JohnBigBootay: I don't think it's like that at all.

The idea behind promoting a black QB would be to show that yes, black QBs are capable of leading teams successfully. They aren't worse leaders, they're not dumber than others, etc - all the negative sh*t that was said back when Doug Williams won a SB or when Warren Moon had to go to the CFL.

McNabb, of all the black QBs in the league at the time, had a successful team, and wasn't a gimmick player like, say, Vick, who was mostly a threat on the field because of his legs. McNabb was showing that hey, black QBs don't have to be "dual-threats".

I'm not sure how much the NFL forced coverage, but I think it would be silly to act as though they don't put pressure on their media partners to focus on certain things. The league has the subtlety of an 800-lb gorilla when it comes to how they want themselves portrayed.

LucklessWonder: RG3 might be awful, but as a Redskins fan, I at least have hope for the QB position going into the season for the first time since around '92...

Doubt it. Seems like he's got a good head on his shoulders and is willing to work his ass off to be the best.

Hell I'll say it: If you gave me a choice between RG3 and Michael Vick in a fantasy draft, I'll take RG3 in a heartbeat.

Rwa2play: Hell I'll say it: If you gave me a choice between RG3 and Michael Vick in a fantasy draft, I'll take RG3 in a heartbeat.

I would, considering Vick's injuries...but the Redskins' skill players are so far behind the Eagles' skill players that I probably can't say I do that.

If I'm doing it in a real league? RGIII all the way

sign_of_Zeta: Yes, because there was never a Superbowl winning African American Quarterback, and certainly not one who won MVP honors...

doug williams had a lot of hype coming out of college.

RG3 is smart, as usual for him, about this. He is doing so that people can't make shirts and hats with RG3 on them and profit off him. you can still say or write rg3. you just can't sell a jersey that says rg3 on it for money.

RsquaredW: Score effects. In hockey it's 5v5 Corsi or score tied-Corsi because score effects make a big change in how teams play. If a team gets down in the NFL, they abandon their running game and pass more.

These arguments work when you ignore reality.

Like Week 1, where the Panthers had a lead or were tied for most of the game and he threw 37 passes, right? Like when they had a first down after a run and were on the Arizona 49 with the score tied, then threw three consecutive passes in Newton's first game, leading to a punt that got returned for a TD? Yeah, no, that's because they were down and they had to throw that much!

Week 2, they had a halftime lead over the Packers - were up for the entire first half, in fact, after holding the Pack to one TD. Packers score on the first drive of the half, so it's a 14-13 game. Carolina's first drive, INT. Carolina's 2nd drive, fumble on a pass play. Defense holds GB to FGs, so Carolina's still only down 20-13. Three more consecutive passes, ends in an INT again, Green Bay goes up more. Now they mix in a few runs on the next drive - Carolina gets a FG. 23-16, still only a one-score game. They hold the Packers. They have 7 minutes left. Here's how the drive goes:

Pass, sack, pass, pass, pass, sack, pass, scramble.

Green Bay scores to put the game away. With two minutes left, Newton leads the team on a meaningless 83-yard drive to lose by only 7. But he adds 79 yards to his passing totals.

Week 4: Against Chicago. It's a one-score game for virtually the entire game. Interestingly, they times they did get down 2 TD, they actually went to a run-pass mix on the next drive and got TDs each time.

So no, there was never a NEED to pass in the games where he passed most, and the team was better even in those games when they actually ran the ball.

bahamasorbust: Came here to say this. Virtually every QB has more attempts in losses as opposed to attempts in wins.

Unfortunately, I already showed that there was no case of "but they were behind so they had to gun it!" happening in Carolina. The team abandoned the run for no reason and it killed them.

I could point out that all his early "great games" were inflated by teams not giving a sh*t about an 80-yard drive at the end of the game that basically meant Carolina only lost by one score. Or by the fact that several drives ended in interceptions, which basically render all the yards gained in the drive worthless.

And I would like to point out that this is who the Panthers beat last year:

Tampa Bay x 2 (I told you that was the No. 1 reason they went from 2-14 to 6-10)
Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Redskins
Texans (the only impressive win).

He's outdueled Blaine Gabbert, Curtis Painter, Josh Freeman, John Beck, and TJ Yates.

LEGEND

JohnBigBootay: You are the master at providing extenuating circumstances for why your favorites didn't do well (Joe Bob was hurt and the coach hated him and there was a bad call) in a given circumstance and equally good at impugning the performance of your non-favorites (yeah, he threw for a zillion yards and set records and they won more games but he still sucks because of x).

If people are going to claim that information is irrelevant because of something that isn't true (and I demonstrated that all the games where he threw a ton, he didn't NEED to throw a ton, and the insistence upon throwing helped them lose), then I can come back and say that his good numbers can also be discredited using the same ideas.

I seem to be disagreeing with myself with regard to other players, but in reality I'm just taking a moderate position - since most people seem to be on one side of the fence on each issue, I argue for the other side because we need more information before declaring that "Flynn is a product of the system, he won't be good outside of Green Bay" or "Cam Newton is a top-tier QB," as some people are already making him out to be.

If you think that basically adding a No. 1 WR, TE and two top-tier RBs aren't an upgrade for an offense worth mentioning when talking about going from 2-14 to 6-10, you're out of your mind. And that's effectively what happened last year by getting those guys healthy. Furthermore, a full half of those extra wins were more from Tampa Bay's complete and utter collapse than from anything Carolina did.

So let's see what happens next year before we start calling him a good QB. Healthy Steve Smith made Matt Moore (who is decent, but consistently loses his job every single time there's an opportunity for a team to draft high) and Jake Delhomme look very, very good, too.

If they remember that their running game is the best part of their offense, they will be decent this year. If they think that Newton should pass all the time, they will regress. Does no one remember this sh*t happening with Cutler? Shanahan was so enamored with having a golden arm again that he constantly passed even though he had a young QB and an efficient running game, which resulted in a lot of INTs and he never had another winning season?

JohnBigBootay: in a given circumstance and equally good at impugning the performance of your non-favorites (yeah, he threw for a zillion yards and set records and they won more games but he still sucks because of x).

I also didn't say he sucks. I just said he hasn't proven he's as good as people claim he is. It's almost impossible to NOT win more games than a team that went 2-14. It's also impossible to NOT win more games than a team that started Jimmy Clausen for the majority of the year.

There's a good chance Carolina has a worse record than last year - Smith tends to get injured (last season was his first fully healthy one in a while). Tampa Bay picked up some huge pieces and it looks like they might try to be competent next year. I suppose they might pick up a win against the Saints while they're discombobulated.

And when you're facing Curtis Painter, Blaine Gabbert, and John Beck...well, you don't have to do much to win as a QB. Gabbert and Painter were the worst two QBs in the league and John Beck was worse than Rex Grossman.