Mel Kiper 2012 NFL Mock Draft: Courtney Upshaw To Buffalo

Of course you’d love to see it, we all would. But I have observed Fitz play for two and a half seasons now, and if this team wins a Super Bowl with him at the helm, it will be a spectacle to behold…and it will take a mighty team effort to overcome his shortcomings, hence the “in spite of” comment.

You’re ignoring all of the numerous other factors of his success. Eli just won a Super Bowl with bad INT numbers too, do you think he’s overrated?

The stat that most defines success for a QB is YPA. As Kaiser pointed out, Bradshaw’s were almost always good in years they won the SB.

Go look at every QB’s comp% and TD/INT ratio from that era. Like statzwebs points out, the one stat that most correlates with wins for QBs is yards per pass attempt and Bradshaw was one of the best of his era, arguably the best of his era, in that statistic.

Mr. I’m In The Hall Of Fame Because I Predicted The Win is the least deserving. Career completion percentage of just over 50% a QB rating of a whopping 65.5, and 47 more picks than TDs. That right there is the least deserving QB in the HoF. It doesn’t help that he played for the Jets, which makes me like him that much less

Completion percentage is absolutely NOT a valid way to compare QBs across eras because the rules radically changed to favor the passing game and protect the QB.

Prior to the first changes to the following, in the 1980s:

1.) The CB could put his hands on and push a WR ANYWHERE on the field before the ball was in the air.

2.) Defensive holding was only called if the DB actually grabbed the WR prior to the ball being thrown.

3.) Offensive linemen could not use their hands to pass protect.

4.) Defensive linemen could use the “head-slap” to throw an offensive lineman off balance when rushing the passer.

5.) A QB could be hit anywhere on his body by a defender.

6.) Horse-collar, close-line and the fore-arm shiver were all legal tackling techniques.

7.) Hitting the face-mask was legal as long as it wasn’t grabbed.

8.) All games were played on grass fields, which are slower than artificial turf, especially when “chopped up” by long metal cleats, in all kinds of weather conditions.

8.) And, submarining, cut-blocks, clipping and crack-back blocks were legal within 5 yards on either side of the line of scrimmage on running plays, the rules favored the running game over the passing game.

Moreover, if you had seen Gabriel, Jurgenson, Bradshaw or any of the other QBs of his era play (as I did), you would know the following:

1.) Sonny Jurgenson was one of the most talented QBs to ever play the game. He played on teams that had some great offensive talent at the skill positions. However, those teams also had questionable offensive lines and some of the worst defenses in NFL history. Jurgenson’s teams never had a chance to make it to the NFL Championship game in a conference where the Cleveland Browns and NY Giants had far superior defenses. Jurgenson, who was also famous for hard-drinking and making up his own plays, lost his only chance to go to a Super Bowl when Vince Lombardi died and George Allen replaced him with the more disciplined Billy Kilmer as the starting QB for Washington.

2.) Roman Gabriel was a terrific QB who had the misfortune of playing in the same conference as Bart Starr with the Packers dynasty and Johnny Unitas of the Colts (arguably the best QB of all-time). The Rams had one of the best front fours of all time and a very stout defense, but they were never able to win that big game that they needed to win against the Packers. There were two years when, had they done so, they would have been favored to win it all, but they fell just short. Gabriel wasn’t as mobile as Bradshaw, but had a better receiving corps than Bradshaw early in Bradshaw’s career.

3.) Len Dawson had already had some NFL experience, on the bench, before coming to the Chiefs, so he wasn’t a raw rookie when he became a starter. Also, he had the advantage of playing for a team that was coached by one of the most innovative (some would argue the best) offensive minds of his era: Hank Stram. In addition, he had one of the best and most unique WRs in the game in Otis Taylor, who, at 6’5", was bigger than any DB and yet had breakaway speed. The KC offense also featured far more throws to the TE and RBs than the Pittsburgh offense did, as Stram wanted to get the ball in the hands of Heisman Trophy winner, Mike Garrett, who was on the smallish side, in space.

Finally, the Pittsburgh team that Bradshaw joined had been a joke. Having failed to recognize the talent of Unitas and Dawson, the Pittsburgh offense, which featured RB John Henry Johnson, was horrible in the 1960s and early 1970s. The defense, prior to the arrival of “Mean Joe” Greene and Chuck Noll, was noted for it’s toughness and dirtiness in the 1960s, but it wasn’t very good in the 1960s and had lost much of its toughness in the early 1970s (opposing teams hated to play the Steelers in the 1950s and 1960s because, even though they knew that they would win the game, they knew that they would end up being literally beaten up—and sometimes even bitten—by them by game’s end). Even as a Bills’ fan of that era, I can say that the Steelers stunk when Bradshaw arrived.

It took time for Noll to put enough decent talent around Bradshaw to make it possible for him to florish as a QB and Bradshaw, not noted for being the “brightest bulb on the tree”, took a long time—and quite a beating—learning the position. So, Bradshaw’s early numbers are skewed, both by the team’s lack of talent and by his own stupidity and stubbornness. But, once he “got” the offense and Pittsburgh added a second fast WR for him to throw to in Lynn Swann, he was as good as there was at the QB position at the time. Yes, he had that great defense and great running game, but, unlike Gabriel, once he did, Bradshaw also had that knack for making the big play when it was needed as well.

You can’t glean when a QB makes a big throw to keep a drive going for a first down in the fourth quarter of a tight game from looking at a completion percentage stat forty years later. Or, whether his defense is so bad that he’s forced to take chances with his throws in the second quarter because he knows that his team isn’t good enough to hang with the opposition if he doesn’t take those chances (and maybe give them a chance if he is successful).

Unless you listen closely to some of the old-time NFL defensive players, you have no idea how much defense has been taken out of the game of pro football by all of the changes that have taken place over the last 50 years. If guys who grew up and played the game then grew up and played the game now, most of them could play the game and many of the stars would be stars today as well. But, it’s a significantly different game now than it was then and you simply cannot talk about players from those different eras without taking that into consideration. If you try to, you are just talking from ignorance.