those three guys are the the top 3 QBs in NFL history based on production and importance to their teams.

I don't think I'd go that far, considering the rules have drastically changed over the years and training/treatment methods are vastly improved. All three of those players have had to come back from major injuries during their careers.

BD Sullivan wrote:I don't think I'd go that far, considering the rules have drastically changed over the years and training/treatment methods are vastly improved. All three of those players have had to come back from major injuries during their careers.

Are you referring to the QBs, or the tennis players?

I don't watch tennis, but in the case of the QB's, virtually all of the rules changes or advances in the game since 1978 have been slanted in favor of the offense and in particular the Quarterbacks. From the bump and run to the rules protecting Quarterbacks from being brutalized by defenders (including the Brady rule) to the gloves that receivers gloves that inflate the stats of receivers and QB's, just to name a few.

Also, don't overlook the whole Fantasy Football stats thing, which I think QB's are playing to these days in order to pad their stats. It used to be when teams got down to the opponent's one or two-yard line, they would play it safe and run the ball in or go for the QB sneak, but over the past 20 years (I believe it was Kurt Warner who first popularized this), it seems like 90 percent of the time, teams go for the TD pass. (Of course, this play backfired on the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX and cost them the game.) I intend to study this topic in the near future, but I know this shift of play-calling has happened, and it is to pad the stats of quarterbacks and receivers with a lot of cheap touchdowns.

You can also see this in two-point plays, where it seems they pass the ball on about 90 percent of the plays. I have not seen the numbers on success rates of two-point passes versus two-point runs, but I remember keeping track of them in college games back in the 1980's for a couple years (I don't have the numbers handy) and from I remember the success rates of both of them for the major college teams were each about 40 to 45 percent for runs and passes.

Bryan wrote:

BD Sullivan wrote:I don't think I'd go that far, considering the rules have drastically changed over the years and training/treatment methods are vastly improved. All three of those players have had to come back from major injuries during their careers.

Are you referring to the QBs, or the tennis players?

The QB's

Always just assume PED's in tennis, men's and women's.

Also the game has changed, on the men's side when I watched the grand slam's as a kid they played tennis. Now they have old dudes who 'somehow' have more energy/stamina than Lance Armstrong in his prime who just play some sort of endurance sport that just happens to look like tennis.

Bryan wrote:I watch tennis (at least the major tournaments), and I have been amazed that Federer, Nadal & Djokovic have been at the top of their games for so long. I think all three have a case for being the best men's tennis player ever, which is odd since their careers overlap.

It got me thinking about how we may have witnessed the same 'golden age' with NFL QBs...Tom Brady, Peyton Manning & Drew Brees have/had been consistently great for so long that their accomplishments were unprecedented. I think a case could be made that those three guys are the the top 3 QBs in NFL history based on production and importance to their teams.

An argument could be made for Brees or Manning to be the greatest QB ever. Brady obviously has six championships; Manning has 5 MVP awards and 7 1st Team All Pro selections. I think Brees is one level below. I'd put him just above Marino, as he's the Marino of his day, only with a Super Bowl title.

To Reaser’s comment, there’s definitely performance-enhancing going on, but it’s not from drugs. It’s from plants. Tom Brady has been mostly plant-based for years. Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Novak Djokovic all have made ridiculous amounts of money from prolonging their careers by going plant-based at times during their careers.

If you want to find out the truth that the meat, dairy and pharmaceutical industries desperately do not want you to know, watch “The Game Changers” documentary (https://gamechangersmovie.com/). It is the most-requested documentary in the history of iTunes, and now is available on NetFlix. Djokovic is an executive producer, as is Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris Paul, Jackie Chan and others. It shows all the science and the results that prove that going plant-based helps the energy, endurance, mental focus, performance, and minimizes recovery time of world-class weightlifters, bodybuilders, boxers, MMA fighters, bicyclists, firefighters, special ops soldiers, and yes, lots of NFL players, including 1/3 of the entire Tennessee Titans team.

There are tons of stories about the effects of going plant-based on NFL athletes: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/31/why-nfl ... vegan.html
Look at what Malcolm Jenkins is experiencing: https://www.espn.com/blog/nflnation/pos ... es-jenkins

On a personal note, I can testify that the benefits of going plant-based are 100% real. I ate meat and dairy for the first 47 years of my life. Three years ago I went vegan. Since then, workouts that would take three days to recover from now take zero recovery time. I went on a 15-mile training run with my girlfriend, then jumped into a 5K race the very next morning, and I came in 4th out of 300 runners, without even pushing myself.

Then when I was 48 I won a 5K race outright, beating the 2nd place finisher who was 27 years younger than me by more than a football field. I would go on fun runs and just wreck guys who were 15-25 years younger than me, leaving them gasping and spitting up from trying to keep up with me. And strength is not a problem. I routinely carry an entire cart’s worth of grocery bags (including lots of soy milk) to my car with one hand just to give the cashiers something to see that they haven’t seen before.

There is no question that those who make the switch to going plant-based will live a quality of life that they did not know was possible. You give up nothing – every version of plant-based burgers, pizzas, burritos, every ethnic food, chicken, mac-and-cheese, sausages, hot dogs, tuna, pulled pork, ice cream, etc. tastes and feels better than the comparable animal-based foods.

It is the one and only diet that truly checks all the boxes. It’s the best diet for athletes, and also best for non-athletes who just want to live long, healthy lives without chronic diseases. It’s also best for the planet (look up any environmental study about the causes of climate change and a lot of it comes back to meat and dairy production), and also to prove you’re a real man who stands up and protects those who cannot defend themselves, not just a coward who just wants to torture those who are different than you (yes, those would be animals) just because you've been told that it's "normal" to go kill something that didn't want to die, and wasn't even threatening you. For more about that, go to Amazon and look up John Joseph's book that has "Meat" in the title. I can't say the book's somewhat profane title here or I'll get banned from the board, but you'll want to read it. If you don't believe me, read the Amazon reviews of the book, you'll be glad you did.