Speaker 1: That's the KWA Common Spirit Health hotline though, and bring
Speaker 1: on our favorite Ryan Michael at the Ryan Michael on
Speaker 1: Twitter contributor and writer, an analyst at the Pro Football
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Right, I gotta ask you, when does
Speaker 1: Lucas Kroll get in?
Speaker 2: I'm not qualified to say, I'm not the gate keeper.
Speaker 3: The fans want to know. Is he getting his own wing?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: At what point are they just gonna build a whole
Speaker 1: new Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: Separate for him? I kid, how you doing?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 3: We'll get right too.
Speaker 1: Of these quarterbacks here, you know, the first two days
Speaker 1: with no pads, and it really does look like Jared
Speaker 1: Stidham's gotta lead on the other quarterbacks. He should by
Speaker 1: virtue of the fact that he's been around these these
Speaker 1: players and been in this offense for a year. But
Speaker 1: with with Bo Nicks and Zach Wilson sort of you know,
Speaker 1: getting their snaps, getting their turn up at bat and
Speaker 1: and all of that, how long does it take do
Speaker 1: you think for someone to emerge and take that role.
Speaker 2: I think that as we get a few weeks of
Speaker 2: training camp underway, and I'm in agreement with Nick, I
Speaker 2: don't feel that training camp is truly training camp until
Speaker 2: the pads are on, so I don't really read much
Speaker 2: into what's happening right now. I'd give it a solid
Speaker 2: two to three weeks before we have more of a
Speaker 2: clear indication as far as who's going to be QB
Speaker 2: one to open up the twenty twenty four seasons.
Speaker 5: So before you join those. Ben and I were having
Speaker 5: a conversation, and I really want to get your take
Speaker 5: on this. Would you rather be a guy on a
Speaker 5: team that won a championship but you really didn't contribute,
Speaker 5: or would you rather be a major contributor on a
Speaker 5: team that did not win a title.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great question, and I think that
Speaker 2: most players would say that they would rather be part
Speaker 2: of a championship winning team, even if they individually didn't
Speaker 2: contribute as much, because football is the ultimate team sport,
Speaker 2: and I think there's something about the nature of team
Speaker 2: sports that attracts players to American football specifically. So given
Speaker 2: the fact that almost every football player I've ever spoken
Speaker 2: to Nick has that in common, I would say maybe
Speaker 2: it's not universal, but I'd be willing to guess that
Speaker 2: at least nine out of every ten people would answer
Speaker 2: they'd rather have the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's the way I'm at Nick is.
Speaker 1: Nick's like I want to be a contributor and I
Speaker 1: want to be out there, and I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, man, you could carry me.
Speaker 1: I could sleep on a waterbed while everybody else goes
Speaker 1: and wins the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: I'm showing that ring off. I'm just it's just mean.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's about winning, It's about championships, I think.
Speaker 1: But you have positive that using Super Bowl rings to
Speaker 1: measure greatness at the quarterback position might be a faulty
Speaker 1: way to look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never felt that Super Bowl rings are a
Speaker 2: good measure of individual performance at any position, much less
Speaker 2: the quarterback position. So you know what I did then,
Speaker 2: was I put together a chart where I compared every
Speaker 2: single Super Bowl winner since two thousand to their first
Speaker 2: team All Pro selection at the position. Counterpart, and what
Speaker 2: I did to level the playing field was I also
Speaker 2: incorporated postseason performance. So and the Associated Press selects they're
Speaker 2: All Pro team, they're not factoring in the postseason. Oftentimes
Speaker 2: those teams are announced before the end of the regular season,
Speaker 2: and so by leveling the playing field to include postseason performance,
Speaker 2: I had a pretty good idea as far as which
Speaker 2: group would play at a higher level, but even I
Speaker 2: was surprised by the results and posted that chart on
Speaker 2: Twitter in the twenty four season. Since two thousand, twenty
Speaker 2: one of the twenty four quarterbacks that I charted ranked
Speaker 2: higher and adjusted net yards per attempt. And it's just
Speaker 2: stat that we often talk about here on VCT, but
Speaker 2: twenty one of the twenty four ranked higher and adjusted
Speaker 2: netyards per attempt regular season and postseason combined as first
Speaker 2: team All Pro selections. There were only two occasions were
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl winner ranked higher than their first team
Speaker 2: All Pro counterpart, and well, Patrick Mahomes was both in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, so you kind of set that on
Speaker 2: the side as its own thing. But you had Drew Brees,
Speaker 2: who rand number one and adjusting net yards per attempt
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine he tought Haydon Manning, who
Speaker 2: was the first team All Pro selection finished fifth, and
Speaker 2: Patrick Mahomes in twenty nineteen actually also led the league
Speaker 2: and adjusted net yards per attempt higher than Lamar Jackson,
Speaker 2: who also finished fit beyond that its first team All
Speaker 2: Pro selections playing at a higher level and by a
Speaker 2: considerable margin so ron.
