Sorry but (talking to the media) is part of the job.

Obviously not.

Here's a topic I'd like to get your thoughts on.

I'd rather have the next 10 years of (blank)'s career than Kapernick's.

I think the arguments for Kaepernick are pretty obvious. Here are some arguments against.

1) Small sample: His start in the Super Bowl will be only his 10th game as a starter. I don;t think he's a flash in the pan but he has yet to start against the same opponent twice.

2) He has a lot of talent surrounding him: The Niners have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball. The Niners have an excellent offensive line with two guys who made the All-Pro team, an excellent running back, and physically gifted players at WR and TE. The Niners had six guys make the All-Pro first or second teams on defense. That's a lot more talent than guys like RG3, Cam Newton and Luck have had so far in their careers. The Niners won 13 games last season and would likely have won their division with Alex Smith if he doesn't get hurt.

3) He's not old but Griffin, Newton, Luck, Wilson, and Stafford are all younger than he is.

russlan

i think two is a point in the kid's favor, not against.

you have that type of infrastructure and that really helps do things that might otherwise be beyond his true talent level.

that was troy aikman's ticket to the hof. nobody here is going to convince me that aikman was anything but a solid qb. ken anderson was just as good if not better and anderson ain't in the hof. though he has an argument if you ask me

I assume qbs only?

I'd rather have Andrew Luck.

Harvey you are not alone here in your opinion on Aikman. Solid player in the right place at the right time.

I'd rather have Luck or Cam Newton. Those two are easy, anyone else is a bit of a guess.

(I am a Niner's fan).

But enough cannot be said about how ballsy it was for Harbaugh to go with Kaep after one game. I think it was a good decision, but still, very ballsy.

But enough cannot be said about how ballsy it was for Harbaugh to go with Kaep after one game. I think it was a good decision, but still, very ballsy.

And John Harbaugh canned his OC and gave the job to someone who never called plays before. Maybe not as ballsy but still a significant risk that paid off.

Harvey, I may have worded my question incorrectly. Basically, if you were starting a franchise from scratch, who would you rather have than Kaepernick for the next ten years?

It doesn't have to be a QB only but it'd be hard for another position to have as big if an impact in today's NFL with the rules being what they are.

I'd pick Rodgers first very easily despite the age.

Basically, if you were starting a franchise from scratch, who would you rather have than Kaepernick for the next ten years?

Russell Wilson. Megatron. Maybe Julio Jones.

Now he's still a great coach, and his team is very successful but.....

I think he'll be OK.

I assume the question is meant to be context-free (as clarified in 2908) and qbs only (too hard to compare otherwise).

10 years... very different set of answers than if the question were 5 years.

Rodgers
Ryan
Wilson
Roethlisberger
Griffin
Newton
Luck
Dalton
Flacco

Eli, Stafford, maybe Freeman are close.

Brees (and obviously Manning and Brady) eliminated solely due to age.

Including non-qbs I'd probably add Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, AJ Green, maybe Demaryius Thomas, and probably Peterson.

The SSS issue is a big one for me. Kaep has looked great the vast majority of the time so far, but it remains to be seen how he fares in his second trip around the league and against truly good defenses - he pretty much stunk against the Seahawks, and hasn't faced very good defenses in general since he's been starting.

Belichick, maybe the biggest egomaniac in league history, seems to have no life beyond football.

Is this actually documented, or are you just throwing this against the wall?

Rodgers: I hesitated for one second but that is pure homerism. No real argument against Rodgers here.

Ryan: I'd take Kaepernick over Ryan. He has been excellent the last few years but he also has arguably the best receivers in the league.

Wilson: I'd take Kaepernick. Similar performance this year and Wilson did it for the entire year but we are talking about 8 games. That said, Kaepernick has the bigger upside in my opinion. I like his size more. Also, a lot of the advantages that Kaepernick has enjoyed can be said about Wilson as well.

Roethlisberger: I'd take Kaepernick. Ben is going to be 31 in a few months and has started to miss some games over the last few years. I'm not sure he is going to last 10 years.

Griffin: I'd take Kaepernick but only because of health. On pure talent and results this year, I think I'd have RG3 more than anyone else. That's not a great roster and he made them a dynamic team. But he's already had two major knee surgeries. How long will he last?

