Can't See the Forest...

Most of the time I either agree with what I read from the Cold Hard Football Facts or feel convinced enough to at least consider what they write. What they, specifically Kerry J. Byrne, posted on cnnsi.com yesterday struck out with me. (I should also add that something this morning on their own website actually angered me. In this post about the “scrambling quarterback double standard”, Patrick Imig complained about ESPN’s Monday Night Football preview show guys not complaining about a late out of bounds hit on Tim Tebow in overtime on Sunday. I saw the replay at least a dozen times. Tebow was not hit out of bounds. It was proper that no personal foul was called. Sure, he was headed out of bounds, but his right foot was on the ground in bounds. I wish more officials avoided calling late hits on quarterbacks when no foot has yet landed out of bounds. Donovan McNabb stole many yards and caused many penalty flags exploiting this throughout his career.)

Anyway, the conclusion of Byrne’s post was that the Broncos are 5-1 with Tebow starting because he has outplayed the opposing quarterback in each of the 5 victories. To quote Byrne: “Put most simply, Tebow consistently outplays the other team’s quarterback, often by wide margines. This superior play is the No. 1 reason for Denver’s sudden success….But these superior performances seem lost on even the most knowledgeable football minds, like that of Broncos executive and Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, for example.” Um…what??? By technical definition, you can say that Tebow’s play has been superior to that of the opposing quarterbacks. In technical definition only. Colloquially, however, the use of the word superior is inappropriate here. Tebow’s quarterback play has been far below average, especially considering that the Broncos have scored a total of 4 offensive touchdowns in their last 3 games.

Let’s look at the Broncos’ 5-1 stretch more closely. They have played, in order, Miami, Detroit, Oakland, Kansas City, New York Jets, and San Diego. Those teams currently rank 27, 15, 8, 10, 16, and 7, respectively, most points allowed in the NFL this season. Against those defenses, the Broncos have averaged 19.3 points per game. Considering that Eddie Royal returned a punt for a touchdown in Oakland and Andre Goodman returned an interception for a touchdown versus the Jets, the Broncos’ offense has averaged exactly 17 points per game during Tebow’s 6 starts. The 38 points (31 by the offense) against the Raiders vastly skews those numbers. Eliminating that game and the one loss to Detroit, the Broncos other 4 Tebow-led victories featured a total of 68 points (61 by the offense) for an average of 17 (15.25) points per contest. The Broncos have totaled four offensive touchdowns in their most recent three games, versus the Chiefs, Jets, and Chargers. And I’m only now mentioning that from the 3rd quarter of the game in Oakland through the 3rd quarter the next Sunday in Kansas City, Tebow went 62 minutes of game time without throwing a completed pass. The Broncos scored 34 points during that stretch. It is borderline offensive to use the word “superior” to describe the quarterback play during this stretch.

One might hypothesize that the Broncos’ low scoring is due to their heavy running and spread option offensive attack leading to long, time-consuming drives that drain the clock. One would be incorrect. Only the Rams, Seahawks, and Jaguars have punted more often in 2011 than have the Broncos. Bronco punter Britton Colquitt ranks fourth and fifth, respectively, in net punt average and punts inside the opponents’ 20. And Tebow’s 6 starts represent Colquitt’s 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 8th heaviest punting loads of the season. Only once in Tebow’s starts have the Broncos punted less than 7 times; they never punted that much in a game started by Kyle Orton.

It is fact, though, that Tebow’s performances have been better than his opponents’. That does not imply that Tebow has played well. He has not. The other quarterbacks have played worse. The Broncos defense has completely shut down the last three starting quarterbacks: Matt Cassel, Mark Sanchez, and Philip Rivers. While none of these 3 quarterbacks is having a good statistical year, the Bronco defense held each of them to an even lower level than their personal season average. During the current 4-game winning streak, no quarterback has achieved as high as an 80 passer rating. Carson Palmer’s 79.7 is the highest rating of the 4. Cassel’s 66.5 rating is 10.1 lower than his season rating, Sanchez’s 67.9 is 13.0 lower than his season rating, and Rivers’ 77.1 is 3.7 below his season rating. So, yes, Tebow has outplayed his opponents’ quaterbacks. He’s done it by sucking less. The man deserves credit for that, not praise. How can anyone look at those opposing passer ratings compared to each quarterback’s season rating and write, “This superior play is the No. 1 reason for Denver’s sudden success”? As far as I’m concerned, that statement ignores the clear, obvious, and definitive answer.

