Quote:
Originally Posted by GTripp0012
Hey, you know me well enough to know I'm not part of the crowd that sees the two TD passes in the third quarter and says, "wow, Jason Campbell really showed me something today." I don't see any positives in a bad performance. Others do. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm a stats guy first and I'm being consistent.
What Jason Campbell can be in this league is still very much up in the air. What he is: a known quantity at this point. If that makes him Barack Obama in your mind, well, um, okay. It's a horrible comparison for any number of reasons. As a known quantity though, he's rarely the reason we win or lose close games. Which makes small-sample analysis of his play largely if not completely unnecessary.
What he is right now, and what he will be for the next three weeks at least, is a guy who is leading a passing offense that may be incapable of leading us into the end zone with consistency, but might be our only offensive weapon. That's got a lot of value, but at the end of the day, it's not the difference between winning and losing.
If the OL gels, Campbell might be able to go out and snatch some wins from the jaws of defeat. Until then, he is what he is. And the analysis is best spent other places. Like: how does the punter hurt his groin? C'mon, you know you want to talk about groins and punters!
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Fair enough.
You need to keep in mind I am stats guy too, and most of the time, you're right, they point to certain trends, and a lot can be learned from them. But you have to remember football is a different breed. They don't always lead to the answer. The fact that Campbell had double the turnovers than tds and showed more of his make up than the inflated numbers he got vs the Lions. (not to mention the fact that the skins won anyway) That's the nature of the beast. Being a stats guy, I'm sure you can come up with A LOT of numbers to show he's not the guy we want him to be, and he never will be...but we will leave that for another debate.
While I agree about most everything you said (including the Obama analogy which was more of a jab even though there are vague similarities) the comment of "it's not the difference between winning and losing", well I think you are dead wrong there. The QB IS the difference in almost all cases. Campbell is no exception. If his play was more consistant, and he didn't over throw wide open receivers, and could actually be accurate beyond 15 yards, and lead us to redzone scores, we'd be talking about how good of a team we had and talking super bowl bound. If Campbell stays on the field, the defense stays off and gets rested which makes our D even better. Putting up 7 instead of 3 or 0 is HUGE when you consider how many close games we have. So yes, Campbell is the difference. Better Campbell = more wins.