No team over the past decade has been a group of Hall of Famers. The Patriots over that period of time had the most total talent, even if it wasn't concentrated into singularly amazing players outside of Brady and the occasional player like Moss. Pioli and Belichick built an incredibly balanced team with talent spread across the entire roster.
Defensively, I agree. That offense was basically Brady and a bunch of scrubs. Funny you even mentioned Moss, when you gave a time frame of 02-07 and Moss was only on the team for 1 of those years.
I don't think that's a fair assessment of Rodgers. He's less proven in the sense that he's been a starter for only 3 years, but has been very, very effective every year. In his defense, it's not his fault he couldn't falter Favre. Also, his team is far less talented on offense, which should be accounted for. Donald Driver is a viagra short of decrepitude , Jennings is unreliable as a #1, and that o-line has been atrocious the past few years. I like Finley though. Meanwhile, Rivers' first starter year was with LT at his peak, above average receivers, a really good offensive line, and far and away the best TE in the game. I'm having a hard time believing that if you switched Rodgers and Rivers, Rodgers wouldn't have much better numbers than he already does. GB as a whole is overrated tbh. 1. Manning (probably going to end up as a top 2 QB or GOAT), and I don't think anyone here is close to him. 2. Brady 3. Brees (meh year so far, by his standards) 4. Rodgers 5. Rivers for me. I do think that Rivers and Rodgers are close though.
I don't agree with that at all. They had a very good offensive line and Branch and Givens, while nothing close to Hall of Famers, were good receivers. I mentioned him in passing, qualifying him with "occasional" to highlight that he wasn't a key, because I was aware he didn't overlap that period much. He was there, though, for probably their single best team. That they lost the Super Bowl is a massive fluke of NFL history.
There was at least 10-15 teams every year in that time period that were more talented on offense (besides QB, obviously). It's easy to say "hey, these guys weren't that bad!" but in comparison to what other teams had, especially other "elite" QBs, they were very inadequate. Do you think Brady would have traded Antowain Smith, Deion Branch, David Givens and Christian Fauria for Edgerin James, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark? There's no comparison.
But I was talking about the entire team talent. Having merely good players at positions is fine when you're good to very good all around. Would he have traded just those players for other, better ones? Sure. Would he have traded those players and his offensive line and defense for the Colts' receivers, running backs, offensive line and defense? I doubt it. How many teams do you think Brady would have exchanged his entire roster (minus himself) for the other team's entire roster (minus their quarterback) over the time span I mentioned? Personally, I don't think any. That other teams had better players at various positions is obvious. That was true of Montana's 49ers, too. What I said was that those Patriots had the most talented overall team in their era of the NFL, which is what matters for winning. They didn't need to beat Montana's 49ers, a team constructed under different rules, so it's not really relevant that Montana had better talent.
I've already agreed with you on the defense. I'm talking offense, exclusively. And I don't think they had a top 10 offense, in terms of talent. I think the offensive line was overrated. They have never been good at run blocking, and Brady has great pocket presence, so he rarely takes a sack, even when he is given very little time. Also, on the defense of that era, they didn't perform that well in a lot of the big playoff games. Brady really worked wonders with the crew he had, and put up some big point totals when it was needed.
http://www.nfl.com/stats/categoryst...sonType=REG&tabSeq=2&qualified=true&Submit=Go anyone see who the top scoring offense is in the NFC right now? And thats without that TD Calvin scored week 1
You guys are probably the best team in the NFC North right now. You guys could easily be 4-1 instead of 1-4.
Just for those Bills (most likely), 49ers, Panthers, and Browns fans salivating over Andrew Luck: [video=youtube;N5STc2_bM7k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5STc2_bM7k[/video]
You appeared to disagree with my original premise that those New England teams had the most talented overall teams, by which I'm referring to the entire roster. If we agree on that, cool. I agree that their offense, alone, was not the most talented in the NFL. That was never my contention. As for the offensive line, the Patriots seemed to me (though I haven't researched this, so I may be wrong) to run the ball pretty effectively through that era, despite pretty uninspiring running backs. I agree that Brady has excellent pocket presence and poise, but I always felt he had a lot of time to throw in most cases. He wasn't constantly under pressure and beating it...while he could do that, he generally had time to survey the field, let routes develop and deliver the ball with set feet.
hmmmm I have issue with a few things. Brady won two Super Bowl MVP awards and has came up big time in countless big playoff games. Its more than just him playing with a team stacked in a parity-driven league. Brady is definitely top 10 in my eyes, maybe even borderline top 5, despite never having Hall of Fame receivers around him like Manning did with Harrison and Montana did with Rice. Having a HOF caliber receiver means a lot to me as well.
Well, I'm not sure what the defense has to do with evaluating Brady as a QB. I've heard people say that Brady's 3 rings are because of the defense, but when I look back at the playoff games in those years, I see Brady's offense putting up 24 or more in almost all the big games. Sure, the defense was good, but it was never a shutdown defense. Brady always had to put points on the scoreboard, and did so in crunch time. You sure you aren't confusing their Randy Moss deep ball offense with their pre-Moss short passing attack? When Weiss was OC, almost every play was 3 step drop, quick routes and a whole lot of screen passes. btw, here are the Pats rankings for rushing (y/r) from 02-07: 02- 27th 03- 30th 04- 18th 05- 30th 06- 18th 07- 14th So yeah, i would say the offensive line (and running game as a whole) was pretty weak. And 2007 is only good because they were setting passing records and teams were only playing with 5 or 6 in the box.
