Clayton on the Jets

Is Brett a Bad Bet for the Jets?
By ALLEN BARRA
August 12, 2008; Page D7



Arriving in New York last Friday, Brett Favre sounded as if he had taken a page from Bull Durham's Nuke LaLoosh. "I'm here for one reason," he told reporters. "I'm here to help the Jets win."

It would have been refreshing if at least one of the worshipful media folk at the press conference had replied, "Well, actually, Brett, you're here because after months of vacillating on your retirement and putting the Packers through hell -- and forcing them into using a valuable draft pick on an extra quarterback because they didn't know whether you'd be playing for them this season -- you tried to bully them into either making you the starter or trading you to a team of your choice. Like a prima donna, you put your own desires ahead of the welfare of the organization to which you professed loyalty. Now you've been dumped on one of the NFL's most desperate franchises because no one else wanted you."


Associated Press
Brett Favre
Instead, we're getting gush from a New York media that really ought to know better. Here's the Daily News's Mike Lupica on August 8: "The Jets became a viable franchise [by signing Favre], made you finally notice and talk about them and care about them." As if talking and caring translates into winning football games. And here's CBS's Phil Simms, former New York Giants quarterback and Super Bowl winner: "This is bigger than when Joe Montana left the Forty-Niners to go to Kansas City in 1993."

It would be if Brett Favre were as good as Joe Montana. Mr. Montana won four Super Bowls and was arguably the greatest quarterback in football history; Mr. Favre has won just one Super Bowl and is probably the most overrated, or at the very least overhyped, quarterback in the modern NFL.

Let's strip the Brett-to-the-Jets deal of the illusions the media has wrapped it in. What we have is a 4-12 team that has signed a 38-year-old quarterback who, though he made something of a comeback last season, hasn't otherwise finished in the top five of the league's passers since 2001. (In 2006 he was ranked 25th; in 2005, 31st.).

From 2005 to 2007, Mr. Favre has thrown 66 touchdown passes and 62 interceptions. If any other NFL quarterback had put up those numbers, his job would be on the line; instead, the New York Jets have chosen to delay the inevitable process of breaking in a new young quarterback -- and in fact have released Chad Pennington, who, according to Kerry Byrne of the Web site Cold Hard Football Facts, is "maybe the most underrated quarterback in the NFL."

Brett Favre is one of the most exciting pro quarterbacks ever -- "gun slinger" is the description most often associated with his go-for-broke style of passing. For the most part, the style has been successful: He has guided the Packers to the postseason 11 times in 16 seasons, and he is the NFL's all-time leader in passing attempts, completions, yards and touchdowns. There is no argument that he is a future Hall of Famer.

But there is also considerable evidence that he is nowhere near, as his admirers claim, the greatest passer ever to play the game or that he even ranks in the top 25. Mr. Favre's trademark has always been productivity over quality. He's been remarkably durable with the daring to throw the ball more than any other passer, but he hasn't always thrown it better. He has never, for instance, led the NFL in the league's passer-rating system, which measures effectiveness with various statistics. (In comparison, Joe Montana led the league twice; Mr. Montana's successor at San Francisco, Steve Young, was first six times, and Peyton Manning three times.)

Mr. Favre has probably been excused by fans for not winning a passer-rating title because its formula is so complex most fans don't understand it. However, in the single most important passing stat, yards per attempt (YPA), he has also never led the league and finished as high as second only once (in 1995 with a 7.7 average). Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger currently leads the league in active players at over 8.1 yards per throw.

It's true that Mr. Favre holds the all-time record for TD passes (442), but what isn't as well known is that he also holds the record for most interceptions (288). Perhaps the best way of understanding Mr. Favre's effectiveness is to compare him to baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan, who holds the all-time record for strikeouts but also for walks. Everyone concedes that Mr. Ryan was a legitimate Hall of Famer, but with a lifetime winning percentage of .526, no one argues that he was the best ever or even among his own contemporaries.

Nor, it must be admitted, has Mr. Favre been a particularly good big game performer. His career postseason is a mediocre 12-10, including an embarrassing 23-20 loss to the underdog New York Giants in the NFC conference championship this past January. On his own home field Mr. Favre was outdueled by the previously unheralded Eli Manning. In fact, as a postseason passer Mr. Favre has never approached the record of the Packers' Bart Starr, who won five NFL championships from 1961 to 1967.

Football historian T.J. Troup feels that Mr. Favre's place among the all-time greats is difficult to assess: "In the modern NFL, the rules favor passing over defense, so statistics alone can't tell the story. Put it this way: Favre has won three MVP awards, but except maybe in 1995, he has never really been the best and not as good as many passers from 'the dead ball era,' like Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr and Roger Staubach were in theirs."

However good Mr. Favre was, though, is beside the point to the 2008 New York Jets, who may have bet their future on a Hail Mary pass.

