Peyton Manning or RGIII your choice

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by biffle

I don't think anyone is "God's gift" and I'm not sure what the point of a lame comment like that is. If you don't like him as a prospect, that's fine. I do, as do plenty of other people. We can disagree, but rest assured, I don't need you to tell me what "my problem" is..

Sheesh, touchy. God's Gift was just my term for someone you think extremely highly of. That must be the case, there's no way you'd ever trade so many picks to get someone you didn't think was God's Gift.

Originally Posted by biffle

Manning's passer ratings by age:
28- 121.1
29- 104.1
30- 101
31- 98
32- 95
33- 99.9
34- 91.9

A pretty clear downward trajectory there, and that number for his last year would have been good for only 7th best in the NFC this season.

People decline physically as they get older. It's not exactly controversial to say that. And taking a year off and having multiple surgeries aren't exactly elixirs for that.

From age 29 to age 33, those QB ratings are for all intents and purposes, the same. Nobody who watched Manning over that time would ever say that he fell off during that time. He was just as deadly. As for the 34 year old season, don't forget that was the year he played hurt the entire year with neck pain and numbness in his arm. Hence the neck surgeries and now the nerve regeneration.

People decline physically, yes. But it's typically fast twitch muscle that falls off as you age. RBs, WRs, and DBs are particularly prone to aging, they rely on agility and speed which requires fast twitch muscle. Arm strength can decline some, but that's typically more a function of mechanics. On Peyton's particular situation, spinal fusion surgery results in complete nerve regeneration over 90% of the time. It also results in vertebrae that are stronger and more resistant to injury than they were even before the surgery. Some range of motion can be lost, but this is insignificant to the sport of football. In other words, Manning is almost certain to be himself again. Those are just the medical facts.

Originally Posted by biffle

Ah, so once there was a terrible GM who didn't know what he was doing, so all Free Agent spending is bad. Brilliant. Does that also apply to Gibbs' Washington-Springs-Griffin-Daniels-Moss spending spree that was the basis for two playoff runs? How about the Patriots first Super Bowl win after signing about 20 FAs? There are smart ways and dumb ways to spend money, just like there are dumb ways to do most anything.

For the record, why don't you look at GTripp's breakdown of our cap space. People keep throwing these numbers around and thinking that we are going to have trouble figuring out what to do with all the cap space. Once we re-sign our own and our draft picks, that space turns into a much more pedestrian number.

Fair point. I will concede that I do believe free agency can still be successful in filling out a team. But successful forays into free agency do not include bringing in $35-$45 million worth of free agent talent. That's almost an entirely new starting lineup.

As for GTripp's breakdown, you probably don't realize it but you've stepped into my wheelhouse - salary cap analysis. GTripp's breakdown post is one I used to do for this site. He did it this year for whatever reason, I chose not to make an issue of it, but that doesn't mean I agree with the analysis. He's right in saying we need a portion of our cap space to resign our own players or replace them with other players. But I don't agree with the conclusion that there is only $15 million of flexibility. You may be able to assume same cap value when considering replacement cost of departing players, but that doesn't mean those replacements won't be talent upgrades.