Respect. Fair enough. I never did follow the asparagus thing, though. That shtick was simply beneath me. Even I have standards. I will bow out of this thread and let you guys have at it, but the OP certainly does take some pretty lame generalizing swipes at a whole group of Seahawks fans along the way to creating an overall good case for his view of the QB situation. But whatever. This is definitely not my fight.

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"Some people here have been groomed to accept mediocrity and lame ducks, I'm on board with the vibrato!" -SouthSoundHawk

Matt Ryan is currently the best of that bunch and had the most similar stats to Russell through 5 games.

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"We all we got, we all we need"

Hey great post. BTW dont worry about BFS. If it is not his post all he ever does is throw crap to mock what you have to say.

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Seahawks + PC/JS + Russell Wilson + Jesse Williams = Superbowl

Interesting stuff. I wonder what it'll look like at 8 games through the season.

Also, don't sweat some posters around here that troll threads and do little else, some people mistakenly think it's a high-IQ version of wit.

Of course it's not your fight. Facts have been presented to support RW and his developement as a starter and that doesn't fit in with your agenda of playing Flynn and endless bashing of RW.

BTW, I'm 6' 6 1/2" and I think Wilson's gonna be really, really good.

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Image not found? Can the statistics be re-posted and linked, I'd love to read them.

Thanks!

Ditto...

Well played, sir.

And thanks for bringing reasoned debate to the forum. Some of us appreciated your post.

I think it's probably more than some.

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You have destroyed us. You found the flaw in the crystal. We are gone. You are alone.

For those requesting the image in the OP's analysis... I believe he's taken a screen grab from an article by Danny O'Neil at the Seattle Times. You can find a chart listing the comparison over the last 20 years here: http://seattletimes.com/html/seahawksbl ... _comp.html



FWIW - Flacco had one touchdown and seven interceptions after five games as a rookie, and about 30 extra yards. Matt Ryan also had about 30-40 more yards than Wilson and only a 4/3 touchdown/interception ratio. The stats are eerily similar, as are Drew Bledsoe's stats. It's worth noting that other guys like Mark Sanchez and David Carr also had similar numbers, but then Peyton Manning had 12 interceptions, four touchdowns but a lot more yardage.

But the most interesting fact is none of the QBs listed had more than three wins after 5 games. None. So although the numbers aren't great, Wilson's performance is certainly comparable to that of Flacco and Ryan and as the OP argues, nobody looks back at their slow starts anymore. So the Seahawks can be forgiven for making a similar decision and then sticking by that decision if they truly believe it's in the best interest of long term success.

OP is one the smart ones. At least a few of us are rational. Great post

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"If I were Tarvaris Jackson and Matt Flynn, I'd be leery of this kid because if you give him a chance, if you give him a chance and look past his 5 foot 11 or 5-10 and a half or whatever it is, if you give this kid a legitimate chance to win the job, he'll win it" - John Gruden

Interesting comparisons and definitely puts things in perspective. However, of all the QB's on that list, only one (Peyton Manning) has won a superbowl.

Great point. That is the only stat that really matters, isn't it?

This much was obvious and to those who see the big picture they know that QBs take years to create and no one is a hall of famer in week 5 of year 1.

There wouldn't be so much discussion if there weren't Flynn around though I never understood discussing Flynn because it is not as if he is some grizzled vet with previous success - there is basically no evidence that he would perform any better than Wilson.

People cling to this line of reasoning for whatever irrational bias or lack of perspective that leads them to look past the good things and not appreciate the successes of our rookie QB.

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Beast Mode...try BORG MODE

Driver of the PC/JS Bandwagon since 2010

It's a useless comparison tbh as none of them have any context.

2012 Brandon Weeden (Browns) - 30th overall
2012 Andrew Luck (Colts) - 1st overall
2012 Ryan Tannehill (Dolphins) - 8th overall
2012 Robert Griffin III (Washington) - 2nd overall (washington originally had 6th pick)
2012 Russell Wilson (Seahawks) - 3rd round
2011 Cam Newton (Panthers) - 1st overall
2011 Andy Dalton (Bengals) - 2nd round
2010 Sam Bradford (Rams) - 1st overall
2009 Matthew Stafford (Lions) - 1st overall
2009 Mark Sanchez (Jets) - 6th overall (Jets traded up heavily to select this high)
2008 Joe Flacco (Ravens) - 18th overall
2008 Matt Ryan (Falcons) - 3rd overall
2005 Kyle Orton (Bears) - 4th round (started because Grossman got injured in preseason)
2003 Kyle Boller (Ravens) - 19th overall
2002 David Carr (Texans) - 1st overall
2001 Chris Weinke (Panthers) 4th round, but went 1-15 (team had gone 7-9 and 8-8 in previous seasons then released Beuerlein in offseason before the draft)
1998 Peyton Manning (Colts) 1st overall
1998 Ryan Leaf (Chargers) 2nd overall
1993 Drew Bledsoe (Patriots) 1st overall
1993 Rick Mirer (Seahawks) 2nd overall

