Roethlisberger wins Player of the Week; Whiner Nation Up in Arms
by PalmerSucks
September 24, 2015
I hadn’t planned to write a commentary this week, but hearing all the crying over poor Tom Brady’s latest “snub” has me a little up in arms myself.
First, congratulations to Ben Roethlisberger for being voted AFC Offensive Player of the Week. Your award is well deserved (we’ll get to why shortly). What a shame the parade is being pissed on by the crybabies out to make this another phantom NFL conspiracy against their Golden Boy. You see, there’s a huge contingent out there who view Roethlisberger’s selection over Brady as some snub, and some sign the NFL is trying to outlaw recognition of the New England QB.
It’s not just Patriot fans taking to the comments sections this time. Everyone from the Boston media to Brady ball boy Skip Bayless have been moaning over the unfairness of it all (Skippy calls it “outrageous and hilarious”). The Patriots themselves, good sports that they are, responded to the Stillers tweet congratulating their own with one that listed Brady’s numbers in defiance. Even ESPN – you know, that network that is so out to get Tommy – ran a column from chowd’head homer Mike Reiss titled “In debatable call, NFL passes over Tom Brady for Player of the Week award.”
Is it really debatable? Let’s compare the numbers:
BRADY
38 of 59 for 466 yds 64.4 comp. % 7.9 YPA 105.6 passer rating
ROETHLISBERGER
21 of 27 for 369 yds 77.8 comp % 13.7 YPA 155.8 passer rating
The Brady Bunch is all over Tommy’s 466 yards, but c’mon, on 60 passes? What quarterback couldn’t do a 400+ spot in today’s league tossing it that many times? The real deal here is YPA, and Ben’s blows away Brady’s, nearly doubling it with an unheard of 13.7 yards a pop. That’s simply extraordinary!
Then there’s passer rating, which ought to seal the deal right there. Brady’s notched an impressive 105.6, but Roethlisberger again blows his away with a sick, outrageous 155.8 (besting even the 143.8 of Brady’s that everyone drooled over last week). I’m sorry, you’re a QB doing a 156 rating, unless someone manages to somehow best that, you win the award, period.
But the stat line doesn’t tell half the story. The ridiculous 78 percent completion rate Ben put up wasn’t done with the short safe stuff; 5 of his passes went for 35 yards or more. Amazingly, Roethlisberger put up one of the best complete-percent days a quarterback’s ever had on a day when he was chucking it largely downfield. (Unlike Doctor Dink-Dunk, who was busy lobbing it to Edelman on the short crossers as usual.) Sorry whiners, but degree of difficulty goes squarely to the guy who was playing the manly game last Sunday. A 3 TD, 0 turnover, 13.7 YPA, 155.8 rating day doesn’t just qualify you for Player of the Week honors – it puts you in the running for greatest-performance-of-all-time recognition.
Of course, Whiner Nation, which loves to quote Brady’s raw stats like Bible verses now seeks to work in the qualitative here. Roethlisberger, they crow, was playing in the comfort of his home confines (never mind that last week’s droolfest overlooked the fact that Brady was doing his work at Gillette) while Tommy was fighting the ferocious hostile crowd in Buffalo. Never mind the 49ers’ defense that Ben torched simply smothered its opponent week one; they’re somehow “inferior” to the Buffalo defense Brady was facing, which has somehow become the second coming of the ’85 Bears.
I have a question: what’s Buffalo’s defense done to be declared so awesome already? Other than Rex Ryan’s usual bragging, I don’t see the basis. Sure they put one on the Colts, but Indy’s a mess right now. Pre-season is pre-season, but I seem to recall Stiller receivers (especially Bryant) simply toasting the vaunted Bills’ defense’s first-stringers. The ball washers are playing the silly old beg-the-question logic game here: the proof of Buffalo’s defense being great is that they were rolled by the great Tom Brady.
The bottom line is this: Roethlisberger practically equaled Brady’s entire production throwing fewer than half the passes. Let that sink in for a minute.
I don’t care where he did it, against which team, he simply had the better day in all facets of the game. Oh and here’s the cherry on top: Roethlisberger said he called almost every play in the game Sunday. I thought quarterbacks weren’t capable of doing that anymore. Who called Tommy’s plays (besides that rumored voice that talks to him in his helmet via that secret second radio frequency)?
No, the “outrage” here isn’t that Brady didn’t win; it’s the fact that Roethlisberger can’t just enjoy his own deserved honors without having to listen to all the bitching. There’s no “debate” here – there’s only Whiner Nation taking yet another opportunity to moan about their poor persecuted quarterback, and give us yet another tired lecture on how “they’ve done it now!” and fueled Tommy’s resolve to go out there and show all the haters. Yada. Yada. Yada.
By the way, what isn’t a diss that Brady can use for motivation these days? Imagine tomorrow he goes to the convenience store and the clerk doesn’t give him back his change fast enough. Wow, what disrespect! Soon the news gets out, and the troll army of Pats fans spams the ‘net with more angry drool. Oh yeah, that poor minimum-wage-making bastard’s gonna pay when Tommy goes out and throws 5 TDs in his face! Just you wait.
We’ll see you again in January, New England. You’ll have your chance then to show everybody who really has the player of the week. By the way, for all the bragging about how Tommy’s been crushing it on his ’15 revenge tour, here are the numbers so far: Roethlisberger 122.6, Brady 119.9.
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The other player worth considering for Offensive Player of the Week wasn’t Brady – it was Antonio Brown. Brownie’s ridiculous nine-catch, 195-yard day included yet another Swann-like sideline grab that’s probably overlooked because we’ve become too damned accustomed to seeing those from him.
I really thought Brown’s production would dip with Bryant out of the lineup; instead he’s actually on pace to best his stellar performance of last season. Schemes keying on him, and double or even triple coverage hasn’t been able to stop him. What makes Brown truly elite is his ability to create separation in a way most receivers can’t. His 59-yarder last Sunday, where he caught the ball in front of 3 defenders then stepped backwards, pivoted, turned and looped around them, was a thing of genius. Last year the debate centered around if Brown was the best receiver in football – this year it might be if he’s the best player in the game, period.
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Logic says to cheer against the first-place Bungals Sunday, but I’d rather see Cincy put the next-to-the-last nail in the Rat-vens coffin. The Stillers are more than capable of handling Cincinnati later on, but it would be nice to face an 0-3 Baltimore squad circling the drain. There’d be no sweeter payback for last January than to be the team that officially ends their ’15 campaign before it even starts. The Bungals tend to give Baltimore all they can handle, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it plays out Sunday.