From: dasaxe@milton.u.washington.edu (Daniel Perreault)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro
Subject: Re: No more good QBs,RBs
Keywords: Running Backs, Quarterbacks
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:50:34 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <tokuno.716233859@milton> tokuno@milton.u.washington.edu (Ken Tokuno) writes:
>
>       Ever notice that all of the really great quarterbacks are well
>over 30?  Marino, Young, Moon, Kelly, Elway, etc. are all in that
>category.  When these QBs were younger, it seemed that every team had one
>good or great QB to lead them.  This was back in the mid-80s.  There were
>also QBs like Fouts, Theismann, Stabler, Kramer, Grogan, Plunkett, and of
>course Joe Montana around.  Of the young (under 30) QBs today, how many
>are truly great?  None, IMHO.  Only a few even have the potential:
>Rypien, George, Miller, Rosenbach, Aikman.  Where did all the talent go?
     
I don't think it is fair to say that only a few have the potential to be great
QB's. After all, noone thought that Montana really had that great of potential
because his arm was average, he wasn't very tall and not that fast. I think
that part of the problem is that it takes QB's a long time to develop now
adays, because the defenses in general seem to be getting more sophisticated.
I classic example might be the Giants in the superbowl in 1990. During the
season they were a classic up the middle power defense type team, against
Buffalo they fielded 7 defensive backs to stop the pass and let Thurman have
whatever yards he wanted on the ground. This type of stuff is making life
harder for the QB. Personally I think there are alot of QB's out there beyond
those listed who could really shine. Cunningham certainly is one if he can
recover and Philly builds him a line, McGuire in Seattle has great potential,
Gannon in Minnesota seems to have ever developing field vision and an adaquate
arm. There are others, Nagle in New York, Marinovich in LA, Jim Everett still
has the tools if he can rebuild his mechanics and get a line.
>
>       The same can be said for running backs.  In the mid-80s there were
>RBS like Payton, Sims, Dorsett, Tyler, Warner, Dickerson, Allen, etc.
>Every team had one and sometimes two excellent runners.  Now there are
>only a handful of them:  Smith, Thomas, Sanders.  Some of the older ones
>are still around but are a shadow of their former selves:  Dickerson,
>Allen, O.J. Anderson and Roger Craig, for example.  Then there are some
>respectable ones, like Byner, Word, Neal Anderson and a few others.  Look
>at a list of the all time leading rushers.  It is full of those players
>who began their careers in the late 70s to early 80s.  They have 5000,
>6000, up to 16,000 yards rushing.  Of the current crop, I can see only the
>three named above as getting over 7000 yards for their careers.  Where did
>all the talent go?


Well, part of the problem is that modern passing offenses have been pushed,
in some sense by the league. Fewer plays, allowing offensive linemen more
freedom in holding, the contact rules for recievers, etc., all lead to a
game built more and more around big plays. Houston's recieving corp could
never have survived in the 70's or even the early 80's in my opinion due
to the much more brutal play at the line. It is easier to get a big play
throwing the ball than running it. I don't think the talent is diminished,
but the schemes are set up now to make recievers and passers look better than
runners. I personally don't think Rodney Hampton has any physical tools on
Derrick Fenner, for example, but in the Giants system he is being bred to
be a franchise h-back. However, the number of those types of teams is
diminishing.

In some sense it seems a contradiction that the offense is moving more to   
passing than runing and yet there still is not the appearance of franchise
QB's. A third part to the whole thing is defense. There was an excellent
article in the latest Sport News about how the defenses are improving, and
rules may be changed again to help the offense. It is just getting to be
tougher work out there. A fourth issue that is related is injuries. Now
I don't know about the 70's-80's stats for QB injuries, but I do know that
last year something like 2/3 rds of NFL teams lost their starting QB's to
injuries at some point in the season. This makes it hard to develop consistancy
and skill at the position.

As a side note, I don't know when I have seen so many great defensive linemen
and linebackers. Young ones too.

Dan Perreault
dasaxe@u.washington.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.pro