The general pattern being that nearly all of the QBs who started as rookies were high draft picks for poor teams in need of a franchise QB. The exceptions to those are Wilson, Weeden, Orton, Weinke, Dalton and arguably Flacco and Boller.
The ones who have been most successful are Sanchez,
Manning, Flacco and Ryan, with the exception of Manning, these QBs joined good teams who had either had one poor season (Falcons first season without Vick, had let Schaub go just before the dog-fighting investigation began, Ravens had an uncharacteristically poor season), or had traded up to get a QB (Jets, who had finished 9-7 the previous year).

Wilson is one of those players joining a good team that had a poor season (in reality, a building team that is only just now coming together), and so is walking into a great position for a rookie QB, where he won't be needed to go out and win games like Peyton Manning was, and so won't be asked to (even though he already has with his final drive against GB)

Before I say anything and get labeled with the "unintelligent Wilson hater" label, let's try to keep this civil and have a good debate.

First I am going to state the obvious, stats can be manipulated to mean anything. How many of those rookie QBs had a top 3 rushing offense and top 3 defense? Some of them may have had one or the other or both but every situation is different. How many of them played lesser competition to boost their stats? Played superior competition to lower their stats? Stats are important and do tell a part of the story but it's just a part. Wilson has 1 TD and 5 INTS over the last two games. That is a stat. I know the instant argument is almost all of those picks are not his fault but that simply proves that stats taken by themselves can tell an entirely different story.

The second part, look closely at that list. 16 of those 20 were first round picks. 11 of the 16 are top 5 picks. If a team is picking in the top 5, they either a)are a bad team (most of the time) b)traded the farm to get in the top 5 (happens, but less often). Football is a team sport. A QB with a bad team around him will likely suffer stat wise.

I've said this many times before but often when a rookie QB is starting it is because the team has no other viable option. The "Wilson haters" struggle with this because they don't believe without a doubt that Flynn is not a viable option. Flynn has shown promise in Green Bay. Before the usual crowd chimes in and says "well if Flynn is so good, why did no-one want him in free agency?" I will counter that with if Wilson is so good, why did no-one want him in the draft before the 3rd round?

Which brings me to my final point. How many of the QBs on the list are 5'10"? Wilson has yet to prove he can consistently step up in the pocket and beat the blitz with his arm, not his legs. Brees can do this, that is why he is so good. Wilson's height is a disadvantage for him and we can see it occasionally. I sure hope he can overcome it and be good this year but Wilson has a very different story than every one of those QBs on that list.

There is evidence, no matter how small a sample size. Flynn has more TDs in one game than Wilson does in his career. Before the usual "Green Bay has godlike receivers and the Lions suck" crowd rushes in with their pitch forks, think long and hard about this:

If that is the reason that Flynn did so well, how come Rodgers has yet to break that record? Does he not play with the exact same receivers and play against the same team twice a year?

People cling to the line of reasoning that there is no way Flynn could do better and that leads to an irrational bias and lack of perspective to look past the flaws of our current QB to settle for mediocrity.

Now Flynn might be better than Rodgers? I done heard it all.

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Official Tharold Simon Fan Club Member

Who is taking boa guy on a date?

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"Are we rockin' and rollin' or what?!''

-- Seattle coach Pete Carroll, celebrating with his coaches after the Seahawks pulled off a trade with the Jets, netting running back Leon Washington on Saturday, via Seahawks.com

Who are the people 'clinging' to that? Not one person to my knowledge has argued there is 'no way' Flynn could do better. He might do better, he might not. What most people argue is - the coaches made this decision based on judgements we could never hope to make. And the coaches had no agenda, because THEY signed Flynn in the first place. They judged Wilson was the better choice.

And most people are happy to roll with that without the weekly sky-is-falling bitch-fest just because a rookie QB is going to have growing pains.

You talk about people being irrational, yet there's nothing more irrational than clinging to one games worth of evidence to draw a conclusion. A game that has absolutely zero relevance to Flynn's situation in Seattle. He lost the job, thems the facts. Nobody is ignoring flaws within Wilson's game, they are embraced. Some people don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water because a rookie QB has had a rocky road early in his career. Perhaps - just maybe - there's a long term benefit to getting the growing pains out of the way? That's not settling for mediocrity, that's striving for the long term. It could easily be argued that settling for mediocrity is going with the former 7th round pick who's been a back up virtually his entire career (college and NFL) who couldn't beat out a third round rookie for the gig in Seattle. The same guy who after that wonderful display against Detroit, generated a free agent market that can be kindly referred to as 'lukewarm' at best. Who knows what he'd be doing right now if Seattle hadn't signed him? He might be back in Green Bay, still being a backup.