What's with the Thigpen fixation?

[Sam Hall]

Originally Posted by pestilenceaf23

Can Bree's take a hit? Because that's what Big Ben repeatedly does....and still gets back up.

I'd say he can after taking that hit against Denver and coming back from arthroscopic shoulder surgery.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by Sam Hall

As good as Big Ben is, I'd like to see Brees in the Pittsburgh offense.

And apparently, you don't listen outside of the draft forum either:

Brees would absolutely be destroyed behind the Pittsburgh line, throwing to the Pittsburgh receivers.

If Ben was sacked 46 times, how many times do you think Brees would have been sacked? 60? What do you think his completion percentage would have been with defenders in his face one each and every play?

[Basileus777]

Brees wouldn't't be sacked 40+ times in Pittsburgh because he doesn't hold onto the ball way too ****ing long like Ben does. Pittsburgh's line isn't good, but Ben is responsible for a lot of those sacks.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by Basileus777

Brees wouldn't't be sacked 40+ times in Pittsburgh because he doesn't hold onto the ball way too ****ing long like Ben does. Pittsburgh's line isn't good, but Ben is responsible for a lot of those sacks.

They run completely different offenses.

The Saints run quick timing patterns, getting the ball out quickly.

And you can say BR holds the ball too long, and he does. But how many sacks has he avoided my being mobile in the pocket?

At minimum, it's a wash, and I'd bet if you charted every pass play this year, you'd find he avoided more sacks that he caused by holding the ball too long.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

They run completely different offenses.

The Saints run quick timing patterns, getting the ball out quickly.
And you can say BR holds the ball too long, and he does. But how many sacks has he avoided my being mobile in the pocket?

At minimum, it's a wash, and I'd bet if you charted every pass play this year, you'd find he avoided more sacks that he caused by holding the ball too long.

they also throw the deep ball as much as any team in the league

[doomy3]

Originally Posted by Basileus777

Brees wouldn't't be sacked 40+ times in Pittsburgh because he doesn't hold onto the ball way too ****ing long like Ben does. Pittsburgh's line isn't good, but Ben is responsible for a lot of those sacks.

I agree. I don't know how anyone can dispute the fact that Ben holds the ball too long. I think even Tomlin has said as much.

[keg in kc]

Okay, the Anderson/Manning debate was one thing, but Brees (who I've never liked, to be honest), has been one of the best QBs in the NFL the last 5 years, particularly the last 3 in NO. He's as much a franchise QB as Roethlisberger is. He'd have been a 1st round draft pick if he was 3 inches taller, he's got all the rest of the skill set (and it's not like he was drafted late, 1st pick of the 2nd round, 32nd overall).

(And what's he doing in the Thigpen discussion, anyway? Because he's short? He's about as far from Thigpen in style of play as you can get - he's a pocket-passer with a high completion percentage, not a running QB who chucks it up for grabs)

[ChiefRon]

So, what's the consensus?

How many people think Thigpen is a franchise QB?

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by ChiefRon

How many people think Thigpen is a franchise QB?

I think he's a project, not a franchise QB. If he ever does develop into into a quality starter, it'll be with another franchise years down the road. I'm thinking his upper limit is Rich Gannon, Trent Green, Steve Beuerlein, Jake Delhomme, someone that takes years to grow into it.

(No, I'm not saying that's what he is, I'm saying that's the best case scenario...)

But, either way, he's not a franchise quarterback. I don't think you build a team around Tyler Thigpen, or hand him a 100 million dollar contract, or make him the face of the Chiefs.

I think the whole idea of Thigpen as QBotF is the same kind of fascination that had people rooting for Mike Maslowski as a linebacker or Marc Boerigter as a receiver. It's the attraction to the underdog story.

[Basileus777]

You can't prove Brees' toughness one way or another through stats. Ben gets hit a lot, and much of it is his fault. Ben also gets hurt a lot. Saying Brees couldn't play in Pittsburgh because he gets rid of the ball and doesn't get sacked 40+ times a year is just speculation with little reason behind it.

[keg in kc]

Interesting article from december shows that Brees was top-10 in the NFL in both hits and hurries to that point of the season: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/ext...d-hurries-2008

Here are your (hurries) leaders among quarterbacks.

