bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part ten)))


day ten: defensive line

chris: I will take "Mean" Joe Greene as my next Defensive Lineman. Revered as the greatest defensive tackle to ever play the game he will go perfectly on my team. Accolades are as follows:

NFL.com - 13th greatest player in NFL History

10 Pro Bowls

8 - first or second team All Pro

75 Anniversary Team

all 70's team

Defensive Player of the year in 72 and 74

Defensive MVP in 1972

HOF - 1987

He was the anchor of the greatest defensive line of all time. Need I say more!

good pick.

in my 3-4 scheme, I've been torn, because, truly, how many all-timers jump to mind when you are talking about nose tackles? not many, right?

if joe greene was available here, i was going to take him and ask him to be my over the center guy, but you selecting him made my mind up for me. if i am going to play a true 3-4, i am going to need a true nose tackle. a space-eater. a mountain among men. a guy that will require triple attention from your center and two guards because he's just that big.

i am taking ted washington.
 

the sporting news once called ted washington "the prototypical nose tackle of his era". in his prime (which, admittedly, was a small window. whatareyougonnado, though??? He was 6'5" and over 350 pounds. his body wasn't built to be elite for long), he was dominant. in a five year stretch between 1997 and 2001, washington made 4 pro bowls and as many all-pro teams. i remember seeing videos and highlights of him completely obliterating the insides of nfl offensive lines. when healthy, running up the middle wasn't an option and between the tackles was a risk. ted washington will free space for reggie white, derrick thomas and lawrence taylor to do their thing. you can only double-team so many guys.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part nine)))


day nine: running back

this one should be fun. will it be another lesson in "old school" versus "new school" or something else entirely? the history of the nfl has given this position, maybe, more "greats" than any other. four will be picked in this draft. many others will have had deserving cases and careers.

chris is up first.

chris: I have thought about this one a lot. I am going to go with my heart and my wife's heart and take the Bear. I will select Walter Payton as my #1 Running Back. Like Jerry Rice for you, where do I even start with the stats and the awards.



NFL.com - #5 player of all time
9 pro bowls
6 first team all pros
3 second team all pros
1977 NFL MVP
1985 NFC Player of the Year
75th NFL Anniversary Team
1977 Pro Bowl MVP
HOF - 1993


Rushing:


16,726 yds
110 TDs


Receiving:


4,538 yds
15 TDs


All time leading rusher until Emmit Smith broke record in 2002
All time leader in yards from scrimmage until Jerry Rice broke record in 1998


For many years, Walter Payton was all the Bears had with regards to talent. And even with all of the talent around him in 1985, he still excelled. He was the leader of that team and the leader of that offense. I am proud to have him on my team!

this is the first position where i was legitimately worried you were going to take my number one off the board before i picked. thankfully, that didn't happen.

"while other people are stuck with joints, he seems to have ball bearings in his legs that give him a mechanical advantage." -si's paul zimmerman

what an excellent quote, right? i can't think of more eloquent way of describing the freakish nature with which my number one running back, barry sanders, played his position relative to his contemporaries.

there are many special running backs that have played in the national football league. walter payton makes that list, no doubt.

remember when i brought up the the "evolutionary" vs. "revolutionary" point with my lt pick? barry would slot in as the third (with lt and vick) revolutionary guy on my team. things he did on the field during his hall of fame and too short career were breathtaking.

in my opinion, barry's the greatest. he made the pro-bowl and first or second (6 first teams) all-pro's in all of his ten seasons. he rushed for over 2,000 (hitting the mark in his 14th game) in 1997 and shared the mvp of the league with brett favre.

obviously, i'm a big style guy, and i have never watched a football team with as much anticipation as i did a lions game during sanders' career. every touch carried with it the potential of seeing something obscene, something historic, something you may never see again. always lauded by john madden types for his spectacularly low center of gravity, more impressive was his athleticism. standing only 5'8", it's been reported that sanders could dunk flat-footed.

the nfl is a league of athletic outliers. barry sanders, though, was something altogether different, in the same pantheon of creation as his draft class peer, deion sanders, and a signal-caller that would follow in his highlighted footsteps, my quarterback, michael vick.

chris?

chris: i think i have the greatest running back ever. i think you have the 3rd greatest running back ever. i am certain mark will call it a draw.

