ABQCOWBOY said:
Sure. If it's football 101 you need, I can help you there. Bledsoe's sacks create poor field position for his teams. His fumbles do the same.
Warren Moon is irrelivant to this discussion. While I believe he should be in the Hall for his total body of work in Pro Football, he is not. I would add that if you combined those numbers for Warren Moon, Bledsoe would pale in comparison. As it is, he is not a HOF QB so he is not pertinant to this discussion.
I think it's interesting that Elway is used as comparison. One of the Knocks on Elway was that he hung in the pocket too long as well. The difference with Elway was that he did many other things as well. He was a threat to hurt the defense with not only his arm but his mobility. Elway finished his career with 333 TDs. I am not certain of how many lost fumbles he had but we know that he had 226 INTs.
I think it's unlikely that Bledsoe finishes his career with numbers that would equal Elways. I think it's almost certain that he surpases Elways INTs, Fumbles and sack numbers.
Put all this together and I can't see how you can come to the conclusion that Bledsoe would be deserving of the Hall without a championship or two to his credit.
Where to begin?
This is fun (really). Anyone that thinks that's football 101 needs to be sent back to the remedial class.
Once again we see how easily quotes can be misinterpreted when taken out of contex. And once again you seem to have missed the point.
Yeah, Drew's sacks/fumbles create poor field position, but his tendency to hold the ball is probably also responsible for Drew becoming the youngest player to reach 40,000 yards passing as well. Of course his style comes with a risk (I'm not denying that), but you're ignoring the reward. There's a fine line between patience in the pocket and holding the ball too long.
You use Elway's time on poor Denver teams to make a favorable comparison to Drew's experience, only to follow it up by criticizing Drew for not having won a Lombardi or two like Elway without acknowledging the dramatically improved supporting cast that surrounded him during said title run.
With the miserable Bills OL and below avg WRs as a constant, you can see what a difference merely adding a productive RB has on a QB's efficiency by looking at Drew's #s with Henry (5 TDs to 7 INTs) compared to McGahee (15:9) in the backfield just last year. The relative supporting casts are extremely significant when making these kinds of comparisons in a team sport.
We can compare and discuss other aspects of these QB's games if you'd like, but allow me to attempt to stay on topic here. If you trace our discussion back to it's genesis you'll see I wasn't foolish enough to attempt to compare Drew's complete career #s to one of the top-10 QBs of all time (Elway). Our disagreement specifically addressed efficiency (or lack thereof).
Drew's career #s aren't just volume stats. He got there with
great efficiency. Even though you acknowledged earlier, "Sacks can not be accuratly factored in because it's always a question of where the responsability lies" you insist on including them in this comparison. M'kay, here goes.
First, it should be noted that most knowledgeable observers define a QB's efficiency by the # of pass attempts required for each TD (and/or their TD to INT ratio). By that standard Bledsoe is among the elite all-time. Better than Manning. Better than Marino.
While I disagree it's appropriate to include sacks/fumbles for comparing a QB's efficiency (for the reasons you've already pointed out yourself), I will entertain this notion that Drew's fumbles knock him from being one of the most efficient QBs ever to being described as inefficient.
You've given Elway credit for 333 TDs, while NFL.com, STATs.com and pro-football-reference.com all list his total at 300. I'll be using their number for this comparison.
Elway fumbled the ball every 3.8 sacks. Drew every 3.9. Advantage: Bledsoe. Even when we combine INTs and fumbles and define this number as 'potential turnovers,' Elway was responsible (for sake of this comparison) for one potential turnover every 20.0 pass attempts. Bledsoe has only coughed the ball once every 21.2 attempts. Even by this standard Bledsoe was the more
efficient QB (not better overall mind you).
