Thursday, February 21, 2008

Still Hatin' on The King

I just thought this was interesting. It's the NFC North's turn in today's Four Downs at Football Outsiders, and their assessment of the Bears follows the standard line as it's been for the past several years:
"Obviously, finding a quarterback is priority No. 1 this off-season, but 1A is wide receiver, 1B is running back, and 1C is getting younger on the offensive line."
First of all, I think those are kind of in the wrong order, but it also speaks to this weird cognitive error that you see so consistently: this assumption that there is something like an unlimited number of players that are available to be got. Well, not exactly unlimited, but I think it's based on assuming that the talent pool is big enough as to be conceived of as kind of a vague cloud, or something like that. Anyway, the problem with saying that "priority No. 1" is finding a quarterback is that there really aren't any quarterback's out there worth getting this year. Meanwhile, there actually are a few linemen out there worth fighting for, there's Michael Turner who the Bears just have to get, and there's at least the possibility of making some kind of play for Randy Moss, or possibly entertaining ideas of a trade for Johnson from Cincinnati. So, sure, if there were a solid QB out there available for the getting, you could argue that getting him (or her? hehe) would be the number 1 priority, but it's a pretty meaningless proposition in the abstract. Also notice that in the "Whom Should They Sign" section, the only quarterbacks discussed are ones that aren't available.

But here's what I find even more interesting. In the section discussing the Vikings, the QB position is evaluated as pretty much "wait and see."
if Jackson doesn’t show noticeable improvement in 2008, the Vikings will have to consider a change.
In world is Tarvaris Jackson a better quarterback than either Rex Grossman or Kyle Orton? Or even (shudder) Brian Griese?

1 comment:

micah james said...

Not only are the needs in the wrong order, but "getting younger on the offensive line" was last year's need. "Getting better" is much more important this year. FO should consider getting one person to cover each division or something, I assume the NFC North isn't the only section that's getting shafted.