(ed: we shall see)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part eight)))


day eight: linebacker #2


as we reach the second week of the "only draft that matters to us", our teams will start to feel very bill-ish and very tom-ish, respectively. no better place to start with that than quarterback, and my and chris' philosophical differences will become more and more transparent as we move forward, i am sure.

today, we both take our second linebacker.

in my 3-4, scheme, i want explosion off both ends, because the goal will be to get after system montana on EVERY play, not just passing downs. i don't know that i can think of a better word than "explosive" when my memory serves up pictures to me of the guy that will serve as a bookend to lawrence taylor, the late, great derrick thomas.

widely considered one of the best pass rushers of all-time, thomas' first step is one of legend. if taylor signaled to teams that an athletic left-tackle would be fundamental to the future of the national football league, thomas tested the new world order. there was no secret that dt was coming off the edge and he was coming fast. on the most prolific single day of his career, thomas sacked seattle quarterback dave krieg seven times!

over the course of his hall of fame career, dt, was selected to 9 first or second all-pro teams, as many pro bowls and was named to the 90's all decade team.

chris: With my second linebacker, I am taking the great Jack Ham from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He fits perfectly into my 4-3 scheme and will be my weak side outside linebacker. Often revered as one of the best outside linebackers to play the game, he was a ferocious hitter with great speed, quickness and smarts. Chuck Noll said he was the fastest guy he had ever seen for the first 10 yards. And that was on a team with Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. Many of the players on that Steelers dynasty defense have said that Jack Ham was the leader of that unit, including Jack Lambert and Joe Greene. Joe Paterno who gave the induction speech for Ham at Canton in 1988 said, he was the best player he ever coached! The best linebacker to ever come out of linebacker U is pretty good, but the best player that Joe Pa has ever coached.....that's a guy I want on my team.

8 pro bowls

8 all pro's

all 70's team

75 Anniversary team

HOF - 1988

it's almost too easy to come back at this pick with a "really??? TWO white linebackers???", but i'll admit that your case is a good one.

i've watched too many nfl films documentaries about ham's steelers teams to not know he was a good and tough player. I don't know that speed, per se, ever jumped off the screen when I saw him play, but he was always in the mix at the end of the plays I have in my head right now. all that i really hope for you is that paterno was more aware of his surroundings and his players when ham played for him than he is now. At this point, I would be terribly surprised if jeopa could name ten players on his current squad.

i like where we are getting in the draft, getting to second guys at respective positions. this one's a good example of where we aren't really drafting dt vs. ham, because we are drafting for two different schemes.

i'm glad i got dt. my guess is that you're happy with your pick.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part seven)))

day seven: quarterback

the head of the snake.

it what seems like appropriate timing, we end our first week of picks by drafting our starting quarterbacks. knowing chris for as long as i have and knowing his undying love of the san francisco 49ers, if he picked first, chris was always going to take one guy. in contrast to other positions where the luck of a coin flip determined who got the consensus best player at a respective position, i would never have taken chris' quarterback. not that i would dodge him out of respect to team tom, but i am putting together a team for one game, a game where we will assume all of our draft picks will be playing at their highest level of potential. to that end, chris' "old school" and my "new school" philosophies were always destined to diverge most glaringly with this singular pick.

chris is up first.

Without further ado.........I will go ahead and take Joe Montana as my quarterback. He is without a doubt in MY mind the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. He did not have the numbers that Marino, Favre or Peyton when he is done will have, but he was the consummate general. It is often thought that if he didn't have the players around him that he did, we wouldn't be considered the same player. I disagree and so do those players. Jerry Rice has said that without Joe Montana the 49ers of the 80's were a good team. Not a great team. He elevated everyone around him and will always be considered a winner, because that is what he did best....found a way to win. And he did it on the greatest stage of all. Stats are as follows:

1989 and 1990 NFL MVP
1990 Sportsman of the Year
8 Pro Bowls
4 Super Bowl wins
3 Super Bowl MVPs
3 1st team All Pros
1980's team of the decade
75 Anniversary Team
Named by ESPN as the 25th greatest athlete of the 20th century

i'll take this guy (see video below)...

(ed: cue chris' head exploding)

there were three guys on my list that i was considering taking as my quarterback. peyton manning was one. his statistical numbers will end up as the best of all-time. while peyton's career has not been one that suffers from a dearth of talent on offense, his defenses have been consistently poor to downright bad, putting even more pressure on himself and his skill guys to perform at their highest levels. john elway, i've heard described as the best athlete ever to play quarterback, which is the most ridiculous statement ever, but i understand the sentiment. in an era where plodding pocket passers (montana, simms, theismann) were the norm that teams would build around and hope to find in a draft, elway was cut from a different mold. he was an all-everything athlete at stanford, his arm was a thing of legend, and, by the end of his career, his accomplishments stacked up nicely to his early potential.

the greatest athlete to ever play quarterback, though, is mike vick. bar none. end of discussion. vick took the skill-set displayed by guys like doug williams and randall cunningham and raised (and continues to raise) them to the 3rd or 4th power. from the time he stepped foot in atlanta, he was reality's equivalent to "tecmo bo". faster than everyone on the field. strongest arm in the league. literally unstoppable when he found his groove.

his numbers, admittedly, pale when placed next to a guy like montana or manning or elway. i get that. he's made four pro bowls. he's finished in the top 3 of the nfl mvp vote twice. he will eventually eclipse the aforementioned cunningham as the most prolific rushing quarterback in the history of the league. he's had a 1,000 yard rushing season from the quarterback position for god's sake! all of that, and he's becoming more efficient. the eagles' version of the west coast offense last season was as explosive as it has ever been under andy reid and only figures to become more dangerous.

as a pure playmaker, mike vick has no equal. in a one game and off scenario, there isn't a more difficult player to gameplan against. he's my guy.

