American Sports Thread

[ranch]

Miami still unbeaten. Great to see 

[Gabriel_Hurl]

The greatest closer of all-time Mariano Rivera played his last game at Yankee Stadium last night

http://wapc.mlb.com/nyy/play/?c_id=nyy&content_id=30974179&topic_id=11493214

[AZOffaly]

Great game on ESPN at the moment #6 LSU 14 v #9 Georgia 14.

[Minder]

Manning with 3 TDs and it isn't even halftime yet

19TDs 0 INTs on the season

[RealSpiritof98]

what a game 48 - 48 with 2 mins to go. Romo has stepped up to out score Manning, but he just cant get there. 500 yards wow

[magpie seanie]

Was knackered last night but couldn't pull myself away from that game. Serious stuff. Really feel sorry for Romo. Wonderful player but just prone to an error at the wrong time. He was awesome last night.

[AZOffaly]

Unreal. After the Cards game finished, I headed up to bed, but I was listening on Audio Pass. Great stuff. Romo is a very, very good quarterback but it is things like this that really stop him from being one of the greats.

Manning is great, but he is also prone to the odd mad interception in the playoffs especially. That one last night was a typical January type Peyton pick. He is some man though.

[deiseach]

One of the most cutting putdowns I've ever seen against a sportsman (whether you agree with it or not) was aimed at Peyton Manning - "meet Mr October".

[Asal Mor]

Ouch. Americans love to talk about their sportsmen in terms of how clutch they are and it's easy to get labelled as a choker. LeBron James had the choker tag a couple of years ago in all corners of the American media, but 2 NBA titles and 2 MVP awards later he's a clutch player. I'm a recent convert to the NFL but I thought Manning was very unlucky last year. As Phil Simms said it wasn't Peyton Manning who gave up the Hail Mary touchdown to Torrey Smith.

[deiseach]

Ouch. Americans love to talk about their sportsmen in terms of how clutch they are and it's easy to get labelled as a choker. LeBron James had the choker tag a couple of years ago in all corners of the American media, but 2 NBA titles and 2 MVP awards later he's a clutch player. I'm a recent convert to the NFL but I thought Manning was very unlucky last year. As Phil Simms said it wasn't Peyton Manning who gave up the Hail Mary touchdown to Torrey Smith.

And as for Scott Hoch...

[AZOffaly]

Last year wasn't the only year though. The Colts had some serious teams over the years, and to only have one Superbowl, when Eli has two!!, is definitely a bit of an underachievement I think. Of course he is brilliant, but his post season stats don't make 'elite' reading.

Peyton's regular season stats are :

229 games, 5352/7991 for a completion percentage of 65.5, 456 TDs versus 210 INTs, QB Rating - 96.7

Postseason is :

20 games, 481/761 for a completion percentage of 63.21, 32 TDs versus 21 INTs, QB Rating - 88.4.

Interesting that his INTs per passing attempt is 'only' 2 passing attempts worse in the Post Season. He throws an interception every 38.05 pass attempts in the regular season, and every 36.25 attempts in the post season.

Much more interesting is his touchdown per attempt stats. Obviously playoff defenses are by their nature better, but in 229 regular season games, he throws a touchdown every 17.52 pass attempts. In 20 post season games that drops to 23.78 pass attempts.

The worst stat though in my eyes looking at this is the INTS to TD ratio. In the regular season he has a touchdown/interception ratio of  2.17. In the playoffs it falls to 1.52.

[Asal Mor]

And would the other elite quarterbacks perform to the same level statisically as they do in the regular season AZ, given(as you said) that the defenses are better in the playoffs?

[Asal Mor]

And as for Scott Hoch...

Poor fella. What was it about Faldo that seemed to reduce his opponents to nervous wrecks?

[AZOffaly]

Just for giggles, the other great QBs of this generation would be, I suppose, Brady, Rodgers and Brees....

Rodgers Regular Season...
1853/2817    65.8%    180 TDs versus 49 INTS (Ratio of 3.67:1), QB Rating 105.0
Rodgers Post Season
193/292 66.1%. 18 TDs to 5 INTS (ratio 3.6 : 1), QB Rating 104.0


Brady Regular Season
3909/6154 63.5%, 341 TDs versus 126 INTs (ratio of 2.7:1), QB Rating 96.0
Brady Post Season
553/887 62.3%, 42 TSs versus 22 INTs (ratio of 1.9:1) QB Rating 87.0


Brees Regular Season
4175/6350 for 65.7%, 336 TDs v 169 INTS (ratio of 1.98:1), QB Rating 95
Brees Post Season
262/391 for 67%, 22 TDs v 4 INTs (ratio of 5.5:1), QB Rating 104.




All in all looks like Rodgers is Mr Consistency, while Brees comes out on top in Post Season performances. Obviously sample size comes into it. Brady and Manning are very similar which is interesting. Interesting though that Manning's TD to INT ratio is lower than anyone elses in either regular or post season, but his post season at 1.5:1 is significantly lower than the other 3. Next worst is Brady at 1.9 to 1.

[Asal Mor]

Interesting stuff, I'd have thought Brady's would have been better. I think (and I'm open to correction on this) he'd have the reputation as a great pressure player - probably deserved too, with a few Superbowls won and being a couple of Wes Welker drops away from a couple more. I think he's also renowned for his late drives with very little time on the clock.

And you mentioned Eli's 2 Superbowls to Peyton's 1. I was watching a Giants game recently where they were behind going into the last five minutes but had possession and the great Kris Collinsworth said " you know, there's a lot of quarterbacks I'd take ahead of Eli, but in the last 5 there aren't many".