Sports Then and Now

Tom Brady threw for 326 yards and four touchdowns in his last game against the Jets.

The New York Jets did some soul searching at halftime of their game against the Colts, and found the answer they’d been looking for. It had eluded them for the first half, but they finally recalled their identity and started running the ball.

In other words, they got back to what has worked for them in the past and has rarely let them down.

It isn’t likely that the Jets will come out slinging the ball on Sunday.

Why? Because quite frankly, Sanchez has let them down before. In just two contests at Gillette Stadium, he has one touchdown, seven interceptions, and two fumbles.

He won’t thrown three or four picks if he doesn’t even throw the ball more than 15 times.

Quite simply, the Patriots will have to shut down the run. That’s not the question. The question marks pop up around the defensive line, where both Mike Wright and Ron Brace have been placed on season-ending injured reserve since the end of the regular season. The Patriots now boast a defensive line featuring Vince Wilfork, Gerard Warren, Kyle Love, Myron Pryor, Brandon Deaderick, Eric Moore and Landon Cohen.

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Where does Brett Favre rank among the top quarterbacks in NFL history?

Now that it appears Brett Favre’s 20-year NFL career is finally in its last stages, it provides an opportunity to analyze where the gunslinger ranks among the best quarterbacks in NFL history.

There have been many superstar quarterbacks who fall short when selecting the all-time greats because while they may have posted excellent career numbers, they never measurably made their team better.

The best quarterbacks make an average team good, a good team great and a great team into a champion.

Trying to analyze the value Favre brought to the Packers and recently to the Jets and Vikings can be challenging. Given his tendency for risk taking and the subsequent risk-reward results, did Favre make average teams perform at a higher level than they would have otherwise or did he make key mistakes at inopportune times that kept great Packer and Vikings teams from going as far as they maybe would have had he not been such a gunslinger?

During his 19 years as a starting quarterback, Favre has led his team to at least eight victories 17 times and to double digit win totals 10 times. However, Favre has a 2-3 record in NFC Championship Games and late interceptions cost his team in each of his last two trips to the conference title game.

Favre will retire as the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, pass attempts, pass completions, touchdown passes, passes intercepted and times sacked. However, he ranks only 17th in completion percentage and 21st in passer rating. So, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between how great he has been and how many of his records are purely a result of his longevity.

Since the game of football and the quarterback position have evolved so dramatically from the early days of the NFL, for the purpose of creating this list, I have included quarterbacks whose primary careers occurred after 1955. There is no question that Sammy Baugh, Otto Graham and Sid Luckman deserve to be recognized as among the best quarterbacks of all-time, but to try and thoughtfully compare their careers to those of today’s stars in virtually impossible.

Because quarterback stats have increased so dramatically even during the last 55 years, using just single season or career stats to analyze all-time greatness isn’t really an accurate assessment of where a player ranks among the best of all-time. Other qualities such as team success, comparison to others from that particular era and quality of the skill position players around the quarterback also can be used to chronicle success.

Below is my take on the top 10 quarterbacks in NFL history. In general, the selections are not significantly different than those listed in many other all-time quarterback lists.  Rather, there are some differences in my order than on other lists. If you have an opinion, please feel free to provide your own top 10. Read the rest of this entry →

Tom Brady and Michael Vick are the leading MVP candidates for 2010

The battle for the 2010 NFL MVP award between Tom Brady of the New England Patriots and Michael Vick of the Philadelphia Eagles is the latest example of just how quickly things can change in the National Football League.

It was just two short seasons ago that the football future of both players was in significant limbo.

As you will recall, Brady missed the entire 2008 campaign after suffering a knee injury during the first half of the first game of the season. Though he was expected to return, many doubted if he could ever regain his MVP form from 2007.

Michael Vick also was out of football in 2008, but instead of spending the season rehabilitating an injury, he was spending it behind bars as a result of his conviction for participating in a dog fighting ring. At this time two years ago no one knew if Vick would ever wear an NFL uniform again and few expected him to ever again be an NFL starter, much less an MVP candidate.

But here we are in December 2010 debating which of these star quarterbacks deserves to be labeled as the MVP of the 2010 NFL season.

They have contrasting styles that makes comparisons difficult, but there is no question that both players have taken their games (and teams) to a higher level this season. Read the rest of this entry →

Despite this sack by Gerald Warren, Mark Sanchez and the Jets got the best of the Patriots the first time around.

