America's favorite dystopian pastime - 'out of the darkness' NFL 2023-24

Kurt Warner probably the closest comparison as far as a star franchise QB showing up out of nowhere.

ah yeah I was looking at late draft choices, didn't think about Warner cuz he wasn't drafted at all lol

Trevor Siemian about as good as you can reasonably hope these guys could be, but yeah even then his good performances seemed kind of lucky. Purdy on the other hand went 20 for 21 last week and carved up a very good Dallas defense this week, and as he approaches an entire season worth of stats (counting playoffs) his numbers actually look real close to one of Aaron Rodgers' MVP seasons. I don't wanna jinx the guy by pointing this out, but on the other hand I don't think there's ever been a QB putting up numbers like this who didn't turn out to be really good

Marc Bulger was a 6th rounder but he kinda turned out to be a fraud

arguably he panned out vv well for the Eagles, much moreso than their more highly touted top pick, but i wouldn't suggest he was *really* good.

Foles finished the 2013 regular season with 27 touchdown passes and only 2 interceptions, just behind Tom Brady's 2016 record of 28 touchdown passes and 2 interceptions for the best TD-INT ratio in NFL history, and a season leading 119.0 passer rating and third in NFL history trailing only to Aaron Rodgers' 122.5 rating in 2011 and Peyton Manning's 121.1 rating in 2004.[

QB is really one position which seems to come with a higher possibility of being a one-year wonder, particularly if you weren't drafted or signed to be "the guy" and you come in mid-year due to injury or benching. QB is just basically the hardest job and having little to no expectations can initially have the QB playing loose and achieving immediate success due to lack of game film or schematics on him, and then the moment they achieve repeated success across multiple weeks to months, now expectations are setting in and their strengths become crutches where they become less adaptable. whereas those that are the de facto starter from Week 1 are already facing the pressure from Day 1 and facing defenses that are already gameplanned against them so if they achieve success they probably already had to be pretty flexible and patient with themselves.

who are the biggest flukey QBs of all time, that had a few good years and then weren't shit after?

Scott Mitchell?

I was tempted to say Michael Vick, because I can't think of anyone with greater talent who flamed out so spectacularly, but his numbers in Philly after his suspension were actually better than they were in Atlanta.

lol yeah, he actually had a little bit of a renaissance for a bit

kind of a different situation though

I always think of Matt Flynn, who has 2 of the all-time best statistical games in Green Bay Packers history (throwing 6 TDs in one!), who was utterly garbage otherwise

but thats a very different thing as well. only one that comes to mind now is Nick Foles

xpost it is still amusing to me that "running QBs will be the thing of the future" was so believed by us all for so long despite the fact that so many of them got seriously hurt or easily defeated by defensive adjustments to take away the run because they weren't great pocket passers. and then we settled on "ok it's cool when you have QBs that can make plays with their feet but we're never going to see full-on college-style option offenses in the NFL".

for a few years Lamar Jackson actually looked like what our vision of the QB of the future back in 2001 looked like, he married the two better than anybody I'd ever seen. but now he's faded. Fields could maybe get there if he finds consistency.

really think we should seek to teach offensive lineman sized people how to play QB, have a QB that can't really run but nobody can tackle them either

for a minute it looked like Tebow was that sort of guy, he was pretty slow for a running QB but remarkably hard to take down

remarkably hard to stop laughing when he threw a pass, unfortunately

who are the biggest flukey QBs of all time, that had a few good years and then weren't shit after?

Flacco?

ha yeah that's a pretty good one

we're definitely in lean quarterbacking years now, mostly due to the mass retirement of the last wave of QBs (debuting in late 20th-early 21st century). probably be another 4-5 years before we have another QB renaissance

Flacco had 7 decent years I think, maybe comprable to some of Brett Favre's less good seasons

the Elvis Grbac we never knew we wanted

RG3 was a phenom his rookie year, maybe one of the best QB seasons in Hatcat history, pretty unfortunate how that turned out

Derek Anderson in '07? him and Braylon Edwards had a really good thing going, he was also fairly mobile, but he was garbage after that

I always felt like Anderson was overrated. he turned a ball over a LOT, even in his good year.

he was also one of the reasons they missed the playoffs due to throwing 4 picks in a game. I'll defer to brownie's opinion on Anderson though as I didn't see him play every week!

