I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, Smayan. We wholly disagree on Brock Purdy.
The NFL has changed. Pocket presence does not mean what it used to mean. I know what I always say. Sack rate is a QB stat. In fact, it's THE QB stat, meaning it's the stat that the QB, individually, has the most control over. Your teammates can help you a little bit to not get sacked, but not as much as they can help you complete passes, accrue yards, throw touchdowns, etc..
As we're seeing with Jayden Daniels right now, as long as you can be productive and complete passes, who cares if you do it from inside the pocket or outside? Maybe some offensive linemen who don't want to do that much work, but there's no connection between offensive success and not throwing the ball on the move, as long as the QB is good at it. This reveals the real definition of pocket presence: how long can you hold the ball, without taking a sack?
There is more than one way to be successful, but it doesn't take any pocket presence to hit the back foot and get the ball out on time. Joe Burrow's lack of any pocket presence whatsoever is why the Bengals' offence has to operate the way it does.
Holding the ball is how you allow big plays to happen. You allow receivers to get open deeper down the field, etc.. Plays where the ball is held longer (but there is no sack) create scramble drill scenarios, and generally good things happen for the offence. On the condition that he can avoid a sack, I want my QB holding the ball as long as possible. This is what all the greats do.
Hold the ball forever, but don't get sacked.
This is really rough, and comes with obvious issues, but here is a back of the envelope measure of pocket presence: Who holds the ball longest, but maintains a below average sack rate?
Would you look at that?
1. Brock Purdy (3.17 seconds), and then there is a gulf before you get to...
2. Lamar Jackson (3.04)
3. Bo Nix (2.96), which is extremely impressive out of a rookie, and may indicate he's got some good years ahead of him.
4. Josh Allen (2.91)
T-5. Jordan Love (2.81)
T-5. Patrick Mahomes (2.81)
Looking at the names on this list, you can see that this is a skill that tends to separate the men from the boys. Far from thinking his pocket presence is inadequate, I actually think Brock has a serious argument for the best pocket presence in the NFL, because he can somehow manage to hold the ball all night (3.17 average time to throw is actually the longest in the NFL), and not get sacked. What people think Lamar Jackson is in terms of sack avoidance is what Brock Purdy actually is, and THIS is why Brock Purdy topped my QB tier list last year, while I never put Jimmy G higher than tenth.
This sack rate stuff is individual. It's not the SF system. Brock Purdy would still be not just great but number one at this if you put him in another uniform, and therefore would be an elite QB in any uniform. What people need to look into is why Brock is throwing into coverage more than any other QB in the NFL. Probably because he has no receivers that are open due to being stuck with really poor receivers for injury reasons, so he has to consistently force balls into tight windows, and still has a CPOE way above 0 by the way.
In short, I think Brock Purdy is elite. I think he was the MVP of the NFL last year, but didn't win the award because 'wow, Lamar so pretty', and should be getting MVP looks this year considering he's dragging the trash on offence he's been surrounded with to still be a top five pass offence in the NFL right now, but he won't. The NFL world discriminates against QBs who were not selected in the first round, and Brock Purdy (and his fans, like me) is feeling the full brunt of that right now.
Sorry for the rant buddy. You've hit a nerve with this one with the discrimination being so blatant and clear to see, not on your part, but on the part of anybody who thinks any other QB could do what Brock Purdy is doing right now.
Yes, I did look into his CPOE (it's pretty good), but here's what I was trying to say. I didn't really make it clear in the article.
I'm not saying this is something that is in a dire need of work. I'm saying, he could be an even better QB if he's able to throw in the pocket better. He can move around and do all he wants. That's the game of an NFL QB these days. What's also the game of an NFL QB these days is the pocket passing. If Deshaun Watson can do it, then Brock Purdy should be able to do it. Even the worst of the worst NFL QBs currently (Bryce Young???) or past (Ryan Leaf??) can pocket pass.
That is all I'm saying. (I'm on the Lamar Jackson is bad train too lol.)