With the NFL regular season approaching a crucial stage, the current leaders of the AFC conference, the New York Jets, are about to face a major test to their credibility as post-season contenders as they prepare to meet the New England Patriots.

The Patriots are currently snapping at their heels in the AFC East and both teams share a 9-2 record so far this season, so the Jets know that they need to overcome their division rivals when they meet on December 6th if they want to go all the way and the Super Bowl 2011 betting odds reflect this.

However, with the New England Patriots’ offence starting to put in some slick performances, the Jets know that the key to beating the Patriots will surely be shutting down Tom Brady. With the Jets well aware that when Brady gets into his rhythm he is almost entirely unplayable, they know that they will need to get into his head if they are to shut him down. Read the rest of this entry →

Most football fans know how Tom Brady became the starting quarterback of the New England Patriots, but when do they and the Patriots know that he would become a successful NFL quarterback?

Perhaps that moment occurred in the Patriots week 5 game against the San Diego Chargers where Brady lead the Patriots back from a ten-point deficit in the fourth quarter to come away with an overtime victory.

Brady was forced into the role of starting quarterback when longtime starter Drew Bledsoe was injured in the Patriots’ second game of the season, a 10-3 loss to the New York Jets.

Brady’s first start was a successful one as he led the Patriots to a 44-13 rout of the Indianapolis Colts in week 3, but was unsuccessful the following week as the Patriots were defeated by the Miami Dolphins 30-10 as Brady threw for only 86 yards.

With zero touchdown passes in his two starts, some observers felt that Brady was a liability and that the Patriots would go nowhere in the second season under head coach Bill Belichick.

The Patriots opponent in Week 5 was the San Diego Chargers, one of the early surprises in the 2001 season.

In 2000, the Chargers finished with a 1-15 record, the worst in the league.

After the season, Chargers owner Dean Spanos hired former Bills general manager John Butler to the same position, who brought several players from the Bills roster to San Diego, including quarterback Doug Flutie.

The Chargers held the first pick in the NFL Draft, but they traded it away to the Atlanta Falcons for the #5 pick in the first round and the first pick in the second round, which the Chargers used to pick running back LaDainian Tomlinson and quarterback Drew Brees.

The new-look Chargers won their first three games before losing to the Cleveland Browns 20-16 the week before they traveled to Foxboro to face the Patriots.

Both teams scored field goals in the first quarter as the Patriots drove 60 yards in 13 plays on their opening drive, leading to a 26-yard field goal by Adam Vinatieri, while the Chargers got a 21-yard field goal by Wade Richey on the final play of the quarter. Read the rest of this entry →

Tom Brady hopes the 2010 season has a better ending than occurred a year ago.

There I was the other morning, just trying to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, when through the sound of my own frantic chewing I hear that Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been involved in some sort of car accident in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, near the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and Gloucester Street.

I nearly choked on my Lucky Charms, as phrases like “New England star sidelined with broken arm,” and “Patriots head into bye week 0-4,” danced through my head, and visions of Brian Hoyer, unable to make Brady’s signature quick reads at NFL speed, getting folded like paper money by oncoming pass rushers flashed before my terrified eyes.

I cowered at the thought of how “unwanted” Randy Moss would feel after several weeks of Hoyer at the helm, and the memory of what things can get like when Moss decides he isn’t happy (just ask a Raiders or Vikings fan).

There was only one thing I could do. Manipulating the marshmallows in my spoon until there was nothing but green clovers for luck, I swallowed the talismanic mouthful and began to feverishly search the internet for details of the incident. It didn’t take long to find out that it was a relatively minor affair, and Brady had suffered only the most superficial of injuries, although a passenger in the other vehicle needed to be freed from the wreckage using the jaws of life and later underwent back surgery.

It would be pure folly for me even to attempt and explain the relief that I felt when I heard the news of Brady’s continuing structural integrity. The incident provoked a staggeringly oppressive feeling of anxiety that had started to swirl through my chest cavity and spread gradually throughout the rest of my body before finally dissipating and leaving me spent and broken, a shell of myself, clutching the edge of the kitchen table and gasping to regain my breath.

Just when I thought I was out of the woods, I began to recover my auditory senses and heard the rest of the morning’s sporting news, and before I knew what hit me, I was on the floor and being beckoned towards an ultra-white light by a man who bore an uncanny resemblance to Morgan Freeman.

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