From: dwelch@mpd.tandem.com (Dan Welch)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: intensity (was Re: Cunningham's QB rating)
Date: 12 Oct 92 22:27:11 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Tandem Computers (MPD) Austin, TX

In article <1992Oct12.173354.18920@cbnewsm.cb.att.com> jmd@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (joseph.m.dakes) writes:
>In article <2618@devnull.mpd.tandem.com>, dwelch@mpd.tandem.com (Dan Welch) writes:
>I have no idea what is considered a good QB passing rating.  But Randall's
>rating was extremely high (relative to others) after three perfect games.
>A QB can not be expected to be perfect for an entire 16-game season so of
>course his rating is going to drop considerably from where it was after
>three such games.

Pretty much exactly what I said, I think.  Nam seemed to think that saying
Cunningham's ratings will drop is equivalent to saying he's not that good.
That's not true; everyone has an off day.  I wasn't trying to take anything
away from his performance so far, just point out (as you did) that expecting
it over 16 games is unrealistic.

The record for a season is around 111, set be Saint Joe a few years back.
Cunningham may break this, though  I doubt it.  a finish above 100 is very
probable, IMHO.

>>The Eagles
>>have the best chance at the Super Bowl trophy, IMHO, but a critical question
>>could be:  have they peaked too early?  I find it hard to believe that anyone
>>can maintain the intensity they have had over the entire season.
>
>The Washington Redskins seemed to have peaked in Week-1 last season with
>a 38-0 drubbing of the Detroit Lions.  The Redskins played that way all
>the way through to the SuperBowl.

>Not to start another Eagles-Cowboys flame war, but would you be saying
>that Dallas peaked too early if they beat the Eagles last Monday nite
>and were sitting atop the NFC East at 5-0?

No, I wouldn't have, because Dallas hasn't been playing with the intensity
that the Eagles have.  If they had, they would have beaten the Giants 47-10,
or something, instead of letting them back in the game and squeaking out a
win.  If they had, they would have pummeled Phoenix, instead of giving up
360-something passing yards to a backup QB.  True, they held Seattle to
only 62 total yards on offense, but, hey, that's Seattle.

Plus, Joe, I *didn't* say the Eagles had peaked too early.  I merely brought
it up as a possibility.  True, the Redskins were able to maintain intensity
for 19 games last year, only losing two close ones, but there has been very
few cases where a team was so head-and-shoulders above the rest as they were
last year.  The '85 Bears spring to mind, and perhaps the '72 Dolphins; I
wasn't following football then, so I don't know.

Loss of intensity is a really big problem for a lot of teams.  Look at how
San Francisco had to struggle past the Patriots this week, or the horrendous
output by the Bills over the last two weeks.  It could happen to the Eagles,
too.  I think that it's really easy to let things go to your head, to
*expect* the wins instead of trying to earn them, despite all the preaching
against this attitude that the coaches might do.  In a way, the loss to K.C.
was probably good for the Eagles.  I still grimace at the '82 Cowboys, who
started off 8-0, but only went 4-4 over the second half of the season.

>> The loss
>> to K.C. shows that.
>
>No, the loss to Kansas City showed that the Chiefs are a damn good
>football team.  Did you really expect the Eagles to go 16-0?

Of course not.  But it wasn't just a loss, it was the manner of it.  The
Eagles looked downright confused at times, and gave up a lot defensively
that normally they would stuff.  To their credit, they regained their
momentum in the fourth quarter, albeit too late.

>I find it hard to believe that one loss to a good football team on the
>road means that a team is not playing well.  Did you think that of your
>Cowboys after last week?

No, because the Cowboys played well in that game, but lost to a team that
played better.  I didn't think the Eagles played well against K.C., though.
They didn't seem prepared for the game.

>Well, to me, yesterday's game looked like an Eagles game of a few years
>past.

And, considering their post-season success a few years back, I would think
that this is the last thing you would want.

Daniel Welch