I do not think that Brock Purdy's a bad QB. Maybe I'm an old school guy. Or it's that I'm so used to the QB running game (Jalen Hurts fan here), that I personally want another QB to throw the ball right.
Brock Purdy does throw the ball right. As far as I'm concerned, he does it better than anybody else until proven otherwise. Ever since Peyton Manning made happy feet the standard, there's been no going back.
Patrick Mahomes has been able to be the best QB in the NFL while remaining scared of contact, constantly falling away for no reason. I don't think pocket passing is a particularly important skill anymore. Passing is still the most vital skill in football, but with new schemes you can be the best QB in the NFL without being great at doing it from the pocket. Of course, more skills are better than less skills, but anything that Patrick Mahomes isn't great at clearly isn't a necessary skill.
Some of the best plays in football have come via the QBs scrambling. I get it. But, I'm a huge Tom Brady guy and whenever I see Purdy and his play, it always reminds me of Brady. I'm not sure if you can disagree with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjTLUeHpQw. If you take a look at that link, it highlights some of Tom Brady's best plays of his career. While I didn't spend my time watching EVERY single play, I watched 10 or so and all of them was him staying in the pocket. Brady's considered as the G.O.A.T.
I like the 49ers OL, but it isn't the best in the league for sure. In a recent analysis piece by PFF, they ranked the OL at 14. Despite having Trent Williams, well, it doesn't matter. He's one guy. Maybe, this is the reason Purdy's not very good in the pocket. Being good in the pocket has a lot of factors to it.
Don't look at Tom Brady, for this reason. When they elect groups into the rock and roll Hall of Fame, the main criteria they use is 'influence.' In other words, how many people tried to copy you? I think something similar should be done for sports Hall of Fames, because it is a good barometer to examine how many people tried to do what you did.
A scant few people tried to copy Tom Brady, and I think the best QB who copied the Tom Brady style is likely Andy Dalton. This is a damning argument against calling a player the best of all time. If he really was the best, more people would've tried to copy his style. This brings us to the man who's actually the best QB in NFL history.
Peyton Manning.
He's the one who killed the pocket passing style we're talking about here, because he showed everybody that you can come into the league with happy feet, never lose those happy feet, and still be the best QB the league has ever seen. From there, EVERYBODY copied him, and the league realised that happy feet may actually be a benefit, as it leaves you always ready to get away from prospective tacklers. If you can make the hilariously unathletic Peyton Manning so elusive (likely the best sack avoider in history) you can do it to anybody.
People like Lamar Jackson and Brock Purdy are just the logical extension of Peyton Manning. Peyton with more athleticism, if you will. Instead of just using their elusiveness to avoid sacks, both are turning their pocket presence into big plays. Neither are as good as Peyton of course, but you never know how they'll turn out. Lamar has already lost too much time to be the GOAT, but Brock's had one full season and spent it on being the best QB in the NFL, so he's on GOAT pace (technically true LOL).
What I'm saying is basically don't look to Tom Brady for any modern comparisons, because the modern players didn't. They all looked to Peyton, subtly revealing that in the opinion of the players, Peyton was better than Tom, because if Tom was better they would've copied him instead. They can say whatever they want about Tom being the GOAT, but actions speak louder than words, and actions point to Peyton.
This is giving me an idea for an article lol. Peyton Manning vs Tom Brady. Who's better? I completely disagree with everything you're saying lol.
Who's won the H2H series? Brady. Who's won more Super Bowls? Brady. Who's coached Hurts and Mahomes and other amazing QBs in the era right now? Brady! There has to be a reason why he's the G.O.A.T. 89,000 yards and 649 TDs? Plus all the Patriots and NFL passing records? Let's even use CPOE, where he was always at the top.
QBs these days rely on the run game, because passing just isn't a strength anymore. The only QBs in the league that are able to throw Hail Mary's are Aaron Rodgers (does not move. Is 40), Joe Flacco (does not move. Is 39), and Patrick Mahomes (Mover and is 29. He's a different breed though.).