This is a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking") joke! Thanks for making the greatest draft ever a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking" again) joke!

Vick is a great athlete......this is not being argued. But if you believe that Michael Vick could lead a team to victory (even in a one game scenario at his prime) against a team led by Joe Montana.......you are crazy (ed: call me crazy). Vick will be known one day as the greatest running quarterback. Congrats. The position takes more than just running; it takes sound decision making and leadership. Oh did I mention that I agree Michael Vick has a rocket arm. To that point....he hasn't done DICK with it! When Michael Vick has four super bowl rings, a couple of MVP's and is considered THE BEST at his position of all time.....call me. In fact, take away the requirement of Super Bowls and MVPS and show me a list the day he retires that puts him in the Top 5 NFL quarterbacks of all time.....I will be waiting (ed: can i end the suspense and tell you he'll end up on mine???). The fact that you want to even argue this bothers me. The credibility of your team just got chewed up like a puppy in a dog fight.....of course you are the one that drafted Michael Vick as "YOUR GUY"! Good luck.

Since you are the king of throwing stats in peoples faces, I thought it would be fun to compare these two statistically. First I wanted to see where Michael Vick ranked on the NFL's Top 100 Players of all time.........and I was shocked he didn't make the list. I am sure you are just as bewildered. BTW....Joe was number 2. So then I thought, well that isn't really fair because Michael Vick is still playing and he did miss a few seasons (see note later). At this point, I decided to see where he ranked in the Top 100 Players of Today's NFL. Vick came in at number 20. He was the 5th Quarterback on the list behind Brady, Manning, Brees and Rodgers. I wonder if such a list had been completed in 1987.....(Joe Montana's 9th season) where he would fall. Of course, at that point he already had two Super Bowl MVP's so I'm pretty sure he would be pretty high. I guess we will never know.

I kept coming back to the fact that maybe I am just being unfair to Vick. So I went and did a little study on how his 2010 season (a great season for a quarterback) ranked in EAGLES quarterback history. He lead the other folks (McNabb, Cunningham, Jaws, Van Brocklin) in two categories: Rushing TD's with 9 and Fewest Picks with 6. Of course, Cunningham who was closest on the rushing TD's stat with 5 did have 9 more TD's passing and 400 more yards passing. And as you probably presumed, I found that while McNabb had two more picks in 2004 he did throw from 800 more yards and 10 more TD's. BTW...McNabb did get to the Super Bowl that year as well. I just thought that was an interesting side note.

You know I mentioned earlier that Vick has only played 8 years......yeah, I knew you were going to remember. I realize that I need to compare their stats based on their first 8 seasons. 8 of course because Michael missed 2 seasons due to the fact that he was doing hard time for being a complete waste to society....another topic for another day. Here is how he and Joe Montana stack up next to each other after their 1st 8 seasons in the league. It is important to remember that Joe went 13/23 for 1TD in his rookie year (1979) and that 1986 (his 8th season) was a season shortened by the strike and only had 8 games. Oh...you know what....that fact really isn't that important.

Vick

Passing - 55.3%, 14,609 yards, 93 TDs, 58 INTs and a rating of 80.2
Rushing - 4,630 yards, 32 TDs and 23 Fumbles
Awards:
4 Pro Bowls
2003 ESPY Best NFL Player
2009 Eagles Courage Award
2010 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

Montana

Passing - 62.4%, 21,498 yards, 141 TDs, 76 INTs and a rating of 89.3
Rushing - 905 yards, 10 TDs and 0 Fumbles
Awards:
2 Super Bowls
2 Super Bowl MVPS
4 Pro Bowls
3 - 2nd Team All Pro
1986 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

I repeat how I started my rebuttal.....this is a f-ing j (ed: you know what he means) joke.

so, it took a full week for you to wake up, huh? well, at least you're awake now.

first of all, i am not sure if you are truly offended, or if you dropping fuck-bombs all over the place is some sort of premeditated strategy. for the first six days of our draft, you've been downright pleasant about having your ass handed to you, even to the point of conceding on several days. but here, on the day we select our quarterback, you lose your shit at the mere thought of me taking someone outside of the conventional box of every all-time quarterback list and acting like it isn't worth having a conversation about. even after i've provided you with video evidence of what has been called quite possibly the best all-around quarterback performance of all-time. methinks thou doth protest too much. let me explain.

first, let's compare two very short and very simple lists.