Tebow’s success is due to his abilities to take hits while running the ball constantly and to avoid turnovers. His ability to lead Denver’s offense to punts gives the defense some cushion. And, yes, he’s led some great drives at the ends of games, but he has not played well. He has not scored points. As I wrote on Twitter earlier this week, the Broncos scored 20 or more points in 4 of Kyle Orton’s 5 starts while only reaching that mark once in Tim Tebow’s 6 starts. Don’t tell me the quarterback is the reason for the victories. It’s nonsense. And it is dismissive of the defense and the running game, the latter of which happens to lead the NFL at over 150 yards per game. (And if you want to know why the defense has suddenly begun playing better, look at the pass rushers. Von Miller is a rookie; Elvis Dumervil is a veteran who missed all of 2010 and 2 games earlier this season. The lockout prevented OTAs and real training camp, and it took these guys some time to get rolling. Also throw in the brand new coaching staff, including on the defensive side of the ball, and the slow start retroactively seems both logical and inevitable.) Defense, defense, defense with a huge dose of the running game. The Broncos have become Les Miles’ LSU Tigers for the second half of this season. It’s clear, it’s obvious, and there really should be no debate.

Smokin' Joe

When I heard that Joe Frazier had passed on last night, my first thought was about my father. On March 8, 1971, he was a college sophomore and away at school far from our hometown of Philadelphia. He said the only Black people in America rooting for Frazier that night were those from Philly. Far as he was from home, there weren’t too many Black Philadelphians in the theater where he watched the closed-circuit broadcast. With all the other Black folk in the audience looking at him angrily, my dad loudly and proudly cheered on Smokin’ Joe. Philadelphians.

From the moment my dad told me that story—and it’s been about 25 years now—Joe Frazier has been my favorite athlete of all time. I never saw him fight live, obviously, and I’ve only seen 5 of his fights on video. Still, he’s my favorite of all time. He ranks higher than Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, Mike Schmidt, Ryan Howard, Cole Hamels, Steve Atwater, John Elway, Ray Lewis, Jerome Brown, Bernard Hopkins, Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Joe Montana, Wilbur Marshall…all of them. For me, Joe Frazier is #1.

And even though he retired before I was born and only fought once after that, I find myself rooting for Joe every time I watch one of his fights. This is especially true when I watch the Thrilla in Manilla. To this day, that is the most brutal, close-to-death for both participants sporting event I’ve ever seen.

The end of that fight, 36 years later, is surreal to me. Both fighters were spent; they were both done. According to Frazier and Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali begged Dundee to cut his gloves off. Dundee told him to hold on and looked over his shoulder at Frazier’s corner. In the opposite corner, Frazier told his trainer, Eddie Futch, that he had one round left in him. Futch looked at his fighter, down to about half an eye, and told him that he loved him too much to let him continue. “OK,” Joe said he said. “Shut it down.” Dundee’s hunch paid off, and Ali won the rubber match. Yes, it was that close between them. As the Newark Star-Ledger’s Jerry Izenberg once said, “They weren’t fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world. They were fighting for the heavyweight championship of each other.”

The heavyweight championship of each other. What a perfect way to put it. They killed each other that night in Manilla. To some extent, their minds and bodies held on for decades longer, but neither man was the same after that fight. And the 30 seconds Angelo Dundee waited allowed Ali to go down in history as the greatest heavyweight boxer ever and Frazier left to be considered top 5 or top 10 by most experts. Essentially, he is all but forgotten outside of the trilogy with Ali.

But that’s OK. That’s how it seems to go with Philly’s best. But he’s ours. And we remember him. And that left hook that made Muhammad’s tassels fly in the air.

Joe Frazier lived a good life and hard life, if not such a long life. But he never backed down from a fight and did himself and his people proud. Now, his body told him it was time to shut it down. We remember March 8, 1971; October 1, 1975 (September 30 here in the States); and everything before, between, and after.

God bless you, Smokin’ Joe.