Newton: No argument here.

Luck: No argument here.

Dalton: I'd take Kaepernick. He was pretty awful at the end of this year. I know QB rating is an imperfect stat but his rating was less than 80 in 5 of his last 6 games this year.

Flacco: Lots of talent and playoff success. I'll take Kaepernick because of the offense upside. He hasn't been great in the regular season. Homerism may be a factor here.

Eli: No argument here.

Stafford: I'd take Kaepernick because of the athleticism/mobility but the sample size issue is big here. Stafford was amazing in 2011 and has tons of talent.

Freeman: Kaepernick. Freeman has been mediocre for the last two seasons.

You pretty much picked every QB who has had any success other than Romo over Kaepernick. Why not Romo?

dalton is a joke. no idea who dubbed him anything than just a guy.

stafford has terrible mechanics. everyhting is awful. i cannot stand to watch him play

You pretty much picked every QB who has had any success other than Romo over Kaepernick.

How the mighty have fallen.

Dalton didn't progress an inch this year. He is what he is and without AJ Green he's nothing.

Eli: No argument here.

So, Kaepernick?

I think it's actually really tricky to rank the QBs 2-10 for the next 10 years. 4 of the guys are in their first year playing and Newton's in his 2nd. I might take Matt Ryan #2 just because of the track record.

I think it's actually really tricky to rank the QBs 2-10 for the next 10 years. 4 of the guys are in their first year playing and Newton's in his 2nd. I might take Matt Ryan #2 just because of the track record.

The only reason Matt Ryan isn't obviously near the top of these lists is because his defenses couldn't stop the run.

I think it's actually really tricky to rank the QBs 2-10 for the next 10 years. 4 of the guys are in their first year playing and Newton's in his 2nd. I might take Matt Ryan #2 just because of the track record.

I'll look at any of those above lists and be inclined to rank them on the strength of their various tendons, bones and muscles. But if you assume good health (a huge "if" in some cases) over the next 10 years, I'd take Griffin/Wilson/Kaepernick at the top, followed by Rodgers/Luck/Flacco and then probably Newton/Ryan and Manning/Brady. Brady's at the bottom solely because of his age, and if I were talking about 5 years he'd be at the other end of the scale. What's sad to realize is that the chances that all of these guys will be in one piece 10 years from now is about 1 in a million. I'd say Luck, Flacco and maybe Wilson probably have the best chance of survival.

The only reason Matt Ryan isn't obviously near the top of these lists is because his defenses couldn't stop the run.

I was really close to picking Ryan over Kaepernick. But the 24-2 game against the Giants, blowing 20 and 17 point leads at home against the Seahawks and Niners...

What does Matt Ryan have to do with the defense blowing leads?

What does Matt Ryan have to do with the defense blowing leads?

The Falcons got the ball back with a 13 point lead and 13 minutes left against the Seahawks. They were playing at home against a QB that has not been outstanding on the road. Ryan could have put a dagger in that game and not left it up to the defense at all.

The Falcons got shutout in the second half against the 49ers.

I am pretty high on Kaepernick so it's not meant as a slight that I'd rank Kaepernick ahead of him. I think you can win a Super Bowl with him as your QB.

He didn't help the cause in the 2nd half against SF, but nothing he did "blew the lead." If he threw a pick six, okay. But the defense blew the lead, not him.

And let's not forget that after the defense blew the lead against Seattle, he answered back to take the lead.

and probably Peterson.

I would be surprised if Peterson has anything in the tank after five more years; running backs just don't have that long of a career. The only running backs to have 1000 yards rushing after age 32 are John Riggins (twice), John Henry Johnson (twice), and Franco Harris. Doug Martin has a better chance of beating Kaepernick over the next ten years than Peterson does, simply because Doug Martin might actually play 10 more years.

The Falcons got shutout in the second half against the 49ers.

What does Roddy White being held on 4th down have to do with this?

I would be surprised if Peterson has anything in the tank after five more years; running backs just don't have that long of a career.

Agreed. RBs take a pounding on every play. Average career length is 4 years. You build around a QB and a receiver corps.

Agreed. RBs take a pounding on every play. Average career length is 4 years. You build around a QB and a receiver corps.

You build around a QB and offensive line. If you have a great QB, you can get get receivers to perform.