The reason Manning's not considered better than Brady is because of his inability to win Super Bowls. I'm not sure his play can be considered better than Brady's, but that's a debate for another time lol.
Do you want to go onto the battlefield about this?
The Brady stans love to go whole hog on the playoffs. Who won the playoff H2H between the two?
3-2 Peyton? Man. What a strange thing for the 'playoff choker' to do to Tom Brady. You've surely read my Tom Brady playoff articles, so you know that I believe Tom Brady was a good playoff player, but not a great one. Worse than Aaron Rodgers. Worse than Kurt Warner. Comparable to Philip Rivers. Roughly in the same area as Matt Ryan in the playoff QB tier list.
I highly recommend as a Tom Brady fan, you steer the conversation away from the playoffs, for reasons that I have spent tens of hours and thousands of words pouring over, because if playoffs are included, Tom fairly handily falls behind ARod (one of the best playoff QBs of all time, it's not his fault his teams kept losing) on the all-time list, so I'm going to do it for you.
If you want to use raw records, let's talk about how it took Tom stuck around all those extra seasons to beat all of Drew Brees' records. On a per-season basis, all those records are still Drew's, and Tom loses several places on the list. This comes down to preference, and I can see your side here more than on most other topics. Do you value longevity, or peak performance? I value peak performance very much and longevity very little. Most Tom Brady fans tend to do the opposite, and we can agree to disagree on that.
You didn't even look at the CPOE leaderboards man. Tom led the league in that statistic once, by a hair, in 2007. He never got near the top of the league again, and was in the negative on several occasions. His career CPOE is worse than David Garrard. Throw accuracy was never Tom Brady's strong suit, and I think we can all admit that, if we're making a silent agreement to take the statistics seriously.
Tom always believed it was his strength, constantly attempting some of the hardest passes in the NFL, which is why his career completion percentage is a bit below the norm for the greats in this high offence era, but you know who else attempted obscenely difficult passes all the time? Peyton Manning, who was able to complete them at a much higher rate. As far as throw accuracy, Peyton's got Tom trumped.
Like all the great QBs, Tom's greatest skill was his sack avoidance. However, Peyton was just better at it, so in this discussion that's a wash too. As far as Tom's coaching the modern guys, good for him, but that doesn't explain why they all play like more athletic versions of Peyton Manning.
Quite frankly Smayan, who cares about Hail Maries? Aaron Rodgers is the Hail Mary king, but that's literally 0% of the reason he's also above Tom Brady in my all-time rankings. I'm not sure where you got the idea that Joe Flacco doesn't move. He's always been fairly elusive, in the sack avoidance sense. You're right that Joe Flacco is also one who decided to copy Tom instead of Peyton. He's just not as good as Andy Dalton (career wise) so I didn't mention him.
Passing is definitely still a strength of the league. I thought we were in agreement last time that if Jalen Hurts were able to throw the ball more and do less of the other stuff that the Eagles would be better off. Just because these guys rely on their athleticism to keep defenders off does not mean they're poor at throwing. Patrick Mahomes has actually always been able to make up for a relative lack of arm talent (controversial comment, but I'm not apologizing) with his other stuff, letting us all know once and for all that sack avoidance is the most important skill a QB can have.
People think I'm a Mahomes hater when I say things like that, but they miss the point that the sack avoidance is much more important than any of the other stuff. Patrick's got that, and the rest of his game not being (and never being) at the level it should for a player of his calibre just doesn't matter. If you can avoid sacks at an elite level, you are going to be an all-time great (unless your arm REALLY sucks, like Bo Nix right now).
Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Josh Allen, Kurt Warner, any all-time great you want. Look at their football reference pages. What do they all have in common? Extremely low sack rates.