49er's joe montana had the pleasure of playing with

dwight clark
randy cross
wendell tyler
roger craig
freddie solomon
fred quillen
keith fahnhorst
jerry rice
john taylor
tom rathman

falcons michael vick had the pleasure of playing with

warrick dunn
t.j. duckett
peerless price
bob whitfield
dez white
alge crumpler
michael jenkins
roddy white
brian finneran (ed: white guy skill player)
ashley lelie

from these two lists of ten, what do you see?

me? on one list, i see tens on top of ten pro-bowlers and all-pros. the other? a trash heap of has-beens and never will be's (one exception in roddy white, who played with vick only two seasons).

now, when i first read your fuck-bomb infused takedown of vick, i thought i'd respond with a similar takedown of system montana. but, really, what's the point? i won't argue your pick.

what i will argue (ed: i present the above lists as exibit a, your honor), though, is that your joe was put into a system and situation and surrounded with a cast of characters that gave him a higher than average chance of succeeding. vick, on the other hand, was taken by a falcons franchise that had tasted true success only once and their organization had no idea how to take the "dirty birds" and build them into the future, a future that was desolate and beneath decline when vick came to atlanta.

joe montana was allowed to develop underneath one of the more brilliant offensive football minds ever in bill walsh. mike vick? his "coach" was jim fucking mora, jr. excellent.

now, let's take a quick look at your numbers from the two quarterbacks. actually, let's just take a look at two. total yards. total touchdowns.

in montana's first 8 seasons (120-ish games, taking away the strike shortened games and not accounting for the games he missed due to ijnury), he led his team to 186 yards per game and 1.25 touchdowns per game.

in vicks first 8 seasons (128-ish games, also not taking away games he missed due to injury), he lead his falcons and eagles to 150 yards per game and .98 touchdowns per game.

hmm...the "greatest quarterback in the history of the game" was good for all of three first downs more and about a quarter-touchdown a game more than the guy that i chose and you claimed made this draft out to be a "fucking joke".

i am sure montana's pro-bowl teammates had nothing to do with those minor statistical differences either. i am sure they can all be accounted for because joe was such the fucking "general' on the field, right?

give me a fucking break, tom. if you don't like vick, fine. i am glad you slighted him so i could pick him to match up against your defense that was really good "for their time". you're telling me that white dick butkus would ever, and i mean FUCKING EVER stand a shot at tackling vick in the open field? really? how many times? 1 out of 50, when mike tripped over a divot??? please.

what this really is, your "this is a fucking joke" takedown of vick, is nothing more than the old baseball writer that votes the best player on the the best team mvp because it's easy and no one can really argue against it.

again, i am not arguing against montana. he's fine. we aren't building franchises, though. we are building collections of talent that we think could outplay the other's collection of talent. it looks like, according to your own numbers, i've spotted you about a 1.5 points.

you've still got some ground to make up.

chris:Let me respond with....you are right on one front....I have been pleasant and have conceded some picks. This pick makes the draft a fucking joke. That's right...a fucking joke. Vick had a great season last year. Slice it all you want, BILL, he is not worthy of this list. When he finds himself in the top 5 QBs of all time when he retires.....we can have this argument again. He won't....if he stays out of prison long enough to retire! Until then, my 2nd QB will out shine him. I have nothing else to say on this subject except fuck you and your BS strategy and fuck Michael Vick! Tom-out!

now i am starting to feel like i'm on foxnews and some pundit keeps saying the same line over and over again in the hopes that people start to believe it.

the ground rules of our little exercise did not include the mandate of having to choose players from every old nfl writer's best nfl players of all-time lists.

we've established that the great system Montana was worth about 1.5 points more to his team than michael vick over the course of their first eight seasons. we've also established that the cast of players and organizations around system and around vick were not even in the same ballpark. as bill walsh asked system to do what he was capable of doing (throwing 8 yard slants and almost over-throwing his tight-end in the end zone), we've established that michael vick's own coach often had no idea how to use vick.

is it coincidence, then, that the first year vick started and played with a capable coach and with capable players in a capable organization that he ran less, threw more and finished second in the mvp voting? this guy thinks not.

vick is the most dangerous weapon this league has ever seen.

you've already granted he's the best running quarterback in the history of the league. by the time i finish my backfield, we may never have to throw the ball anyway. 

chris: (ed: rests his case)