By MattDotRich
HEY YOU GUYS, FOOTBALL’S BACK!
It’s that magical time of the year: Eat all the wings you want! Drink all the beer! There are no calorie repercussions because FOOTBALL’S BACK! Ignore your wife! Ignore your girlfriend! Ignore your kids! They’ll understand because FOOTBALL’S BACK!
OK. I got that out of my system. Let’s review what we learned last night:
Drew Brees: 419 yards, 3 td’s
Aaron Rodgers: 312 yards, 3 td’s
Those are numbers that would scare me if I was one of those guys questioning why everybody was picking a quarterback early in the draft last weekend.
Yes, they’re exceptionally high, but in this new pro-QB era each week your opponent is playing an elite quarterback and penciling in 270+ yards and 2+ td’s while you’re hoping your quarterback could put up anything resembling those minimums.
The days of stockpiling running backs like Mark Ingram and Ryan Grant (40 yards each) are over. You’re going to need to find strong quarterback play one way or the other to contend. Now that doesn’t mean go crazy; if you’ve got 2 elite running backs that’s great, but you might want to start considering playing the lottery on quarterbacks.
Don’t carry one mediocre to poor quarterback and hope he works out. If I’ve got Joe Flacco as my starter, I’m starting the season with three quarterbacks and hoping one of them makes the jump to a reliable 2nd tier Quarterback. That’s not to say that I think Flacco can’t do it – he’s certainly got the receiving options to do so – but unless you’ve got one of the top 5 or 6 quarterbacks, I’m not putting my eggs in one basket.
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