Steve Beuerlein, no one noticed his fluky career year because of Warner.

Beuerlein's 4,436 passing yards led the league, and at the time was the 11th-highest passing yardage total ever.[47][48] He also led the NFL with 343 completions, and his 94.6 passer rating and 36 touchdown passes were second only to the 1999 MVP Kurt Warner.[47]

Beuerlein made the Pro Bowl for the first and only time in his career, tying offensive guard Bob Young for the most seasons in the league (13) before making his first Pro Bowl.[49]

tbh Daunte Culpepper kinda qualifies for this

xpost I completely forgot about that Beuerlein year!

xp does it really run in cycles, seems to me like it'd be totally random. the next brady could be in the league already and we just dont have the long view yet

despite Jay Cutler being a guy you'd think could have sleptwalk into breaking his team records due to the era, Erik Kramer still holds some of them for the Bears:

Kramer currently holds the Bears' single-season record for passing yards (3,838) and touchdown passes (29),[8] and attempts in a single game with 60 on November 16, 1997.

and i wouldn't call it a "good" year necessarily (completion percentage of 58.6!) but Blake Bortles bortled his way into 4400+ yds passing and 35 TDs in 2015.

oh actually I just thought of a good comp, Case Keenum in 2017. same sort of situation, backup comes in, puts up crazy numbers and wins a bunch of games, leaving many to wonder if it's the system or if it's the offense as a whole or if he's just that good...unfortunately it turned out he wasn't

xxxpost well cycles in that we never seem to be in lean QB years forever.

the early to mid-80s to late 90s didn't lack for good QB play, but a large part of that time period existed pre-free agency, where you could stockpile a successor on the bench for years with no pressure to play him and let him learn behind the best.

from like 2000 - 2008 or so, it felt like barely anybody could play the position, which is why running backs who ran 350 times per year, picked up 1600 yards, and then retired at 29 were the money men. I don't think we're quite in a period like that, fortunately.

Brian Griese really only had two good years. 2000 with the Broncos, 8 yards per attempt, 19 TDs vs only 4 INTs, 102.9 passer rating.

then he had a brief resurgence in Tampa Bay in 2004.

Having watched every one of Purdy's games, he looks and feels like the real deal. Niner fans have been apologetic over play far inferior to his going back to 2004, and seeing Purdy play is a bit of a shocker for us.

His first real time in a game, that Miami game last year, where he walked in down 7-3, then completely overwhelmed them, was like a light getting flipped on. The following weak, beating that Tampa team, I knew then he was probably the best QB we've had since Garcia. Now I am thinking he's the best since Young. Niners haven't scored like this since 1995.

All you gotta do is watch Jimmy G play last year with the same skill players. He was good, they won, but the games were still close for the most part. Brock's come in and basically turned us into the offensive machine I remember from my youth. Literally haven't seen an offense this consistently good in red and gold since the 90's

If he wins a ring in the next year or two the sky's the limit. The dynastic greats often win one young (see: Montana, Brady, Mahomes, hell throw in Posey and Jeter for baseball comps)

Until then, who knows what his ceiling looks like, but from this vantage point I can't see it yet. Gonna be a sweet ride!

Style wise, the player that Purdy was reminding me of because of the efficiency was Chad Pennington. Little different situation as Pennington sat for a couple of years, but the backup out of nowhere and just be so efficient was the thing.

The Niners are just loaded with talent everywhere though, I think a bunch of QBs could look good playing with them to an extent.

Tom Moore was the offensive coordinator for that Lions team with Mitchell, before he went to the Colts and worked with Peyton Manning. He was loveable Wayne Fontes last O-coordinator.

Brian Griese really only had two good years.

For a second there, I read that as "Bob" Griese.