You build around a QB and offensive line. If you have a great QB, you can get get receivers to perform.

Having watched both Calvin Johnson and Bay-Bay Thomas attempt to chase down wounded ducks at Georgia Tech over the years, I can only concur with this. Even Megatron can only do so much with Reggie Ball heaving #### in random directions.

This is about wanting to see Belichik on his knees in defeat after the game. Nothing more, nothing less.

You say this like that's not a completely reasonable thing to want. Coaches that seem to have no understanding that they're in the entertainment business really annoy me.

Coaches that seem to have no understanding that they're in the entertainment business really annoy me.

Do you expect television producers and writers to do appearances on the red carpet at Oscar time? The entertainment is the play, not the hacks scripting it out.

A couple of salient side points:

1) As mentioned above, 1-3-5-7-10 years will give you totally different answers.

2) Salary cap considerations? That would probably limit the competition to "Wilson, Russell". RGIII/Newton/Luck are all at least as good as Kaep but #1ish picks have a $ price.

Of the "big 3" only Rodgers is young enough to get 8 years quality years out. With no $ considerations he's a no-brainer.

3) Age. Should it be measured in years or "mileage"?

4) Was does 9 games mean? It means his variance is higher than, say Russell's Wilson's (18 games) - who, by the way had 3 horrible games in his first 7, too. Even Kapernick's worst game (@SEA he had >6 AY/A) - better than RW, RGIIs, Luck's, and Newton's worst. Newton has about 12 games worse than that in 2 years.

So, head to head with Wilson - they have pretty similar stat lines, and both played for teams with solid run games and great defenses and played similarly tough regular season schedules. Wilson is obviously more projectable since he threw twice as much. But - where are they on the learning curve (which we can presume get progressively steeper)? Wilson is younger, but has had more game snaps and practice reps. Kaepernick got to play understudy last year. I think that you can argue that - given the variance/sample size, Wilson is more likely to have a "good" career, but Kapernick is more likely to be in the HOF. Wilson is ridiculous as avoiding pressure and buying time. Both of them probably can learn a lot about reading defenses and making decisions - but "can learn" != "will learn". As opposed to a guy like Luck - how much better could he be (I say this having watched maybe 5 quarters of Luck play, and not with a critical eye).

Kaepernick has that ridiculous arm. But maybe he turns out to be "just Jay Cutler who can run" rather than Steve Young.
That is all I can say without real scouting.

I think on the RGII/Luck side - they are more expensive BUT they also have significantly worse supporting casts. But the fact remains that both Wilson (full season) and Kaep (1/2 season) out played them. Cam Newton OTOH... has *extremely* similar stats to Kaepernick (in 4 times the PT) AND a worse team. And a very similar body type (I think he is listed as 20 lbs more). So he can obviously take more hits -- but would Kapernicks sprint speed save him more hits? Almost certainly his OL and defense will [but that's not fair since we are drafting one or the other).

I wonder if Jim Harbaugh would trade Kaepernick for Luck straight up? Anyone else would probably be a fool not to... but if anyone knows both QBs it's him.

That is a very long winded non-list of QBs I would take over Kaepernick.

Also amusing stat:

Top 4 QBs, % of deep passes throw (>20 yards):

Cutler (28.6)
Kaepernick (28.5)
Flacco (26.4)
Luck (26.3)

INT rates are interesting too... since they should generally be regressed heavily. RGIII/Kapernick/Flacco very low. Wilson/Newton average. Luck/Cutler (for comparison's sake) below average.

Top 4 QBs, % of deep passes throw (>20 yards):

Part of that is play calling. Roethlisberger threw fewer deep passes this year, in part because they got rid of Bruce Arians. Who called plays for Andrew Luck. And now that Arians is in Arizona, it wouldn't be surprising if Luck threw deep a little less next year.

Ryan is very solid. He's not in the Brees/Brady/Peyton class. Can he get better?

The rookies/sophomores we are talking about aren't in the elite class, either (I mean not even huge niner homers like me put that much weight on 9 games. Or in RGIII's case, 14ish healthy games). But they are so young we presume they have upside. If Matt Ryan has their upside (and this is a question only a scout/coach could answer), then for sure he's a great pick. But there is a difference between a top 10 and and top 3 QB.