Speaker 5: With that being said, when did everyone start measuring the
Speaker 5: success of a quarterback based on the number of wins
Speaker 5: as far as Super Bowl wins or appearances?
Speaker 4: And the reason I asked that because.
Speaker 5: Dan Fouls in the Hall of Fame, Dan Marino in
Speaker 5: a Hall of Fame. Neither one of those guys have
Speaker 5: super Bowls.
Speaker 2: Very difficult to get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: Of that Super Bowl raining had Warren, Ya title, France,
Speaker 2: Argent and also part of that Elague group. But as
Speaker 2: far as when the criteria shifted to place a greater
Speaker 2: emphasis on rings, if you go all the way back
Speaker 2: to the nineteen forties, the premier quarterback rivalry was between
Speaker 2: Hall of famers Sammy Baugh and Said Luckman, who were
Speaker 2: also personal friends. Said Luckman was the greater champion, four
Speaker 2: time champion, even beat Sammy Baugh in Washington seventy three
Speaker 2: to zero in a nineteen forty NFL championship. Law only
Speaker 2: had two rings. But nobody made the argument. When I
Speaker 2: say nobody, I'm being a bit hyperbolic. Generally speaking, it
Speaker 2: was an understood consensus that Sammy Ball was the greatest
Speaker 2: quarterback of all time, despite having half championships you fast
Speaker 2: forward to the nineteen sixties, you had John Unitis and
Speaker 2: Bart Starr. Bart Star was a five time champion. Uniteds
Speaker 2: was a three time champion, but a super Bowl win
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy was more similar to Peyton Manning super
Speaker 2: Bowl win in twenty fifteen, so he had three rings total,
Speaker 2: truly on two. But very few people would make the
Speaker 2: argument that bart Star was better than John Uniteds. He
Speaker 2: carried that goat title. It wasn't really until the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties when the debate came down to Dan Marino and
Speaker 2: Joe Montana. In the reality of Joe having four rings
Speaker 2: to Marino's zero, and with one of those four rings
Speaker 2: being the reality that he outplayed Marino in a super Bowl.
Speaker 2: That changed the discussion and the super Bowl itself was
Speaker 2: evolving into more of a spectacle. In the nineties, most
Speaker 2: people would probably pick Brett Farves, Steve Young, or John
Speaker 2: Elway before Troy Aman who won three and the debate
Speaker 2: again Manning and Brady brought rings that into the conversation.
Speaker 2: I would say before Brady won his fourth maybe three
Speaker 2: quarters of people would have picked Manning over Brady, but
Speaker 2: Brady had the longevity and went on to win seven rings.
Speaker 2: So we're really looking at a trend that started in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties and began to solidify itself in the
Speaker 2: latter half of Tom Brady's career.
Speaker 1: When we look at the data, we can see that
Speaker 1: that Drew Brees won a Super Bowl while he led.
Speaker 3: The NFL and adjusted that yards poor attempt.
Speaker 1: Is that an indicator that that could perhaps be one
Speaker 1: of the greatest quarterback seasons of all time where the
Speaker 1: quarterback did carry a team to a Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and especially when you consider the reality that the
Speaker 2: Saints finished twentieth in the NFL I believe in points
Speaker 2: for games surrendered on defense, it's one of the lowest
Speaker 2: ranked scoring defenses in the history of the NFL to
Speaker 2: win a Super Bowl, and not only that New Orleans
Speaker 2: cruise to the number one seed in the NFC. So
Speaker 2: when you look at Drew's postseason run, knocking off Kurt Warner,
Speaker 2: outperforming Brett fav in the NFC Championship Game, and then
Speaker 2: outperforming the quarterback who's in my opinion, the on field
Speaker 2: performance go Paid Manning. Drew Brees outperformed Paid Manning in
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. So it's one of the greatest runs
Speaker 2: of all time from Week one to the moment he
Speaker 2: hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 5: When we talk about quarterbacks, we talk about their level
Speaker 5: to command the offense and then their level of leadership.