Then, look at all the people who just pretend to be all time greats. John Elway, Jim Kelly, Ben Roethlisberger, etc.. What's the commonality with all these players? High sack rates. That's why these players (plus others like them) have undeserved reputations as greats, and all the players in the previous paragraph deserve their rep as all-time great.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. Comparing Drew Brees' playstyle to Dan Marino's reveals no similarities whatsoever, but the key thing is that you need to hold the ball and not get sacked. The greats all do that, and it's the one thing that the greats ALL do, and getting back to the point of this discussion, who are the best two QBs in the NFL at holding the ball and not getting sacked right now?
Number one Brock Purdy. Number two Lamar Jackson. This alone is not enough to call them the best two QBs in the NFL right now (Lamar will lose a few positions for his accuracy issues, for example), but in my mind it's damn close. If these two can keep this up, and Lamar can keep his CPOE above the zero range that it'd fallen into for a few years there, it would not shock me at all to have these as the two best QBs in the NFL going forward.
Purdy’s a really interesting QB. Part of why he established himself as the starter in Year 1 was because he was willing to stand in the pocket and take big hits, but he also possessed this crazy playmaking ability off-script. It’s kind of fascinating that his pocket presence isn’t where it should be right now, but this year just feels like one of those seasons where things are just a bit… off.
Either way, I don’t think anyone’s pointing the finger at him right now, and for good reason. He’s put them in great positions to win each week, and the defence just hasn’t done what they’ve needed to do to get them there.
I see what you're saying. I really just made this article because of the 49ers vs Seahawks game. Although I was tempted to just watch through it, I couldn't! I just had to analyze Brock's play. Like you said, the year just feels a bit off for the 49ers (Madden Curse)?
As long as they're winning games though. That's the approach the Eagles took in 2023.
I would say the defense has been okay. Fred Warner's making plays and they're able to get the other team to a 3rd down situation. But, just him, and even he goes bad once the other team gets to the Red Zone. They really have red zone problems. It could be better though. They lost Hargrave and Hufanga to injury, so there are a few holes.
I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, Smayan. We wholly disagree on Brock Purdy.
The NFL has changed. Pocket presence does not mean what it used to mean. I know what I always say. Sack rate is a QB stat. In fact, it's THE QB stat, meaning it's the stat that the QB, individually, has the most control over. Your teammates can help you a little bit to not get sacked, but not as much as they can help you complete passes, accrue yards, throw touchdowns, etc..
As we're seeing with Jayden Daniels right now, as long as you can be productive and complete passes, who cares if you do it from inside the pocket or outside? Maybe some offensive linemen who don't want to do that much work, but there's no connection between offensive success and not throwing the ball on the move, as long as the QB is good at it. This reveals the real definition of pocket presence: how long can you hold the ball, without taking a sack?
There is more than one way to be successful, but it doesn't take any pocket presence to hit the back foot and get the ball out on time. Joe Burrow's lack of any pocket presence whatsoever is why the Bengals' offence has to operate the way it does.
Holding the ball is how you allow big plays to happen. You allow receivers to get open deeper down the field, etc.. Plays where the ball is held longer (but there is no sack) create scramble drill scenarios, and generally good things happen for the offence. On the condition that he can avoid a sack, I want my QB holding the ball as long as possible. This is what all the greats do.
Hold the ball forever, but don't get sacked.
This is really rough, and comes with obvious issues, but here is a back of the envelope measure of pocket presence: Who holds the ball longest, but maintains a below average sack rate?
Would you look at that?
1. Brock Purdy (3.17 seconds), and then there is a gulf before you get to...
2. Lamar Jackson (3.04)
3. Bo Nix (2.96), which is extremely impressive out of a rookie, and may indicate he's got some good years ahead of him.
4. Josh Allen (2.91)
T-5. Jordan Love (2.81)
T-5. Patrick Mahomes (2.81)
Looking at the names on this list, you can see that this is a skill that tends to separate the men from the boys. Far from thinking his pocket presence is inadequate, I actually think Brock has a serious argument for the best pocket presence in the NFL, because he can somehow manage to hold the ball all night (3.17 average time to throw is actually the longest in the NFL), and not get sacked. What people think Lamar Jackson is in terms of sack avoidance is what Brock Purdy actually is, and THIS is why Brock Purdy topped my QB tier list last year, while I never put Jimmy G higher than tenth.