Take Eli Manning for example - he was a middle-of-the road guy, but cracked the top 10 in 2009/2011, then slid back to earth.
Rivers is essentially Drew Brees with fewer "solid" years and the huge years bunched (2008-2010) instead of spread out over a decade.
Flacco and Ryan are 110ish players by ANY/P+ (100 average).

Rodgers/Peyton/Brady are in the 120-130 range for multiple years (Brees has 3) - that's the HOF level. Best seasons all time are 140/150 (and the holy 21st century triumverate each have a year or two like that).

Kapernick/Wilson/RGIII all put up 118-120 this year (SSS).

Part of that is play calling. Roethlisberger threw fewer deep passes this year, in part because they got rid of Bruce Arians. Who called plays for Andrew Luck. And now that Arians is in Arizona, it wouldn't be surprising if Luck threw deep a little less next year.

Indeed, but I was using it as a proxy for "difficulty". It's also a function of receivers - of which Flacco's are exemplary and the rest are meh+
So adding completion %

Cutler (28.6) 58.8%
Kaepernick (28.5) 62.4%
Flacco (26.4) 59.7%
Luck (26.3) 54.1%

and for comparison
Wilson (24) 64.1%
Newton (23.3) 57.7%
Ryan (18.4) 68.6%
RGIII (18.2) 65.3%
Alex Smith (13.8) 70.2% - the lowest deep % and highest completion %.

You see Kapernick and Wilson the real standouts here. They certainly don't have the best receivers. But they also have the best RB in an option-y offense.

Flacco and Ryan are 110ish players by ANY/P+ (100 average).

I am guessing that "ANY/P+" is adjusted net yards/pass (attempt?)? Where'd you get the numbers from? Is this like what pro-football-reference uses?

ANY/A - adjusted net yards per passing attempt: (pass yards + 20*(pass TD) - 45*(interceptions thrown) - sack yards)/(passing attempts + sacks)

Indeed, but I was using it as a proxy for "difficulty".

There's far better indicators of difficulty adjusted QB measurements.

You build around a QB and offensive line. If you have a great QB, you can get get receivers to perform.

Eggs-actly.

As to Flacco, an 86.3 career QB rating in this era is really nothing special. But he does win (54-26) and has postseason success (7-4 and now with the chance to win the SB). He throws deep, which everyone knows I like. Granted his deep balls look a bit too balloon-y to me, but I'm not a scout so wtf do I know.

I can tell you that I'd be glad to take him as my QB any day of the week.

Something I really like about the QB matchup in the Super Bowl is that it's someone from a mid-major conference (and Nevada isn't even one of the usual mid-major powers) against someone from freaking Delaware, a Division 1-AA school. It's always nice to see guys like that doing big things at the prime position in the NFL.

jim

a good number of great qbs came from interesting places

brett favre--southern miss
warren moon--canada
dave krieg--milton college
kurt warner--northern iowa, grocery bagger

Flacco went to Pitt, but he couldn't find time behind the immortal Tyler Palko. He transferred to Delaware, so Pitt made him sit out a year.

Moon went to juco and then was a Huskie. He only went to the CFL because black guys obviously can't be NFL quarterbacks.

Joe Montana managed to overcome playing at Notre Dame, too.

Matt Ryan is from that football powerhouse up at Boston College. Drew Brees came out of...Purdue.

Johnny Unitas went to Louisville. Brett Favre Southern Miss, Terry Bradshaw Louisiana Tech, Roger Staubach Navy, Drew Brees and Bob Griese Purdue, Phil Simms Moorehead State... what school you went to is trivial.

sam/da

back in the day purdue was quite the quarterback factory

kyle orton
Drew Brees
Jim Everett
Mark Herrmann
gary danielson

i did not include curtis painter or guys from the far past like griese or dawson

Atlanta radio was discussing the possibility of getting rid of Matt Ryan last night. A few weeks ago it was Flacco, although that's died down now that they're in the SB. My question is, 'who are you going to get that's better?" Finding a good QB is hard.

I forgot about Len Dawson. Orton isn't good enough to count.

That's the point: no one thinks of Purdue as a football factory. But it's produced 3 great ones. Meanwhile Ohio State's best QB is... Mike Tomzack. Of course, QB isn't everything.