Norv Turner vs. Bill Belichick

[Slinkyman]

now you are getting ridiculous. What do you call gifted and talented??
arm strenght? vision? intangibles? football IQ? accuracy? moving in the pocket? clutch? scramble? should I even add leadership (in some sense can add to the talent) in which of those categories that define a QB are Romo and Mcnabb better. Hence throw in Manning.

Mcnabb and Romo are better at choking in the playoffs that's for sure. Game ending INTs? they're better at that also.

[FromWayDowntown]

What makes Brady great -- better than Peyton Manning, in my book -- is the same thing that made Joe Montana great. Brady, like Montana, is about the best QB going at reading coverages and adjusting his decision-making based on those coverages.

Peyton gets all sorts of acclaim for his audibles and his fake audibles, but I'm convinced that Peyton either reads coverages and decides to go ahead with unwarranted throws or sometimes confuses everyone with his changes at the line and ends up having to force throws into coverage. In any event, I'm sure that Brady reads coverage better than Peyton. I don't think it's just some schematic thing that leads Brady to making so many uncontested throws -- it's his ability to read down through his progressions to find the guy that is open. Since he took over the starting job in NE, Brady's unmatched ability to read coverage is, I think, what drives that Patriots offense.

Questioning Brady's ability seems really odd to me given that he nearly took that team to Super Bowl XLI with a receiving corps consisting of Troy Brown, Jabar Gaffney, Reche Caldwell, and Chad Jackson. I'm not sure Peyton Manning would have had the same level of success with a rag-tag group like that.

[slayermin]

What makes Brady great -- better than Peyton Manning, in my book -- is the same thing that made Joe Montana great. Brady, like Montana, is about the best QB going at reading coverages and adjusting his decision-making based on those coverages.

Ken Anderson was pretty good too.

I really can't put Brady into Montana's class unless he's wins it all. If he finishes off this season with a ring, then no one can deny he's the best.

[bostonguy]

What makes Brady great -- better than Peyton Manning, in my book -- is the same thing that made Joe Montana great. Brady, like Montana, is about the best QB going at reading coverages and adjusting his decision-making based on those coverages.

Peyton gets all sorts of acclaim for his audibles and his fake audibles, but I'm convinced that Peyton either reads coverages and decides to go ahead with unwarranted throws or sometimes confuses everyone with his changes at the line and ends up having to force throws into coverage. In any event, I'm sure that Brady reads coverage better than Peyton. I don't think it's just some schematic thing that leads Brady to making so many uncontested throws -- it's his ability to read down through his progressions to find the guy that is open. Since he took over the starting job in NE, Brady's unmatched ability to read coverage is, I think, what drives that Patriots offense.

Questioning Brady's ability seems really odd to me given that he nearly took that team to Super Bowl XLI with a receiving corps consisting of Troy Brown, Jabar Gaffney, Reche Caldwell, and Chad Jackson. I'm not sure Peyton Manning would have had the same level of success with a rag-tag group like that.

I might have to consider Brady one of the greatest athletes EVER after he gets his 4th ring. I am talking in the class of Jordan, Ruth, etc etc. No doubt he is the best quarterback to ever play the game. Brady is one of a kind.

[SAtown]

I might have to consider Brady one of the greatest athletes EVER after he gets his 4th ring. I am talking in the class of Jordan, Ruth, etc etc. No doubt he is the best quarterback to ever play the game. Brady is one of a kind.

Ruth an athlete?

[FromWayDowntown]

I'd like to see Belicheck win with a different corp of players before I would anoint him the best in NFL history. However, if he gets 4 with an unprecedented undefeated season (all during the salary cap era), the argument against him becomes very difficult.

I don't know who I'd put at #1 right now. Noll has 4, but it was the same team winning them all. Walsh and Landry both have 3. Gibbs has 3 as well, but with 3 very different rosters, which may make him (the first time around) the most impressive of all.

I think one thing that traditionally counts against Gibbs, rightly or wrongly, is that fact that his teams won 2 of those Super Bowls in seasons affected by labor-stoppages. Also, Gibbs takes a hit, I think, because he had a team reach the Super Bowl and get absolutely whacked, which never happened to teams coached by Noll or Walsh (or even Landry) and hasn't happened to Belichick.

I would agree that Noll's accomplishment is a tad overrated, too, because of the roster specifics of his team's run. During the Steelers' 4 Super Bowl runs, as I understand things, there was only 1 player (Preston Pearson) who had ever played for another professional franchise. Noll dealt only with players his club drafted, during a time when you could draft players and stash them for several years to develop them. Ultimately, for Noll, there were 10 guys who started Super Bowl IX who also started Super Bowl XIV (Gerry Mullins, Jon Kolb, Rocky Bleier, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Joe Greene, L.C. Greenwood, Jack Lambert, Mel Blount, and J.T. Thomas -- and it would have been 11 if Jack Ham hadn't been hurt for the last Steelers win of that era). And there were at least 19 players who were members of all 4 Super Bowl winners (those 11, plus Donnie S , Sam Davis, John Stallworth, Lynn Swann, Steve Furness, Randy Grossman, Loren Toews, and Dwight White).

By contrast, if Belichick should get another le this year, I count only only 7 players on this roster that were on the roster for Super Bowl XXXVI: Matt Light, Tom Brady, Richard Seymour, Mike Vrabel, Tedi Bruschi, Kevin Faulk, and Larry Izzo. Of those, only 5 are starters, so the Pats have made their run in the face of some pretty significant roster turnover.

For what it's worth, Gibbs had 6 players who played on all 4 of his Super Bowl teams: Jeff Bostic, Joe Jacoby, Don Warren, Art Monk (didn't play in SB 17), Monte Coleman, and Russ Grimm.

[stretch]

Questioning Brady's ability seems really odd to me given that he nearly took that team to Super Bowl XLI with a receiving corps consisting of Troy Brown, Jabar Gaffney, Reche Caldwell, and Chad Jackson. I'm not sure Peyton Manning would have had the same level of success with a rag-tag group like that.

It's also much easier when you have a defense to back you up like Brady has had all these years, consistently giving him 50 yard fields to work with, unlike Manning who has constantly been forced to drive the entire field and was forced to score touchdowns because his defense could never stop anyone good. Put Brady on the Colts for all these years, and I doubt he even wins one Superbowl with those ty and overrated defenses that Manning had to deal with. IMO, the reason their defenses the past few years have looked good, is because Manning does such a good job of scoring touchdowns with ease, that other teams, especially crappy teams, feel that they MUST pass the ball just to keep up with the Colts, and when you have teams that don't have a good passing offense, then that leads to lots of mistakes, 3-and-outs, sacks, and interceptions, which boosted the Colts defensive stats. The Colts are very similar IMO to the Phoenix Suns, in that their offense boosts their defensive stats, but when they play quality teams that aren't intimidated by them, then they can run into problems.

I also think that is the problem with the Patriots this year, and if they had to face a team with a good offense like the Colts, I don't think that they would have been able to get away with outscoring the crap out of their opponents like they did all year against a bunch of crappy teams. But once they played teams who just went out and played their game, they had some trouble and nearly lost several games (Colts, Ravens, Eagles, Giants, Cowboys)

[stretch]

I might have to consider Brady one of the greatest athletes EVER after he gets his 4th ring. I am talking in the class of Jordan, Ruth, etc etc. No doubt he is the best quarterback to ever play the game. Brady is one of a kind.

Sorry, he cannot be in a class with Jordan. Jordan is in a class of his own in the sports world. By far, the most dominant athlete in any sport, EVER.