This sack rate stuff is individual. It's not the SF system. Brock Purdy would still be not just great but number one at this if you put him in another uniform, and therefore would be an elite QB in any uniform. What people need to look into is why Brock is throwing into coverage more than any other QB in the NFL. Probably because he has no receivers that are open due to being stuck with really poor receivers for injury reasons, so he has to consistently force balls into tight windows, and still has a CPOE way above 0 by the way.
In short, I think Brock Purdy is elite. I think he was the MVP of the NFL last year, but didn't win the award because 'wow, Lamar so pretty', and should be getting MVP looks this year considering he's dragging the trash on offence he's been surrounded with to still be a top five pass offence in the NFL right now, but he won't. The NFL world discriminates against QBs who were not selected in the first round, and Brock Purdy (and his fans, like me) is feeling the full brunt of that right now.
Sorry for the rant buddy. You've hit a nerve with this one with the discrimination being so blatant and clear to see, not on your part, but on the part of anybody who thinks any other QB could do what Brock Purdy is doing right now.
Yes, I did look into his CPOE (it's pretty good), but here's what I was trying to say. I didn't really make it clear in the article.
I'm not saying this is something that is in a dire need of work. I'm saying, he could be an even better QB if he's able to throw in the pocket better. He can move around and do all he wants. That's the game of an NFL QB these days. What's also the game of an NFL QB these days is the pocket passing. If Deshaun Watson can do it, then Brock Purdy should be able to do it. Even the worst of the worst NFL QBs currently (Bryce Young???) or past (Ryan Leaf??) can pocket pass.
That is all I'm saying. (I'm on the Lamar Jackson is bad train too lol.)
I do not think that Brock Purdy's a bad QB. Maybe I'm an old school guy. Or it's that I'm so used to the QB running game (Jalen Hurts fan here), that I personally want another QB to throw the ball right.
Brock Purdy does throw the ball right. As far as I'm concerned, he does it better than anybody else until proven otherwise. Ever since Peyton Manning made happy feet the standard, there's been no going back.
Patrick Mahomes has been able to be the best QB in the NFL while remaining scared of contact, constantly falling away for no reason. I don't think pocket passing is a particularly important skill anymore. Passing is still the most vital skill in football, but with new schemes you can be the best QB in the NFL without being great at doing it from the pocket. Of course, more skills are better than less skills, but anything that Patrick Mahomes isn't great at clearly isn't a necessary skill.
Haha, I like the Patrick Mahomes one!
Some of the best plays in football have come via the QBs scrambling. I get it. But, I'm a huge Tom Brady guy and whenever I see Purdy and his play, it always reminds me of Brady. I'm not sure if you can disagree with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KjTLUeHpQw. If you take a look at that link, it highlights some of Tom Brady's best plays of his career. While I didn't spend my time watching EVERY single play, I watched 10 or so and all of them was him staying in the pocket. Brady's considered as the G.O.A.T.
I like the 49ers OL, but it isn't the best in the league for sure. In a recent analysis piece by PFF, they ranked the OL at 14. Despite having Trent Williams, well, it doesn't matter. He's one guy. Maybe, this is the reason Purdy's not very good in the pocket. Being good in the pocket has a lot of factors to it.
Don't look at Tom Brady, for this reason. When they elect groups into the rock and roll Hall of Fame, the main criteria they use is 'influence.' In other words, how many people tried to copy you? I think something similar should be done for sports Hall of Fames, because it is a good barometer to examine how many people tried to do what you did.
A scant few people tried to copy Tom Brady, and I think the best QB who copied the Tom Brady style is likely Andy Dalton. This is a damning argument against calling a player the best of all time. If he really was the best, more people would've tried to copy his style. This brings us to the man who's actually the best QB in NFL history.
Peyton Manning.
