Eli in a Moment of Pure Ecstasy
Many of you will be shocked to learn that I’m not a professional writer. I do not in fact have the time to sit around and spend my day researching articles, interviewing people, and coming up with brilliant stories to publish in a huge national magazine and website. Personally I’d thought Don Banks of SI.com did in fact have that kind of time and would in fact be capable of doing such research – evidently I was wrong. Now to be fair I really don’t like him – as evidenced here and here. I think he presents hack ideas, doesn’t offer counter-arguments to his own ideas even when they are smacking you right in the face, and basically just throws crap up to the wall to see if it sticks.
Well the latest piece from Mr. Banks suggests that the 2004 NFL draft crop of quarterbacks has enjoyed a superior run to that of the much heralded 1983 NFL QB crop. So in summary – Roethlisberger, Manning, Rivers (in first 5 seasons) > Marino, Elway, Kelly (first 5 season). Here are his primary points:
For the 2004 class:
- They’ve won 3 of the 5 Super Bowls since coming into the league.
- They have appeared in 5 conference title games and are 15-8 in the playoffs.
- Roethlisberger is 51-20 as a starter (8-2 playoffs) with two Super Bowl wins.
- Rivers is 33-15 as a starter (3-3 playoffs) with no Super Bowl wins but a conference title game appearance.
- Manning is 42-29 as a starter (4-3 playoffs) with one Super Bowl win.
- Each QB has one Pro Bowl appearance.
Nay!
Against the 1983 class (first 5 seasons):
- Elway, Marino, Kelly combined to lose 4 Super Bowls.
- Elway was 46-21-1 as a starter (4-4 playoffs) with two Super Bowl losses.
- Marino was 48-21 as a starter (3-3 playoffs) with one Super Bowl loss.
- Kelly was 40-31 as a starter (3-3 playoffs) with one Super Bowl loss.
Losers – the whole lot of those ’83sters. Usually if you’re writing an article like this it would be key to point out by what metric you make the following claim:
But this much is also now just as apparent: No crop of first-round quarterbacks has ever matched the start to the careers of the top three quarterbacks from the 2004 class: Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, who were selected first, fourth and 11th that year.
I’d say that is relatively broad. Banks does explain himself very slightly in a quick throw-a-way line midway through the article:
The Big Three from 1983 certainly had historic early career success, but it didn’t match the bottom-line production of 2004′s top three quarterbacks from a team standpoint
So apparently at this point we’ve gone from “It’s apparent that nobody has matched the start of the ’04 crop’s careers”
Baby Faced QB's
to “You know…from a team standpoint.” Thus Banks should be sure to point out the individual accomplishments of both classes and compare those too, right? I mean because like anyone knows – winning a Super Bowl does involve a certain degree of luck, and more than certainly requires a great team moreso than a great quarterback. Why else would Trent Dilfer have more Super Bowl wins than Dan Marino? Well Banksie neglected to get into the muck of individual stats besides briefly pointing out the Pro Bowl appearances of the ’83 class (Marino – 5, Elway – 2, Kelly – 3). But never fear friends – Scott Howard is here to lay some individual accomplishments on you (again in the first 5 years):
- Getting back to the Pro Bowl appearances which somehow was glossed right over. The vaunted ’04 class has 3 combined. The ’83 squad had 10. TEN! How can that not have some validity? And get ready ’04 class because all three guys made the Pro Bowl in their 6th season.
- Both Marino and Elway won MVP awards (’84 and ’87 respectively).
- Marino set the all-time passing yardage and TD record for a season in his MVP year (since been broken as Banks points out) and had more 4,000 yard seasons (3) than the ’04 class (1).
- On a pure statistical analysis – the ’83 class has 81 more touchdown passes (358 to 277) and 9,963 more yards (49,987 to 40,294), albeit with 18 more starts.
- Possibly my favorite fun neglected fact? 1987 as a strike year. Thus each guy missed 4 game. I don’t recall anything similar in the last 5 years.
See how fun it is to cherry pick what you want to make an argument? Now I don’t deny that the ’04 class really has had an immense amount of team success but that kind of is what it is – team success. Individual success is important and it does matter. Besides Rivers I don’t really see how the other two could ever manage to win an MVP. The trio from 1983 all wound up in the Hall of Fame – it remains to be seen whether the 2004 guys will earn the same honor.
