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LMU93
Sure, it's one of the league's big offseason storylines. But to me "overrated" would be calling Stafford a top 3-5 QB and that he should be able to carry the Rams to a Super Bowl win pretty handily. I don't recall seeing anyone here say that.
I DO think most fans see Stafford as a solidly top-10 QB that will be surrounded by the best supporting cast he's ever had, the best coaching he's ever had and a guy that was a fairly substantial upgrade from Goff.
This writer sounds bitter about the one Lions' team of the past 12 years (2014) that was top-12ish in the league (including a very good defense) but didn't go farther. Actually it looks to me like their 2011 team was actually better overall- but even then their defense was bottom 8-10.
It's amazing isn't it, what some analysts do. They want to look at qbs completely out of context. So for example Stafford's Lions had a good to decent defense 3 out of 12 years and the rest of the time it was a liability, and he had a decent enough running game 1 time in 12 years. That's not a formula for winning. (He also had crappy OLs much of the time though that's not true of the last couple of years).
A qb plays in a context.
Heck even the great GSOT teams--they had a top 10 defense twice (99 and 2001--ranked 6th and 3rd respectively). When the defense crashed in 2000, they couldn't win their one playoff game. They always had a top 10 running game, at least as measured by yards per carry.
And obviously that's not saying the defense is what does it--it's the combination of things. You need more than one thing. Sometimes you have a defense so great it cancels all other considerations, but that is very rare.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2021 09:16AM by zn.