He's the one who killed the pocket passing style we're talking about here, because he showed everybody that you can come into the league with happy feet, never lose those happy feet, and still be the best QB the league has ever seen. From there, EVERYBODY copied him, and the league realised that happy feet may actually be a benefit, as it leaves you always ready to get away from prospective tacklers. If you can make the hilariously unathletic Peyton Manning so elusive (likely the best sack avoider in history) you can do it to anybody.
People like Lamar Jackson and Brock Purdy are just the logical extension of Peyton Manning. Peyton with more athleticism, if you will. Instead of just using their elusiveness to avoid sacks, both are turning their pocket presence into big plays. Neither are as good as Peyton of course, but you never know how they'll turn out. Lamar has already lost too much time to be the GOAT, but Brock's had one full season and spent it on being the best QB in the NFL, so he's on GOAT pace (technically true LOL).
What I'm saying is basically don't look to Tom Brady for any modern comparisons, because the modern players didn't. They all looked to Peyton, subtly revealing that in the opinion of the players, Peyton was better than Tom, because if Tom was better they would've copied him instead. They can say whatever they want about Tom being the GOAT, but actions speak louder than words, and actions point to Peyton.
This is giving me an idea for an article lol. Peyton Manning vs Tom Brady. Who's better? I completely disagree with everything you're saying lol.
Who's won the H2H series? Brady. Who's won more Super Bowls? Brady. Who's coached Hurts and Mahomes and other amazing QBs in the era right now? Brady! There has to be a reason why he's the G.O.A.T. 89,000 yards and 649 TDs? Plus all the Patriots and NFL passing records? Let's even use CPOE, where he was always at the top.
QBs these days rely on the run game, because passing just isn't a strength anymore. The only QBs in the league that are able to throw Hail Mary's are Aaron Rodgers (does not move. Is 40), Joe Flacco (does not move. Is 39), and Patrick Mahomes (Mover and is 29. He's a different breed though.).
The reason Manning's not considered better than Brady is because of his inability to win Super Bowls. I'm not sure his play can be considered better than Brady's, but that's a debate for another time lol.
Do you want to go onto the battlefield about this?
The Brady stans love to go whole hog on the playoffs. Who won the playoff H2H between the two?
3-2 Peyton? Man. What a strange thing for the 'playoff choker' to do to Tom Brady. You've surely read my Tom Brady playoff articles, so you know that I believe Tom Brady was a good playoff player, but not a great one. Worse than Aaron Rodgers. Worse than Kurt Warner. Comparable to Philip Rivers. Roughly in the same area as Matt Ryan in the playoff QB tier list.
I highly recommend as a Tom Brady fan, you steer the conversation away from the playoffs, for reasons that I have spent tens of hours and thousands of words pouring over, because if playoffs are included, Tom fairly handily falls behind ARod (one of the best playoff QBs of all time, it's not his fault his teams kept losing) on the all-time list, so I'm going to do it for you.
If you want to use raw records, let's talk about how it took Tom stuck around all those extra seasons to beat all of Drew Brees' records. On a per-season basis, all those records are still Drew's, and Tom loses several places on the list. This comes down to preference, and I can see your side here more than on most other topics. Do you value longevity, or peak performance? I value peak performance very much and longevity very little. Most Tom Brady fans tend to do the opposite, and we can agree to disagree on that.
You didn't even look at the CPOE leaderboards man. Tom led the league in that statistic once, by a hair, in 2007. He never got near the top of the league again, and was in the negative on several occasions. His career CPOE is worse than David Garrard. Throw accuracy was never Tom Brady's strong suit, and I think we can all admit that, if we're making a silent agreement to take the statistics seriously.
Tom always believed it was his strength, constantly attempting some of the hardest passes in the NFL, which is why his career completion percentage is a bit below the norm for the greats in this high offence era, but you know who else attempted obscenely difficult passes all the time? Peyton Manning, who was able to complete them at a much higher rate. As far as throw accuracy, Peyton's got Tom trumped.
Like all the great QBs, Tom's greatest skill was his sack avoidance. However, Peyton was just better at it, so in this discussion that's a wash too. As far as Tom's coaching the modern guys, good for him, but that doesn't explain why they all play like more athletic versions of Peyton Manning.
