Official 2011 Dallas Cowboys Season Thread

[Male30Dan]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

i do not understand your "molds" at all.... (ie your groupings)

to me Aikmen, Dilfer (in the end, when he settled down with the ravens) and Rypien are the most similar (good arms, and will never kill you with mistakes but need a full berlin wall in front of them to really be effective because they just aren't mobile enough) although he was of course BETTER than the other two.. but in the same mold. But put aikmen on a "normal" team (without perhaps teh greatest Oline in the history of football, one of the greatest RBS, an alltime great wideout, a stiffling D.. etc...) and he would have been viewed as an "adequate" qb.. imho. Basically he would have been Bledsoe.

and.. also... I would probably classify Steve YOung as EASILY the greatest QB you mentioned (only Manning/brady could even make a case, but i think he is better) By the time he took over teh reigns at SF the REST of teh team had deteriorated markedly. he was behind a crappy line, had worse running backs and a worse defense... and had to carry the whole thing completely by himself. He was AWESOME. he could run when he needed to, but was smart enough to pick apart the D when they shifted to account for his legs. He had the shortest period of "prime" (other than Rypen and Dilfer.. who never reall HAD "primes") to brag on... but what he did with so little around him was simply incredible.

To judge his molds and then compare Aikman to Bledsoe is just strange. Bledsoe was a gunslinger and Aikman was FAR from that. Seems like you are classifying based on mobility and I don't think that was Dalm's point. He was talking about the type of QB in terms of risk/reward of their playing style and how likely you would have to say something along the lines of "well, ya have to take the good with the bad with this guy."

I do think Young was really, really good though. I remember his QB rating being crazy and his completion percentage being in the 70s or just under at times. It took him forever to get his shot but he played very well when he did. To be honest, I probably forget just how good he was because I despised him so very much given the Dallas/S.F. rivalry.

[mcsluggo]

Originally Posted by Male30Dan

To judge his molds and then compare Aikman to Bledsoe is just strange. Bledsoe was a gunslinger and Aikman was FAR from that. Seems like you are classifying based on mobility and I don't think that was Dalm's point. He was talking about the type of QB in terms of risk/reward of their playing style and how likely you would have to say something along the lines of "well, ya have to take the good with the bad with this guy."

I do think Young was really, really good though. I remember his QB rating being crazy and his completion percentage being in the 70s or just under at times. It took him forever to get his shot but he played very well when he did. To be honest, I probably forget just how good he was because I despised him so very much given the Dallas/S.F. rivalry.

fair enough on the bledsoe/aikman failure of comparison... never having been a Pats nor Cowboys fan, I never really watched Bledsoe much...

but i wasn't actually trying to equate them in styles, I was just making th emobility point that you caught. Without Aikman's super line, he likely would've been a middle of the road QB. With a super line, Mark Rypien wasn't Dilfer (a QB that "didn't lose" the game for you) he was a STAR. Without a super line, Rypien was a marginal 2nd-stringer at best.


on THIS topic:::
Romo is able to do all sorts of things behind crappy O-lines that Aikman never would've been able to do. NEVER. Aikmen would've been killed. But Romo also has a hole in his brain. Chances are almost 100% that WITH a super line, Romo would still have a hole in his brain, and would've never had the calm success Aikmen had.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

Without Aikman's super line, he likely would've been a middle of the road QB.

I have to take exception to this....Aikman would have been a top tier quarterback in the 90's behind any offensive line.

I see this argument in many forms -- E. Smith was only E. Smith because he ran behind such a great line, Aikman was only a Aikman because he had Smith and Irvin, Irvin was only Irvin because everybody else on the team was so very good, etc., etc...

The thing is.....the ca 92-96 Cowboys were an all-time great team. They're right up there with any other team from any other era. When you're talking about this team, you're talking about all-time greatness.

The reason the 92-96 Cowboys were all-time greatness is because they had a great offensive line, and a great running back, and a very very very good defense with a great pass rusher, and very sharp special teams play, and a great quarterback. If you took the great offensive line and the great running back off those teams, they wouldn't have won three superbowls but nonetheless they would have had a great quarterback.

If you look back at the playoffs during that stretch, you'll see that the cowboys were almost always ahead going into the second half.* The same is largely true during those regular seasons. The reason they were always ahead was in very large part because Aikman was that good. He was an amazingly accurate passer who knew when to stand in the pocket and take the hit and who knew when to get rid of the ball. He made plays, time and time again. Those teams threw the ball to get a lead, and then Emmitt and the o-line took over, not the other way around.

Once Aikman crossed 30, he started slipping a bit and it was more than just the team around him. The concussions, the trophies, the crack smoking shenanigans on the team all took its toll on him, but for a significant stretch he was far better than anything Mark Rypien ever thought about being.



*Two exceptions were the second Buffalo Super Bowl when Aikman was playing with a concussion that should have kept him out of the game and the '94 NFC Championship game where a series of freak occurences had the Cowboys down by 21 a few minutes into the first quarter.