Speaker 5: As we were talking about the whole conversation about winning
Speaker 5: a title and not really contributing, someone on the text
Speaker 5: line brought up the fact that Peyton Manning did not
Speaker 5: Oh he was pulled across the finish line and Super
Speaker 5: Bowl fifty. Are there, in your opinion, other elements that
Speaker 5: quarterbacks can provide to their team when their skills, like
Speaker 5: Peyton in that particular situation, start to diminish.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I've often referred to Manning's twenty sixteen season
Speaker 2: this game the greatest add season of all time. He
Speaker 2: actually finished dead last and adjusted nit yards per time
Speaker 2: the monkst quarterbacks who threw three hundred or more passes.
Speaker 2: So I can't exercise this enough. He won the Super
Speaker 2: Bowl finishing dead last in one of the most efficient
Speaker 2: efficiency metrics that we have. And you compare that to
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, two thousand and four, two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, twenty twelve, and twenty thirteen, twenty thirteen, eighty
Speaker 2: second if you include Nick Foles, who attending fewer passes,
Speaker 2: but he led the league in adjusted NT yards per
Speaker 2: attempt more than anybody to ever play in the game,
Speaker 2: and in those seasons never won a championships. So I
Speaker 2: think that that paradox is a testament to help adition
Speaker 2: using super Bowl rings to evaluate performance at the quarterback position.
Speaker 1: Really is is that the worst all time quarterback season
Speaker 1: to get a Super Bowl?
Speaker 3: Because it's got to be thinking.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the successes, but you know, you think
Speaker 1: about maybe Brad Johnson with the Tampay Buccaneers. You think
Speaker 1: about Fred Dilfer with the Baltimore Ravens. Grossman, I don't
Speaker 1: think he won one, but he was they got there.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think what the worst season by a
Speaker 1: quarterback would be to to get to a super.
Speaker 2: Bowl, to get to a super Bowl, And I want
Speaker 2: to answer your question first, to win a super Bowl
Speaker 2: statistically adjusted for era, Yes, the answer is yes. There
Speaker 2: is a caveat that. Manning didn't play a complete season,
Speaker 2: so his overall efficiency levels were dragged down to significantly
Speaker 2: do the reality he was playing injured, especially on November
Speaker 2: fifteenth of twenty two thousand to fifteen, when he played
Speaker 2: Kansas City broke the all time passing record. He finished
Speaker 2: that game with a zero point zero passer rating. So
Speaker 2: the bad games in twenty fifteen dragged down his numbers
Speaker 2: considerably on the flip side of the coin. And I'm
Speaker 2: not saying this to say he had a good year,
Speaker 2: but he did average more passing yards per game on
Speaker 2: the road than TODM Brady did that year, and Brady
Speaker 2: played at an MVP level. He also led the league
Speaker 2: in fourth quarter comebacks if you include the postseason, and
Speaker 2: it's two touchdown no interception performance in the clutch in
Speaker 2: the twenty fifteen AFC Championship game allowed our defense to
Speaker 2: do what they did best that year, and they teed
Speaker 2: off on Brady for the rest of the game. So
Speaker 2: if you're looking at an overall statistical finish, yes, twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen Manning is the worst amongst Super Bowl champions, but
Speaker 2: you have to take into consideration the reality he didn't
Speaker 2: play a.
Speaker 5: Four year Well, there's a lot of young quarterbacks that
Speaker 5: will be understanding this year and for a lot of
Speaker 5: these teams will be the starter. Now, wins in law
Speaker 5: losses is said to be the greatest measure of how
Speaker 5: that player is developing. Well, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 5: of things that kind of go into it. Is there
Speaker 5: another statistics that fans should pay attention to where they're
Speaker 5: watching these young guys actually developed in front of their eyes.
Speaker 4: That may not be just wins and losses.