Quite frankly Smayan, who cares about Hail Maries? Aaron Rodgers is the Hail Mary king, but that's literally 0% of the reason he's also above Tom Brady in my all-time rankings. I'm not sure where you got the idea that Joe Flacco doesn't move. He's always been fairly elusive, in the sack avoidance sense. You're right that Joe Flacco is also one who decided to copy Tom instead of Peyton. He's just not as good as Andy Dalton (career wise) so I didn't mention him.
Passing is definitely still a strength of the league. I thought we were in agreement last time that if Jalen Hurts were able to throw the ball more and do less of the other stuff that the Eagles would be better off. Just because these guys rely on their athleticism to keep defenders off does not mean they're poor at throwing. Patrick Mahomes has actually always been able to make up for a relative lack of arm talent (controversial comment, but I'm not apologizing) with his other stuff, letting us all know once and for all that sack avoidance is the most important skill a QB can have.
People think I'm a Mahomes hater when I say things like that, but they miss the point that the sack avoidance is much more important than any of the other stuff. Patrick's got that, and the rest of his game not being (and never being) at the level it should for a player of his calibre just doesn't matter. If you can avoid sacks at an elite level, you are going to be an all-time great (unless your arm REALLY sucks, like Bo Nix right now).
Patrick Mahomes, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Josh Allen, Kurt Warner, any all-time great you want. Look at their football reference pages. What do they all have in common? Extremely low sack rates.
Then, look at all the people who just pretend to be all time greats. John Elway, Jim Kelly, Ben Roethlisberger, etc.. What's the commonality with all these players? High sack rates. That's why these players (plus others like them) have undeserved reputations as greats, and all the players in the previous paragraph deserve their rep as all-time great.
There's more than one way to skin a cat. Comparing Drew Brees' playstyle to Dan Marino's reveals no similarities whatsoever, but the key thing is that you need to hold the ball and not get sacked. The greats all do that, and it's the one thing that the greats ALL do, and getting back to the point of this discussion, who are the best two QBs in the NFL at holding the ball and not getting sacked right now?
Number one Brock Purdy. Number two Lamar Jackson. This alone is not enough to call them the best two QBs in the NFL right now (Lamar will lose a few positions for his accuracy issues, for example), but in my mind it's damn close. If these two can keep this up, and Lamar can keep his CPOE above the zero range that it'd fallen into for a few years there, it would not shock me at all to have these as the two best QBs in the NFL going forward.
Purdy’s a really interesting QB. Part of why he established himself as the starter in Year 1 was because he was willing to stand in the pocket and take big hits, but he also possessed this crazy playmaking ability off-script. It’s kind of fascinating that his pocket presence isn’t where it should be right now, but this year just feels like one of those seasons where things are just a bit… off.
Either way, I don’t think anyone’s pointing the finger at him right now, and for good reason. He’s put them in great positions to win each week, and the defence just hasn’t done what they’ve needed to do to get them there.
I see what you're saying. I really just made this article because of the 49ers vs Seahawks game. Although I was tempted to just watch through it, I couldn't! I just had to analyze Brock's play. Like you said, the year just feels a bit off for the 49ers (Madden Curse)?
As long as they're winning games though. That's the approach the Eagles took in 2023.
I would say the defense has been okay. Fred Warner's making plays and they're able to get the other team to a 3rd down situation. But, just him, and even he goes bad once the other team gets to the Red Zone. They really have red zone problems. It could be better though. They lost Hargrave and Hufanga to injury, so there are a few holes.
The Madden Curse! I knew there was something else I was missing...
It might just be that simple.
Purdy is a fraud, put him on another team and he will be mid
You never know though.
Last year, he had all the weapons. Aiyuk, Samuel, CMC, and more. This year, no CMC. The TEAM is not doing the best.
But, if you think about it, he's better than Hurts, Richardson, and Herbert (some of the most overrated QBs).