Quote
JamesJM
Not your rank of players, or who to include... but this comment I hear more and more these days.... "With a LOT". That term, today, comes off to me as so dismissive, and belittling...(yes, I know you don't mean it that way)...
I don't know any great NFL player who did it on their own. Not one. And not rarely that help leaned more toward the coaches involved than the teammates. But help they got, all of them.
The worst NFL players in history... (with a few exceptions due to things not related to physical talent)... have been extraordinarily gifted athletes.
I think 'teammates' IS part of the criteria that should be used to evaluate players, obviously... but I think it's overblown these days and tends to ignore other criteria that 'may' be as important if not more. - JamesJM
It's not dismissive or belittling. That's way far extreme compared to what I meant.
I said he did a lot, with a lot. The context of that comment has to do with the old debate about how much wins go to the quarterback. The fact is, Warner was a top qb on a loaded team that had Marshall Faulk and 2 absolute top receivers then 2 more good ones and a very good OL. The issue for me is how much goes to the qb and it's not everything. None of that is supposed to diminish Warner because as I said he DID do A LOT with what he had. But it is also meant to reinforce the idea that it is never just the qb, no matter who it is. I don't think saying that dismisses anything. I just regard it as a simple and obvious fact of discussing football.
I don't think it's overblown at all. But on that we can have reasonable differences of opinion.
What IMO goes beyond reasonable differences of opinion on this issue is to see in my perfectly reasonable view something dismissive or belittling. It's nowhere near that.
This is dismissive and belittling---"Greg Robinson sucked for a few years but may have stabilized a bit in his 5th year, though that's a long time for the 2nd pick in the draft."
....
