(07-05-2023, 12:05 PM)Bullseye Wrote: ChrisJagBoy,

Just a few more questions...if you would be so kind.  We blue hairs have a hard time understanding at times.

1.  Looking at the numbers, Peyton Manning threw exactly the same number of TDs in his rookie year as he did in his second.  Considering Manning was in his second year, with a full season's worth of experience under his belt, in the same offense and still superior surrounding talent, it's a shock he didn't improve in the number of TD passes thrown.  Meanwhile, the comparatively mentally enfeebled Trevor Lawrence (per your tacit analysis) managed to more than double his own TD output fro year one to year two.  To what do you attribute that?  Why no mention of his stagnant TD totals between year one to year two in your analysis?

2.  Peyton Manning, he of the NFL bloodlines and pedigree, didn't win his first playoff game despite  superior surrounding offensive talent until the 2003 season0his 5th in the league.  Strange, considering he made the playoffs in 1999, 2000, and 2002-three of his first five year.  However, Trevor Lawrence-he with many more flaws coming out than Manning, won his first playoff game in his first playoff start,,,which came in his second year.  How wass Trevor Lawrence able to win in the post season before Manning managed to do so?

3.  Last season, Trevor Lawrence, who, per your various arguments, seems almost doomed to throw an excessive number of INTs.  Yet to the best of my recollection, you didn't deviate from that premise until I pointed out the reduction in his INT total into single digits this past season.  Yet Peyton Manning only managed single digits in INTs only once in his career in 20060the 9th year of his career.  How did that happen?

4.  In an earlier post, you made the argument that left the impression it is near inexcusable for a would be elite QB to throw for less than 30 TDs in a season.  Yet after two seasons, Peyton Manning had not eclipsed the 26 TDs he threw in his first year, or for that matter, the 26 Trevor Lawrence threw last year.  Based upon your analysis, was Manning NOT a top 5 or elite QB during his first two years in the league? 

Again, math is not my strong suit, but TL has thrown 15 fewer INTs over his first two years than Manning his first two years, threw the same number of TDs (26) by year two as Manning despite having inferior talent at his disposal, and had a higher completion percentage his first two seasons than Manning had in his first two years, and won his first playoff game some four years ahead of the pace set by Peyton Manning.  So if  Lawrence's numbers are better overall in his first two years than Manning's and his performance in the playoffs in terms of win production is ahead of the pace set by Manning, what's the basis for arguing Manning was better his first two years?  Is it possible that Trevor Lawrence was actually better his first two years than Mannins?  Why wouldn't you have been down on Manning, if so?

Please forgive me for not grasping these tacit nuances of your arguments earlier.  I am not always able to avail myself of the senior discounts at Denny's and other various establishments and I must have missed it.

To clarify confusion, I was speaking to the hype of Trevor Lawrence as a prospect coming out of Clemson, aswell as Luck/Manning as prospects. In terms of their numbers as NFL quarterbacks, this is something that's a bit hard to compare to one another. Peyton Manning's early career was during a time where WRs were not protected by a dubious amount of penalties and protections. In TODAYS game I stand by the fact that a supposid "elite" quarterback should be sitting somewhere within the 30-40 range in terms of touchdowns, With the rule changes and now with the addition of a 17th game especially. I do not view Trevor Lawrence as an ELITE quarterback at this current moment, from my viewpoint he's played a handful of games that can be considered elite performances, but that does not push him to that level just yet. Now I'm not saying he can't get there with improvement. 

When I made my evaluations of Lawrence, this was both before he was in the NFL and even before we thought we could draft him, he was extremely over hyped and he has a long way to go if he wants to live up to said hype. He is extremely gifted in terms of his physical abilities, he has a big arm he's a big guy who is also a lot faster than most guys of his stature. That said, he was far from a polished product at Clemson, he fell apart in the playoffs and while I know he never lost a regular season game in college.. there were more factors than just his individual play that lead to that feat. Travis ETN had one of the most prolific careers a RB could possibly have in college, He had NFL talent WRs such as Tee Higgins who if you watch any of Trevors Clemson tape you'd note was wide open almost every time the ball came his way... and they played poor competition for the most part. 


Last year I predicted Trevor to throw for 22 tds 15 INTs. In that same thread I said that this was my baseline to determine whether or not he would improve upon what was a disasterous first year or not, and he absolutely did improve in a lot of ways.. but a lot of the same issues we saw @ Clemson and in his rookie season still continued on throughout the season tho admitedly he did get better in a few areas which at least for me has been promising. 

However, my predictions for his TD/Turnover ratio was pretty on par i'd say.

22 TD 15 Ints was the Prediction
25 Tds 8 Ints 12 Fumbles was the actual result.


At the end of the day, I am much more optimistic today than I was at the same time last season. In his rookie season (albeit he had Urban Fired at coach) I saw the things that worried me pre-draft pop up much more often than I would have liked, and even for the first half of last season it seemed to continue on. 

His issues with air mailing passes over his WRs heads is still an issue, his tendency to throw interceptions that make absolutely no sense (ala. 2nd down, throws it directly over the middle 5 yards to a linebackers hands under 0 pressure and no WR/TE in the area) etc.

However, let's take a look at the positive side of Trevor Lawrence. One of my biggest worries about him coming out of Clemson was that he seemed to struggle big time when the pressure was on, a good example would be his final game in college against Fields and Ohio. When the games were close, and it was up to him to get them back into the game he struggled, he would force deep passes into double coverage on 1st and 2nd down, he tried to play hero ball when there wasn't a need for it (early in the game mind you) I had serious doubts about his ability to be a clutch player. 

But last season, after possibly the worst performance of his career in Denver he came out and lead a 17 point comeback against the Raiders and showed us he had it in him, and he continued doing so in the games against Dallas/Baltimore and ofcourse the Chargers playoff game. 


I'm not going to sit here and scream "HES ELITE" until he can show me a season or 2 of consistent play. But i'm also not going to sit here and tell you I don't think he has what it takes to be that guy. 


So let's end this where it started. The first thread I made about Trevor Lawrence the day after we drafted the guy, I'm cautiously optimistic. Infact i'm a lot more optimistic after what I saw from the latter half of this past season. But I still stand by what I said, he had and still has many flaws in his game. The question is will he overcome those flaws and be this teams salvation. 

I never called him a bust, I wanted us to draft him at 1.. We needed a QB and he was the only prospect in that draft that I felt had enough talent to potentially be our guy. But I did not think of him as a Luck/Manning type of prospect, those two guys were incredible in college. I'm not paying attention to their stats, I'm looking at how they played in the games how they handled certain situations and how they handled themselves when the game was on their shoulders. In college, Trevor played on a team that basically had the game won by halftime every week.. and a lot of the time it had more to do with Travis ETN being a game wrecker for that offense, and the fact that the teams they faced were not comparable in talent. 


So for one final time, I will say this. I stand by what I actually said, not the words put in my mouth by the other two people on this board. I never once called him a bust, I never said he couldn't be good. I only pointed out his flaws that I saw by watching literally every play he made at Clemson and when those issues reared their head during games, I posted about them in the game day threads as a response to the mods who told me I was wrong when I wasn't.

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