J.T. O'Sullivan, SF: 63
Aaron Rodgers, GB: 59
Drew Brees, NO: 54
Ben Roethlisberger, PIT: 54
David Garrard, JAC: 52*
Donovan McNabb, PHI: 50
Peyton Manning, IND: 49
Matt Ryan, ATL: 47
Derek Anderson, CLE: 45
Kurt Warner, ARI: 45*

The least-hurried quarterback among regular starters is Jake Delhomme, marked with only 23 hurries with no missing halves through Week 11.

here are the quarterbacks with the most hits. Again, sacks not included. Check out the big gap between the top two and everyone else.

Kurt Warner, ARI: 65.2 (65)
David Garrard, JAC: 61.2 (67)
Matt Cassel, NE: 42.4 (42)
Jeff Garcia, TB: 41.1 (41)
Jason Campbell, WAS: 36.5 (39)
Drew Brees, NO: 36.5 (37)
Tony Romo, DAL: 34.8 (34)
Peyton Manning, IND: 33.2 (33)
Derek Anderson, CLE: 30.2 (28)
Donovan McNabb, PHI: 30.1 (27)

I have to admit I was surprised by that. The guy was only sacked 13 times in 600+ attempts and completed 65% of his passes, which aren't exactly the kind of numbers that shout 'under pressure'.

[Basileus777]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Interesting article from december shows that Brees was top-10 in the NFL in both hits and hurries to that point of the season: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/ext...d-hurries-2008

I have to admit I was surprised by that. The guy was only sacked 13 times in 600+ attempts and completed 65% of his passes, which aren't exactly the kind of numbers that shout 'under pressure'.

The Saints don't have a great oline and when you pass that much you are bound to get a lot of pressure. The number of sacks given up says as much about a QB as it does the line. How many times have we seen teams give uo 40+ sacks and then a better QB comes in and all of a sudden the number of sacks goes down drastically? Or vice-versa. Brady was barely touched last year and Cassel was sacked 40+ times this year. And generally more mobile QBs are sacked more because they try to keep the play alive too long.

[doomy3]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Interesting article from december shows that Brees was top-10 in the NFL in both hits and hurries to that point of the season: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/ext...d-hurries-2008

I have to admit I was surprised by that. The guy was only sacked 13 times in 600+ attempts and completed 65% of his passes, which aren't exactly the kind of numbers that shout 'under pressure'.

So, all of those guys in the bottom list were actually hit MORE than Ben in the first half, huh?

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by doomy3

So, all of those guys in the bottom list were actually hit MORE than Ben in the first half, huh?

Apparently.

I'm trying to find hurries stats for the whole season, but not having much luck.

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Interesting article from december shows that Brees was top-10 in the NFL in both hits and hurries to that point of the season: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/ext...d-hurries-2008

I have to admit I was surprised by that. The guy was only sacked 13 times in 600+ attempts and completed 65% of his passes, which aren't exactly the kind of numbers that shout 'under pressure'.

The quarterback hits, of course, come from the official play-by-play. Official scorers are doing a better job of marking hits this year compared to last year, but there still are some very strange totals for certain teams because of scorers who seem to miss a lot of knockdowns. We've added a lot of hits to the official PBP thanks to the charting project, but that doesn't fully solve the problem. I'm sorry, but there's no way that last week's Pittsburgh-Dallas game had eight sacks but only one other play where a defender knocked the quarterback to the ground. And last week, the Bucs sacked Jeff Garcia five times but didn't knock him to the ground on any other play? Message to official scorer in Charlotte: I have my doubts.

Translation: Until hits taken are an official NFL stat, I have my doubts. Seems like there is no uniform guidelines as to what a hit is, or isn't.

For sake of conversation, let's play with these numbers.

Through 14 weeks, Brees was supposedly hit 36.5 times.

That averages out to 2.6 times per game.

So, the best we can do is assume he was hit 42 times over the course of the season.

Add that to the 13 sacks he took, and we have contact on 55 out of 635 pass attempts. Or contact every 11.5 pass attempts.

Roethlisberger wasn't on the list, so we don't have numbers to do the math - but it shows he was hurried the same number of times that Brees was.

Let's be fair and say that BR took HALF (which is being generous, IMO) of the hits that Brees took. 1.5 per game.

That's 21 hits over the course of the season, added to the 46 sacks he took. Contact on 67 plays over the course of the season, out of 469 pass attempts - or contact every 7 pass attempts.