Hey Reynolds, you'll like this post from a Packers fan on jetnation.com

Originally Posted by PackerJetFan
It pisses me off when fools like that have a massive platform. The guy knows absolutely nothing about football or Favre, but there are millions of people reading this nonsense, possibly thinking he actually has a point:



1) Unless the Packers are full of crap about drafting BPA, they would have taken Brohm anyway. Nobody forced them to draft him. They could have signed a vet to be the backup.
2) After the Packers made it clear he wasn't going to start there, why should he have put the team ahead of his own interests. (If you believe Favre) The Packers told him "Playing here isn't an option." So what's he supposed to do? Stay retired just so the Packers aren't put in an uncomfortable situation?
3) Saying "no one else wanted you" is incorrect, but why worry about facts.



It's nice that he provides, ya know, some data to back this up. It's also nice of him to leave out the fact that Favre has never played with a Hall of Famer on offense, while Montana had one of the best supporting casts in history. And that Montana played pre-salary cap when it was easy to keep a great team together. Not to take anything away from him, but it's insane to say "OMG Favre only won one Super Bowl so he's overrated!" Look at what he was working with for most of the last decade. It wasn't Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Brent Jones, Roger Craig, Tom Rathman and a ridiculous OL....



A 4-12 team who signed a slew of new players in addition to the 38 year old QB and added Gholston to the defense. And even if he hasn't finished in the top 5 of league's passers, that's using the ridiculous QB rating stat. He's been runner up in the MVP voting twice. Not that that's the be-all-end-all either, but I'd take that as a gauge before I'd use passer rating.



So you've got one bad year when he got off to a good start before every player on the offense got hurt (They used like 7 starting RBs that year, including Rashard freaking Lee), one great year, and one mediocre year. But based on his career as a whole, it's pretty clear which of those seasons was a complete outlier.

And if Kerry Byrne said Chad Pennington is the most underrated QB in the NFL it MUST be true! Great support for the argument there. Never mind that in the last 3 years, Pennington has 29 TD passes and 28 picks. Worse numbers than Favre's, even with that one disaster of a season that isn't likely to be repeated.

And the delay in breaking in a young QB assumes that the QB of the Future is on the roster. The best bet for that would be a guy with 5 TDs and 10 INTs in his career. Yeah it was stupid to go get Brett Favre.



Now he's not a Top-25 QB of all-time? What the hell? I'd love to see this joker's list.

The NFL's passer rating system is insane. And using Peyton Manning in support of your argument might not be the best idea (I'll get to that in a minute). But as long as we're considering it to be such an important stat, let's look at a few years:

In 1995, Favre was runner up to JIM FREAKING HARBAUGH! Favre's 38 Touchdowns, 13 INTs, 4400 yards, and 63% completion percentage lost out to Harbaugh's 17 Touchdowns, 5 INTs, 2500 yards and 63% completion percentage. Clearly Harbaugh was the more effective passer.

In 1996, Favre was runner up to Steve Young. His 39 TDs and 13 INTs were pretty clearly inferior to Young throwing a whopping 14 Touchdowns and 6 INTs.

In 1997, Favre finished behind Young and Chris Chandler. 35 Touchdowns, 16 Picks and another MVP were no match for 19 TDs and 6 picks, or Chandler's 20 TDs, 7 picks and 2700 yards passing. Chandler was so good that he QB'ed his team to a 7-7 record that year.



And Ben Roethlisberger is pretty clearly the best quarterback in the league. Except that, uh oh, over three years (before last year when he was great) he had 52 TDs and 43 Interceptions, which means his job should have been on the line according to a few paragraphs ago. Last year, Favre finished behind Matt Schaub in that stat. Yup, it's a clear-cut indicator of how good a QB is.

Also, how arrogant is the first sentence in this paragraph? Pehaps our resident genius would like to explain the system without looking it up and then tell us how it was derived. Why are we subtracting 30 points from the completion percentage before multiplying by .05? Why do we subtract 3 yards off YPA? What the hell does it even mean?

Did I miss when a passer-rating title became important? Favre had 16 Touchdowns in the first five games of 1996, more than Young had the entire season. And a better TD/INT ratio to boot. But Young was pretty clearly more effective. That system is stupid. And only stupid people make too much out of it.



Favre's also won more games than anyone in history and has a winning percentage far greater than .526. If you don't think Favre is better than some of his contemporaries, I'd love to hear the argument. I'm sure it's just as air-tight as the one he's making here.
We've resorted to using different sports. Amazing.



Well if 12-10 is medicore, I guess we have to consider Peyton Manning's 7-7 record downright piss-poor, especially considering he's played with multiple hall of famers on offense for almost his entire career (Faulk, James, Harrison). He's 3-7 outside of that Super Bowl year, where he was just brilliant in throwing 3 touchdowns and 7 picks.