That team had Barry Sanders and Herman Moore, they had some talent on offense. Herman Moore was pretty darn good. Without looking it up, I think he was one of the first players to get 100 catches in a year.

[Confirmed - yep Moore did it in 95, 96 & 97.] That was a big deal back in those days.

Man, Pennington could have been a potential legend, but fell to injury.

But at some point you can say "just loaded with talent everywhere though, I think a bunch of QBs could look good playing with them to an extent" about any of the amazing teams of the past with HoF QBs.

Usually health holds these dudes back far more than "talent to throw to". Brady did what he did in large part due to the fact that he was the GOAT of durability. Jerry Rice follows a similar path there. Speaking of - you don't see many question Montana and Young's careers and worthiness due to them being lucky enough to throw to Rice!

What I'm saying is Purdy to my eyes is unequivocally a pro-bowl caliber QB (our first since at least Garcia). The question to me now is whether he is a championship caliber QB.

I kinda think Brian Griese and Chad Pennington both were guys that hurt their throwing shoulder and was never quite the same afterwards. That seems to happen to alot Qb's. That's also what happened to Tim Couch.

I've said it before around here, I don't think people give enough providence to the just sheer luck of being drafted by the right team in the NFL, more so than even in the NBA or MLB. In the NBA or MLB, you can be on a crappy club and get your numbers, in the NFL, it can get you hurt.

There are lots of really good players that spend their whole careers in defense or on the offensive lines o total crap clubs and kind of retire a bit in anonymity.

Take a guy like Andrew Whitworth, who was always a really good player, but I got to think without him getting notoriety winning a Superbowl that last season with the Rams - he's not doing TV now. (That said, there are a LOT of ex-Bengals that work in football TV media.)

Wondered that a lot about the various QBs drafted by the Browns and Bears, who knows what could’ve happened if they went to a team that actually knows how to develop QBs

"here in illustrious Kansas City, you can have yourselves some wonderful barbecue, but you'd be remiss if you didn't pay a visit to the Cade McNown statue downtown"

“the score really doesn’t show what happened out there” - micha parsons

He passess to the scoreboard

One sports writer I read said that Purdy is the perfect quarterback for Shanahan, he a talented novice player who doesn’t have any history of patterns that need to be corrected, but he is someone Shanahan can mold as a piece of clay in his own image, an avatar for him on the field

"purdy cannot throw a ball through a pane of glass" is about right but doesn't need to do i guess.

was always told that the reason qbs often seem to flame out is that they are "solve-able," and once the book is wrote, that's it.

that sounds like it ought to be a coaching problem?

I'll defer to brownie's opinion on Anderson though as I didn't see him play every week!

Thanks Neando - I'm glad you came to me first rather than learning about Derek Anderson on the streets.

The 2007 Browns had:

Jamal Lewis, older but still good (1300 yards rushing!)
Braylon Edwards, peak year
Kellen Winslow, peak year
Josh Cribbs returning kicks
Phil Dawson kicking

Then Derek Anderson, who was serviceable. He had no touch on short passes - it was painful watching him try to complete screens and short crosses but when you have Jamal Lewis you could go deep more often. He really was a poor mans Flacco. He is now, politically, the poor mans Curt Schilling.

Kelly Holcomb was the true flash in the pan.

Kellen Winslow, man I forgot about him. Probably for the best.

yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

"purdy cannot throw a ball through a pane of glass" is about right but doesn't need to do i guess.

If this is critiquing his accuracy it's flat out wrong. Dude was as accurate as Rodgers or Brady Sunday night, dropping in elite level accuracy on throws over 20-30 yards down field all night. See: First Kittle TD, Aiyuk completion that was called back due to holding, and the third Kittle TD for starters. Multiple passes over the middle were as elite throws as anyone in the league can throw when hitting a window pane target.

If it's critiquing his arm strength this is also dumb. Dude is leading the league in deep ball accuracy after the last game too, overtaking Tua.

Dude is doing anything you'd ask any of the best QBs to do in the league at this stage and doing it without making many mistakes against (alleged) top flight defenses like Dallas.