I'd take a chance on Sanchez if they could swing it. No way he makes it to 17 though, so they'd have to trade up for him. Regarding the question marks... virtually every QB who's ever been drafted is a gamble. The sure thing QB often bbecomes a bust and a guy like Brady gets drafted in the 6th round. All you can do is look at the tools - the mechanics, the arm strength, the natural ability, the instincts and intelligence. If you get even a chance to grab someone that can become a franchise QB, I think you gotta go for it... especially if you only have a couple of unknown and unproven QBs on the roster. If not Sanchez, I hope they get Moreno. I'd be happy with either pick. I'd feel more secure with Moreno, but would be optimistic with sanchez.
Rivers absolutely has the arm to make any of those plays Eli made. If anyone has let SD down in the postseason it's Tomlinson not Rivers. Rivers has had only one bad playoff game and bad game statistically where he literally carried his team on one bad leg when he had no Gates and no Tomlinson to help him. He had a huge game this past postseason on the road against Pittsburgh. The only reason SD hasn't made a Super Bowl under his leadership is because the players around him keep going down (Gates, Tomlinson and Merriman)
Not to mention they blew up a coaching staff that had just gone 14-2. Everything in the playoffs doesn't revolve around arm strength, it's still football, same rules as the regular season.
Rivers has a below average arm and he has underperformed his regular season in the playoffs there is no getting around it. His TD to INT ratio, accuracy and passer rating are all down from his regular season stats. One game does not make a playoff run.
I think that's vastly overrated. Ken O'Brien had a rocket arm and played his worst football at the Meadowlands in December time and time again. The one playoff game we won in his tenure was when he was replaced by Pat Ryan, who led us to win the Wild Card game at the Meadowlands with an average arm. Chad Pennington has a not-so-great arm (I've heard) and he's walked out of the Meadlowlands with two division titles after playing two great games in late December.
The Rivers I've watched does not have a below average arm. He’s had below average receivers outside of Antonio Gates however. What Rivers has done in the postseason warrant more than just a look at his stats. First you need to acknowledge that his teammates have let him down in the postseason. Tomlinson missed the Pittsburgh game this year and all but 3 plays in the AFC Championship game in 2007. In the other two playoff games in ’07 he was a non factor rushing for 42 yards against Tennessee and 28 yards against Indianapolis. In the 2008 game against the Colts he had 5 carries in the game. Antonio Gates was severely injured in the 2007 Divisional Game against the Colts and was a non factor in the Patriots game. In 2008 they were also without Shawne Merriman. With that said he was tremendous in the 2007 postseason. With Tomlinson hurting in the Tennessee game Rivers went out and completed 19 of 30 passes for 292 yards and 1 TD. He followed that up with a huge game in Indianapolis throwing for 264 yards and 3 TDs on 14 of 19 passes before severely injuring his knee. While he didn’t have a big statistical performance in the AFC Championship Game he still guided the Chargers into the Red Zone 3 times and once more down to the 22. Unfortunately they didn’t score TDs and losing two of the best Goaline players in the league didn’t help. The Chargers had only one 3 and out in a game that was played on a cold rainy day with Rivers playing with a torn ACL. The 2008 Wild Card game against the Colts was clearly a Darren Sproles game and Rivers didn’t have his best game. But to follow it up the next week on the road against the eventual Super Bowl Champions and play as well as he did without Tomlinson shows he has what it takes to win a Championship. As good as Eli Manning is, he hadn’t been called upon to carry his team all by himself until this year. He’s benefited from a good running game and a superior defense and a big WR target. This year his defense got banged up and tired, he lost Plaxico Burress and the running game struggled, Manning did not play well.
Chad's December numbers are pretty consistent with his numbers the rest of the year, he doesn't fall off the cliff statistically until you go into January when he drops from just over a 90 passer rating to just over a 77 passer rating. It might be more competition than weather. One of the things Chad has been very good at is playing in rain and bad conditions on not trying to do to much. It's when he has to do something that he gets in trouble.
So explain why Ken O'Brien did so badly in cold weather games. If a strong arm was the be-all-end-all he should have dominated in the windy conditions. Playoff stats are hard to measure against regular season games because there are drastically fewer games, so one or two real good or bad games are going to skew everything. Every playoff game is it's own entity--different situations, different players in/out, etc, as Murrell was pointing out about San Diego.
Per rotoworld: ESPN's Sal Paolantonio reports that the Jets are "looking" into trading up in the draft for USC QB Mark Sanchez. Sal Pal says the Jets hope Sanchez falls to No. 8, where they think they can strike a deal with Jacksonville. It doesn't seem like the Jags have serious interest in drafting Sanchez. It's just hard to imagine him getting that far. Sanchez is known to be ahead of Matthew Stafford on many teams' boards.
Mark Sanchez could be methadone for the the Chaddicts of TGG. A hot shot of Golden Boy, right to the main line.
Well if we pull the trigger on a deal for Sanchez, he'd better be the real deal. Think it'd be possible to move up without using our 2nd rounder? Maybe #17, our 3rd rounder and our 6th? Maybe include one of those conditional picks that Tanny loves
It's possible that we use some of our 2010 picks...either way, this team will have to give up a lot to move up 9 spots...
Maybe O'Brein wasn't that good in pressure situations and the fact that he had a good arm didn't make up for his very high choke factor? Perhaps you're right and Chad doesn't suck in the playoffs because he has a rag arm maybe it's his head?