Speaker 2: Sure, there are plenty of advanced metrics that are are
Speaker 2: far better than wins and losses. Adjusted EPA per play
Speaker 2: is a fantastic one. Adjust the ntyards per attempt as
Speaker 2: a fantastic one. You could look at DVOA, total TVR,
Speaker 2: a number of measures. Because if you're looking just at
Speaker 2: wins and losses, then Mark Sanchez would be one of
Speaker 2: the greatest young quarterbacks they ever played the game. And
Speaker 2: now we know the reality that the two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine and twenty ten Jets were some of the best
Speaker 2: defensive squads of that generation. So I look more towards
Speaker 2: those advanced metrics that I cited before you're looking at
Speaker 2: wins and losses because its history has proven a well
Speaker 2: rounded team can carry quarterbacks who are even playing at
Speaker 2: a below average level to wins that Patrick Mahomes is
Speaker 2: actually a great example of that, even including his impressive
Speaker 2: postseason run last year, he finished thirteenth and adjusted net
Speaker 2: yards per attempt. He played with a defense that finished
Speaker 2: second in the NFL in points surrendered, and during the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl run, I don't remember the exact number because
Speaker 2: I don't have it in front of me, but the
Speaker 2: Chiefs needed to score the same amount of points per
Speaker 2: game to win that championship. Hear their playoff run as
Speaker 2: the New York Jets did during the tocality of the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three season. So if you have a well
Speaker 2: ended team, especially a dominant defense, which I'm sure Nick
Speaker 2: you can appreciate, a quarterback of almost any caliber can
Speaker 2: win more games than they lose.
Speaker 1: All off the script here, but I got to thinking
Speaker 1: about something the other day. What is the data say
Speaker 1: about quarterbacks that have had a low late career, whether
Speaker 1: that be due to injury a lot Eric Rodgers trying
Speaker 1: to come back this year, whether that be to you know,
Speaker 1: transitioning to a new team and a new coach and
Speaker 1: now working out.
Speaker 3: Russell Wilson with Nate Hackett.
Speaker 1: What does it say about Super Bowl winners that having
Speaker 1: the opportunity to bounce back and maybe win again.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult. So Kyton Manning and Tom Brady would
Speaker 2: obviously be the exceptions. Tom played at an elite level
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty when the Buccaneers won, ironically played an
Speaker 2: even higher level the following year when they ended up
Speaker 2: losing the Stafford and the Rams Manning, as we discussed,
Speaker 2: he had his twenty fifteen run, but he had arguably
Speaker 2: the greatest season in the history of Pro football in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen in helping the Broncos at least get to
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl. It's incredibly rare, and it's even rarer
Speaker 2: for a quarterback to be the driving force behind that
Speaker 2: team that's winning or even getting through a championship late
Speaker 2: in their careers.
Speaker 5: When we look at the quarterback position, obviously the Broncos,
Speaker 5: I guess I have a three horse race, but there's
Speaker 5: only one guy who everyone is hoping actually gets to
Speaker 5: the finish line and be the starter for the Denver Broncos.
Speaker 4: Both knicks. You've watched him at Oregon.
Speaker 5: Is there something that jumps out to you that gives
Speaker 5: you the indicators that you know what. I don't know
Speaker 5: exactly what the first couple of games are going to
Speaker 5: be like, but I can say, what's your confidence that
Speaker 5: this kid is going to have a great career because
Speaker 5: of what you've seen.
Speaker 4: Is there one thing or a couple of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a couple of things, and there's certainly
Speaker 2: no sure vets Nake. I had Bonnick's number two on
Speaker 2: my board under CABLEB. Williams, I would say information processing
Speaker 2: and pass accuracy are his two greatest strengths. And they're
Speaker 2: not classy strengths. If you look at the way, say
Speaker 2: Drew Brees played the quarterback position during the final years
Speaker 2: of his career, it wasn't nearly as exciting from a
Speaker 2: highlight play standpoint as what we've seen from the Homes
Speaker 2: or Lamar Jackson or Trevor Warrence or Josh Allen, but
Speaker 2: it was remarkably efficient. So if you're winning games and
Speaker 2: you're executing the offense death by a thousand payper cut
Speaker 2: that up. I don't care how you get it done.
Speaker 2: I care that you score points. So when I see
Speaker 2: a quarterback, who's two greatest strengths or even three if
Speaker 2: you want to, for football IQ into that because they're
Speaker 2: all interconnected. Football IQ, information processing and pass accuracy. Those
Speaker 2: are three of the most important core ingredients for success
Speaker 2: over the long term. They're not necessarily traits that I
Speaker 2: expect to flash early in year one or even in
Speaker 2: year one altogether. It's something that's going to take time,
Speaker 2: especially learning a complicated system like the one that Sean
Speaker 2: runs here at Denver.
Speaker 1: Well, Ryan, we appreciate it as always at the Ryan
Speaker 1: michael on Twitter and look forward to you getting us
Speaker 1: that information on when we can expect the Lucas Croll induction.
Speaker 2: All right, I'll get the work on it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Take care, Ryan Michael. Let the Ryan michael on