Huge lol at Gruden being worth a whole bunch of first day draft picks while Herm is worth a single fourth round pick.

Accepting that deal was a no brainer but Al Davis hired a bunch of pretty much objectively bad coaches in a row afterwards. But outside of that maybe Al Davis gets a bad break. That great Raiders team lost most of it's players soon after and has yet to recover. Plenty of teams have done the same. But these coaching decisions aren't helping and the inmates are running the asylum.

Could not disagree more. It's like Hines Ward 5 years ago when the entire world insisted he was underrated. Romo right now is the anti-Hines. Does anyone think he's any good? Anybody? Not that I can tell. But yet he is. Even the playoff variance is sort of whatever because he wasn't bad vs. Seattle or the Giants; in fact way better than most of the current QB's above him in their first 2 playoff games. It's disturbing. He can qb my team any time. Yes I'm **** for Romo.

That great Raiders team had a bunch of great vets, but had no real core of young players. It was destined to fall apart quickly.

Gannon
Rice
Brown
Garner
Wheatley
Eric Allen
Woodson
Trace Armstrong
Wisniewski
Lincoln Kennedy
William Thomas

Only good young players they had were Porter, Darrell Russel, Regan Upshawn, Mo Collins and Woodson on O or D and most of them didn't make it that long. Obviously also had Lechler on special teams and Sebastian.

Team was meant to fail after a couple of seasons.

Other than Asomugha, Gallery, Zach Miller, Thomas Howard, Fargas--they've had so many embarrasing busts in the draft. Most first day picks have been total busts since 2000. And their FA overspending it hilarious.

Right, like giving Javon Walker a ton of money after failing miserably in Denver or signing a bunch of average defenders to league high contracts and paying Asomugha like a franchise QB. A bunch of teams have drafted poorly. None have done anything resembling this idiocy in FA.

Asomugha's contract is obscene but it's pretty short and he's actually good, it's not nearly as bad as Javon's and the DT I've never heard of (Tommy Kelly) ridiculous contract.

I agree, I put Romo 9th and that is probably too low. He has bad games here and there but his numbers are amazing. Being expected to win the SB every year is unrealistic. If Romo played for a team without so much hype he would get more love.

He shouldn't be as high as you think either b/c his fumble rate is WAY TOO high considering his interception rate. He has way too many combined fumbles + ints for an elite level QB. The suprising thing is his sack rate isn't even that high (top 10 in the league) and he still coughes it up. His Y/pass Attempt, QB rating, etc. are very good but him being so turn over prone has hurt him a lot at times.

His game managing abilities imo are pretty poor which is a valuable characteristic of most great QBs.

Fumbles are nearly 100% random, I believe.

I never look at QB fumbling rates and it definitely matters so that could change my mind a bit.

*Recovering* a fumble is random. Fumbling isn't.

I pretty much agree with this list. I might bump Delhomme up to the next cluster.

why do some QBs have higher rates than other QBs? some QBs are more careless with the ball. Romo is protected pretty well (see sack rates) but he is a risk taker. If you watched yesterdays game, most normally QBs don't throw balls across the field like he did that 1 time. His fumble rates are higher. Fumbles also occur more when you get out of the pocket a lot, something Romo does all the time. He also rushes a decent amount. Fumbles are random, but certain QBs are more prone to fumbling. For instance Peyton hardly fumbles. He has great protection, he is careful with the ball and he doesn't rush that much with the ball.

You sure? I know that fumble recovery is 100% random. However, I am pretty sure that teams show no correlation from year-to-year regarding fumble rate. Jim Schwartz is famous for doing research in this area. I would like to see any research on this topic.

That was even more lol because he was hurt/had surgery when they signed him, then he proceeded to miss that next season (his first with the raiders).

http://www.rollbamaroll.com/2008/6/1...11/fumble-luck

The experts at Football Outsiders had this say on the subject:

Stripping the ball is a skill. Holding onto the ball is a skill. Pouncing on the ball as it is bouncing all over the place is not a skill. There is no correlation whatsoever between the percentage of fumbles recovered by a team in one year and the percentage they recover in the next year...

Fumble recovery is a major reason why the general public overestimates or underestimates certain teams. Fumbles are huge, turning-point plays that dramatically impact wins and losses in the past, while fumble recovery percentage says absolutely nothing about a team's chances of winning games in the future...

...[T]hey have no value whatsoever for predicting future performance.

I would like to see data, rather than just a snippet of text. Additionally, Advanced NFL stats says:

"Actually, it appears that prior fumble rates predict future fumble rates (within the same season) at a 0.33 correlation..."

.33 correlation is significant but isn't very strong. Sack rate predicts it at .15 correlation, which is barely significant.

So, I'm willing to believe that it is a skill. However, it seems very strongly overrated, especially when you say "QB X fumbles too damn much."

I think the Pats got compensation for Parcells, might be wrong though.

Romo is known to be a risk taker and a gambler. TOs come along with this. He has a high # of INTs in every season he's played in and his fumble #s are very high. His TO #s are too damn high.

in 2006, 10 games, 13 Ints and 9 fumbles (3 recovered). in 2007, 19 ints and 10 fumbles (5 recovered) in 16 games. in 2008 14 ints, 13 fumbles (3 recovered). these rates are insane, especially for a QB who is considered elite. not sure how many fumbles were recovered by his own team but the guy has 49 ints and 32 fumbles in 39 career starts. you don't think this is high? this is almost 2 potential TOs a game which is very poor.

peyton is like at 1.3, brady about the same, brees around 1.4, eli around 1.8, favre around 1.7.

for belicheck to the jets and then the Pats there was compensation as well.

I still can't believe the Cleveland Browns fired Bill Belicheck.

I am not taking issue with his INT rate, just interested in how random fumbles caused are.

i was pointing out that his fumble rate was too high considering how high his INT rate is--not solely that his fumble rate being too high. obviously you should dig on FO if you want more data.

Sage should get another shot at a starting job next season I think. TJack really isn't some horrible QB either that has a chance to improve. It should be a decent chance at least. That is if Favre does not stay for 2010 and who the hell knows about that.

Also FWIW, Trent Edwards projects to be at the very least an average starting QB in the NFL. I like what I see so far. If the Bills can upgrade the offensive line and hope that they get at least average production out of their WRs/TEs next season as well as continuing to work the run game, that is an offense that could be somewhat dangerous. They would have been a good fit to sign Tony Pashos after the Jags cut him or even Tra Thomas a few months ago.

Edwards is a rare case(lol sample size) where his comp% is actually better in the NFL than in college. Maybe he is an intelligent QB who is getting better coaching at the NFL level than he was at Stanford, which seems pretty ldo but is not always the case especially with the QB position(I know there is a strong argument that part of the reason Quinn's development is so slow in the NFL is that his coaching staff is actually worse than the one he had at ND, I think there is some legitimacy there). If Edwards comp% stays where its at and he can increase his y/a a bit more(not much just a touch higher) I really like what I see in the numbers.

Will that translate into him being a better QB on the field and leading to more Ws? Who knows. One thing though, he is getting hit a lot already this season and his sack% through 3 games is absurdly high. That needs to change.

Ah, I see.