If the loss to the Giants was embarrassing, I guess Tom Brady has some mud on his face as well. And this joker better not even think of calling Romo a quality QB. The Giants were better than everyone thought, and Favre wasn't really as bad as everyone said he was in that game. His numbers compared favorably to every other QB that played that day. The difference was that the Giants and Pats had a running game, and the Packers had 28 yards on the ground. That's not going to work in January.

And I'm sick of hearing about Starr's 5 titles. Again, I don't want to take anything away from him, but for two of those titles, he won ONE PLAYOFF GAME each year. For two of those titles, he won two playoff games each year. Not to say he would've lost if they played more games, but you can't compare the championship-deciding format back then to what it is now. More games = more chances to lose. And again, you can't compare the supporting casts. Those Packers teams were hall-of-famer laden.



He wasn't the best in 1996? Credibility? Fluuuuuuuushed. I'd love to hear who was better that year (or in 95, since that year only gets a "maybe"). Does this joker even realize who Favre was throwing to that year? His top receiver went out for the year in Week 8. His next best receiver missed a couple games and played with a cast on his arm the rest of the year. There were games where the Packers started Terry Mickens and Don Beebe at WR. Freeman/Rison/Beebe/Mickens isn't going to make anyone shudder. His left tackle was a journeyman who was plugged in mid-season. And yet Favre had 39 touchdowns and 13 picks. But yeah, he wasn't the best.

I'm not going to deal with trying to compare him to some of the greats from the past, but for every advantage modern players have with the rules, I'm guessing we could come up with a lot of things that hinder the QBs. Faster defenses, I assume more blitzing, etc.

What an absolute joke of an article.

bomber, what do you think of the dudes post? I thought it was pretty right on. I have almost forgotten what kind of number brett put up in the 90's.

James a hall of famer??? I think not. Matt, don't let Favre going to the Jets completely cloud your opinion of him. If you've always thought he was great, that's fine, but it just seems like you're jumping on the wagon a bit. I may be mistaken by your past opinions of him, but for what it's worth, Favre for me falls in the middle of the two posters.

Whose Joe Montana?

cpschult wrote:Whose Joe Montana?

He's a sock manufacturer. He was also known for inventing the cure for aids and cancer with the right combination of Tylenol and Cough Syrup. Amazing guy.

RCBooba wrote:James a hall of famer??? I think not. Matt, don't let Favre going to the Jets completely cloud your opinion of him. If you've always thought he was great, that's fine, but it just seems like you're jumping on the wagon a bit. I may be mistaken by your past opinions of him, but for what it's worth, Favre for me falls in the middle of the two posters.

I did not type that post. I got it from a packer fan on the jets site. I agree with the stats in the past being better than Young and a few other seasons but he is 38 coming into a new system. If he throws 25 times a game, Jets win. More than 40 Jets lose. If it is in between those two number than it will be a toss up.

I like Favre now because he is by far better than Pennington.

That is all.

I know you didn't type it up. It just seemed that you were really agreeing with the guy in the response, but it seems I did not interpret your post accurately. The whole "Pennington is the most underrated qb" made me scratch my head, and it must've urged you to rip someones face off.

RCBooba wrote:I know you didn't type it up. It just seemed that you were really agreeing with the guy in the response, but it seems I did not interpret your post accurately. The whole "Pennington is the most underrated qb" made me scratch my head, and it must've urged you to rip someones face off.

Pennington is total and complete garbage. The dudes has had offenses that never rank better than 15 AND he had the NFL rushing leader in 2004. He still needed the Jets defense to be ranked number 4 in points allowed to back his way into the playoffs.

Pennington sucks. Good riddence.

What do you think the Jets will do for the future? I've heard (aww what the hell is his name) anyway the guy other than Favre and Clemmens is supposed to be pretty good. You concur?

Ratliff? yeah i'm a part of the Brett Ratliff fan club, he looks like he could be a good player. i'd like ot hear more about Ainge yet, but he's a rookie and will probably be put on IR. If they throw him on practice squad another team could pick him up, and i doubt they will want to lose a recent 5th round draft pick.

Why IR?

Generally you only keep 3 QB's, the Jets have Favre, Clemens, Ratliff and Ainge. They drafted Ainge and didn't expect Ratliff to play so well. If they put Ratliff on the practice squad, as they did last year, a different team could scoop him up without having to surrender anythin. If they put Ainge or Clemens down there, they will most certainly be scooped up as well.

ainge recently had surgery on the pink on his throwing hand, although he's been practicing and throwing without pain, they coudl still IR him (if he agrees to it) and reevaluate the situation after the season.

This is what I'm betting on anyway. They could do something different but i"d be very surprised to see Ratliff on the practice squad in 08.