Quarterback triangle

[Valuist]

So one week remains in the season and lets see what all of the Favre theatrics and drama from the preseason has brought. There are those who claim that Favre leaving Green Bay is the reason the team has gone from 13-3 to 5-10 and they claim that the Jets turnaround is due to Sir Brett.

To that, I say BS.

Lets compare Favre, the guy who replaced him (Aaron Rodgers) and the guy sent packing to make room for Brett (Chad Pennington). IMO, of the three, Pennington has had the best season. The Dolphins have had an amazing turnaround, going from 1-15 to 10-5. Pennington has an excellent 96.4 QB rating, a 17-7 TD/INT ratio, 3453 pass yards and a solid 7.7 yards per attempt. And despite what some may think, Rodgers is NOT the problem on the Packers. A 91.4 QB rating, 25-13 TD/int ratio, 3730 passing yards and 7.4 yards per pass. Green Bay's problem has been defense, which gambles far too often for the big play and often gets burned, as well as a running game which is not near as strong as last year's, despite the same RB. As for the Jets, the real big acquistion was Pro Bowl lineman Alan Faneca, who has helped the Jets run blocking significantly as Thomas Jones has had a great season. Favre hasn't been bad or great; his numbers are average: 84 QB rating 21-19 TD/int ratio (way too many INTs), 3239 pass yards and 6.7 yards/attempt. IMO, Favre has a much stronger receiving corps than Pennington. Makes one wonder what Pennington's numbers would be if he had Favre's weapons. Once upon a time Favre was the best player in the league but that was over 10 years ago. But the media doesn't seem to get that.

So ranking the 3 QBs season, its pretty easy: 1) Pennington 2) Rodgers 3) Favre

[Robert Fischer]

good coaching is so important to a team's and a QB's success.

I think you make some good points. If I were to argue against your ranking Favre below Rodgers - Favre does a lot of veteran things very well at QB (play action, looking the safety off of the route, tempo, management,...), and when he is "on", he can overcome more adversity!

not sure my side holds up, as you would think if that were true the stats would reflect that, and Rodgers seems to have a clear edge in stats.
I honestly haven't watched enough Aaron Rodgers.

[DanG]

Fair points;

Stadium location is also a factor. The Meadowlands is tough on a player with Chad’s arm strength because of the swirling winds. Kurt Warner found that out the hard way.

[boomman]

So one week remains in the season and lets see what all of the Favre theatrics and drama from the preseason has brought. There are those who claim that Favre leaving Green Bay is the reason the team has gone from 13-3 to 5-10 and they claim that the Jets turnaround is due to Sir Brett.

To that, I say BS.

Lets compare Favre, the guy who replaced him (Aaron Rodgers) and the guy sent packing to make room for Brett (Chad Pennington). IMO, of the three, Pennington has had the best season. The Dolphins have had an amazing turnaround, going from 1-15 to 10-5. Pennington has an excellent 96.4 QB rating, a 17-7 TD/INT ratio, 3453 pass yards and a solid 7.7 yards per attempt. And despite what some may think, Rodgers is NOT the problem on the Packers. A 91.4 QB rating, 25-13 TD/int ratio, 3730 passing yards and 7.4 yards per pass. Green Bay's problem has been defense, which gambles far too often for the big play and often gets burned, as well as a running game which is not near as strong as last year's, despite the same RB. As for the Jets, the real big acquistion was Pro Bowl lineman Alan Faneca, who has helped the Jets run blocking significantly as Thomas Jones has had a great season. Favre hasn't been bad or great; his numbers are average: 84 QB rating 21-19 TD/int ratio (way too many INTs), 3239 pass yards and 6.7 yards/attempt. IMO, Favre has a much stronger receiving corps than Pennington. Makes one wonder what Pennington's numbers would be if he had Favre's weapons. Once upon a time Favre was the best player in the league but that was over 10 years ago. But the media doesn't seem to get that.

So ranking the 3 QBs season, its pretty easy: 1) Pennington 2) Rodgers 3) Favre

I agree with pretty much everything you say, but still have a big problem with the arm strength (or lack thereof) of Chad Pennington. Dan G brings up a great point about the swirling winds up North which certainly made it tough on Chad so sending him to the calm and sunshine in Miami was probably the greatest thing that could have ever happened to him. Plus Sparano's staff has coached him well to instill a system that does the type of things on offense that he is capable of doing. I will always have a soft spot for Pennington coming out of the "We ARE Marshall" program..........

Boomer

[Valuist]

I will grant you that Pennington does play in better conditions than Favre although this past weekend, Pennington played in conditions of sub zero wind chill. But Rodgers does not play in conditions that are good. On Monday night, he had a very solid game in brutal conditions (2 degrees minus 12 wind chill).

I think McCarthy has to shoulder a lot of blame for the Packers negative turnaround.......anytime a team loses a bunch of close games, the coach has to answer. They also are playing a first place schedule, thanks to their 13-3 record of last year. After several seasons of being gone, parity is back bigger than ever.

[melman]

Val--I agree with your rankings of the QB's for this year. However the one stat that I hate to see listed is "QB rating". I think that stat is so usless as to be meaningless. If you look back over the past 20 years using that stat you would have some very average QB's being rated over some Hall of Fame guys. While I also think Favre has had a very average year this year I would remind you that just LAST year Favre was voted runner up in the MVP voting. While I think that the QB is by far the most important position on any football team I also agree with a wise old coach who once said "when a team wins the QB gets far to much credit and when the teams does not win he gets far to much blame".

[Valuist]

Val--I agree with your rankings of the QB's for this year. However the one stat that I hate to see listed is "QB rating". I think that stat is so usless as to be meaningless. If you look back over the past 20 years using that stat you would have some very average QB's being rated over some Hall of Fame guys. While I also think Favre has had a very average year this year I would remind you that just LAST year Favre was voted runner up in the MVP voting. While I think that the QB is by far the most important position on any football team I also agree with a wise old coach who once said "when a team wins the QB gets far to much credit and when the teams does not win he gets far to much blame".

That last sentence is spot on. Not sure why it is; I guess because its viewed as the "glamour position". To a lesser extent, the same can be said about the coach.

I really don't have a problem with the QB rating since it encompasses numerous factors. I always have felt passing yardage is a very overrated stat because its often a function of whether a team is winning or losing. Let's face it, you fall down big early (like Arizona did a few times) and end up passing against soft defenses more concerned with burning the clock than limiting yardage, there's going to be some phony yardage. Yards per attempt is a better measure of efficiency than yardage. I also believe that when measuring a team's pass defense, the QB rating against is a much better indicator than just how many yards a team surrenders.

[melman]

Val--I'll post a link to a Pro Football Hall of Fame listing of the top "QB rating" passers of all time. It's why I have a very serious problem with that method and think that the "QB rating" is really a "junk stat". ANY method that can list the following, Jeff Garcia, Trent Green, Daunte Culpepper, Brad Johnson, Mark Brunell, and Brian Griese as being "higher rated" than John Elway, Troy Aikman, Bart Starr, Joe Namath and Johnny Unitas just not cut it with me.

http://www.profootballhof.com/history/stats/top20/passer_ratings.jsp