I'm neither agreeing or disagreeing. I said your opponent will know which of your players to attack or focus on. your first sentence said that's not true. I was replying to that. It's possible both of us are misinterpreting.
the opponent clearly knows where teams weaknesses are, its not always easy to exploit it. It also speaks to positional value. If the Bills left guard sucks, the Jets know it. The Jets defender might blow right past the guard and see Josh Allen simply sidestep him and take off for 30 yards. On that play it didn't matter one bit that their guard sucks because Josh Allen is awesome and QB is way more important than guard
Yup QB is the exception to no position is more important than any other. But only because the current rule book is structured to sustain that. I grew up in an era with different rules so I saw teams win games under different circumstances. Change the rules, change the game. Today for the most part completing or failing to complete some crucial passes in the 4th is the key to winning or losing . And that usually means all 11 players either contributed as they were supposed to or someone screwed up. The difference in athletic ability in all these non QB guys is minute.
I'm agreeing with both of you. Let's be clear, compared to the rest of us, those 11 are ALL freakish athletes. Is just, as @BrowningNagle, you point out correctly, in the realm of freakish athletes some are definitely more freakish than the others. Thing is, at the end of the day, to bring this whole conversation around to a conclusion, the point we were trying to drive home is all 11 are important and all 11 are premium positions. When one position fails that is a problem. As you pointed out, if one of those positions is manned by someone who is really deficient, some other player has to be so freakishly better than to compensate for their failures. The true success of a GM is to employ 11 people who do not have to have their limitations "covered" by another teammate. Some seem to think that there are positions that are not premium. Some seem to think there are only 3 positions, out of all 24, that are premium and the rest are just "forget me nots" placed on the field to take up space while the PREMIUM positions wreak havoc all over the field. Odd thought process, don'tcha think?
This is a good point. Let's look at the evolution, shall we? Back "in the day" no one position was that overvalued than any other. I remember a time where the QB's were as tough as the damn edge rushers trying to knock their blocks off. Then, one day, some owner thought it would be cute to pay a QB an obscenely ridiculous amount of $$. All of a sudden the rules were bent to kiss the QB's ass because, holy shit, if the QB's got his block knocked off then the team was out a assload of $$. Do you really think they give a shit about the health of a QB? I don't. All they see is their $$ sitting on a sideline somewhere. Fast forward to today, you can't even accidentally fall on a QB without a fuckin' flag. I give it less than 10 years and they won't even be able to hit a QB. It's coming. Once that day arrives, I'll stop watching football. Until then, we've evolved into a panty waist league, at least as far as one position is concerned.
I have to say this is an interesting topic and good arguments on both sides…. For years the “positional value ” for a championship NFL team - the “model” so to speak was QB, LT, Edge, #1 CB, and a #1 WR. Cap wise those were the most highly invested positions and still are for the most part. Historically speaking no teams with studs at those positions were always in the playoffs or at least in contention every year. In the one hand let’s take Rex’s 2010 Jets. They had a stud at LT, a stud CB, stud WRs. That’s 3 of 5. Now Rex did not have that stud single pass rusher …but he had good players and generated heat with that 46 defense. QB was shaky but we’ll say adequate considered the way the team (the whole team) was built around him. So if I were to credit a 1/2 for edge (JT was a little passed his peak as a player) and 1/2 for QB that’s 4 of 5 on average. That team got to the championship game…. But on the other hand I’m sure everybody here remembers why the 2010 Jets did not advance or at least a very good reason. The RT. Wayne Hunter. Not one of those “stud” positions but the guy was a turnstile for the last month. Woody got hurt - didn’t play in the playoffs and it was Hunter who got beat badly on the strip sack for the TD that turned out to be the difference. Also, somebody above mentioned the kicker. A good kicker wins 4 or 5 games a year. The Jets for years outside of Folk have had issues finding and keeping a good kicker - look at Myers in 2018. They let him walk and the beginning of 2019 was a disaster. They let Folk walk this year … yeah I know he’s old .. but this K they signed better not be the kicker opening day .. he’s lousy. So basically I can see both sides of this debate….
I'd say having by far the worst QB in the 2010 playoffs was a much larger reason we lost than Wayne Hunter. Those playoffs had Roethlisberger, Brady, Cutler, Brees, Rodgers, Manning, etc. And yeah, we beat a couple of those guys before we lost, but Mark Sanchez is only going to take you so far. The league is too QB-driven. There are basically two ways to win in the modern NFL - either you field a top-5 running game and defense simultaneously or you have an elite QB. Almost all of the elite teams fit one of those two molds. It's hard to get an elite QB, but it's even harder to maintain a top-5 running game and defense for years on end. Our problem, distilled down to its essence, is that we've been trying to replicate the running game and defense approach since Rex when most of the league realized you should just go all-in on offense 10 years prior to that when the greatest show on turf Rams were hot.
Your first paragraph about Sanchez proves what I’m trying to say as for both sides of the debate. The Jets had the LT the CB and the WR but the QB was not top notch. Therefore in theory the Jets would have a hard time becoming a championship team and were probably fortunate to get as far as they did. However on the flip side, bad play at a non premium position pretty much cancelled out the all pro talent at the other mentioned positions. Even if Sanchez was an all pro or substitute a pro bowl QB in his place. He gets blind sided, fumbles, and the Jets lose… And yes your last paragraph is right too. The NFL is about putting points on the board…the Rex method is outdated - in fact I even think he would have a hard time implementing his defense in today’s NFL.
