Originally Posted by
Von Kinger
You're look at it incorrectly - it's not about what happened as it is the odds of what will happen. There was damn near a zero percent chance TS was ever going to be good. He didn't have great intellect (people said he did because he went to Northwestern, well Ray Lewis was a brilliant football player and dumber than a bowl of hair), he had a horrible arm, he had no durability, etc. He was subpar across the board except he had some mobility to him. Whereas PL at least had the ability, more than a zero percent chance to be good.
Not going with the guy who could be good is okay if the other guy is decent or better. TS wasn't. And everyone but GK knew it. So, take the next logical step forward - if you have someone who is pure talent but nothing else and the other guy is nothing at all, who do you go with? You go with the guy who can actually POTENTIALLY turn into something. It wasn't like they benched PL for an average starter when the defense was still strong. They put out a guy that was lucky to be drafted. I used to count the overthrows when he'd put everything he physically had into a throw, and the underthrows. People got pissy with me, but it was to prove a point.
The facts told people, or should have told people, that TS was damn near a 100% goner from day one. But people want to be optimistic and not shit on a season before it's barely started, I get it. And PL's facts told us that he could at least have a chance to pan out. But what are those facts? Look at everything that went into drafting him. Facts aren't determinative in many settings. Reasonable people can disagree, so when people lay out the facts for Brady as GOAT, and another does Elway or Manning, it's an informed opinion, based on facts. At the same, it's a fact that one plus one equals two.
That's why I laugh so hard at people telling me I don't have facts or use them. Because, the facts said that TS had a better completion than a lot of QB's for that same time - and that's true. It was also a FACT that many of those QB's played in different eras where passing numbers were lower.
I saw all of that for a reason - full circle - it was the wrong choice to go with TS. It was the wrong choice long term, and it was the wrong choice short term because those teams weren't playoff teams. It was a reach two years to think playoffs, and the defense had to win games for us off of turnovers to accidentally get to nine wins.
TL;DR for you - both political scientists and actuaries are factually based 'workers' and yet Poli Sci is the better 'way of thinking' for NFL than an actuary. Or you could put mathematician.
Oh, and last season when we clearly sucked heading into the season, there was no reason for TS to be the starter - the defense was even less than what it was, and you had a guy who was a legitimate talent on the bench.