Who cares about the letter grades. Seems like just arguing semantics. I'd like to see some more GIFS of Williams and Mauldin. So far from what I've seen, Williams is a monster and Mauldin cant be slowed down by right tackles. Wish we got to see more from Capatano. I see so much potential with this unit.
It's a forum lol We're having a discussion. It's not so much about the letter he was given but more about what the scale looks like in relation to that letter. If Fitz gets AFC player of the week and throws for 3 TD and 0 INT and still gets a B-, then what constitutes an A or an A+? The whole purpose of this site is to discuss the Jets and the players on the Jets. That's what we're doing
Seems like semantics to me, but no harm no foul. For what its worth I dont think he had an A+ game either. Nice stat sheet, but made some bad throws that could have been picked. Certainly not his best game of the year.
I'm going by his performance not just his raw stats. Again, 1/3 of his yards and TDs were the result of a blown coverage when the defense wasn't even ready. Take that one play away and suddenly you're left with sub 200 passing yards and 2 TDs. It was a weak defense, one of the worst defenses in the league, and he had some really bad throws as well that were dropped by defenders. I don't see how that was a close to perfect performance. If he throws for 450 yards and 5 TDs against the Patriots to send us to the postseason that's an A performance. I'm not saying he couldn't have done better if the Titans actually tried and put some points on the board, but he wasn't asked to do more than he did which is fine.
I'll have some stuff up later. Mauldin was doubled a lot and the Titans have some of the best blocking TE's in the game so he wasn't able to flash a lot because they took away the outside. But he still had some good rushes on stunts over the middle.
Check out Fitzpatrick on this one, showing great effort and toughness running downfield trying to take out some defenders by throwing his body around. Powell again displays his impeccable elusiveness and quick feet.
I'm neutral in this discussion regarding grades, but imo you can't discredit that one play. You can't take plays away. If you're going to do that, you could take away one of the bad throws or all 3. If you take that play away, you have to take away every play in every game that is a trick play, or every well-designed play that has a mismatch in the offense's favor such as the Miami game where Marshall had such a height advantage over the Miami CB. As Falco said, a lot of QBs might not have seen it, and even if they did, wouldn't have executed it as calmly and as well as Fitz did. They would have gotten too excited and fumbled the snap, done something to alert the Titans, or made a bad throw to Marshall. It was what it was. It doesn't matter if the Titans were ready or not. They should have been. If anything, it makes it a better play, because Fitz recognized it so quickly. You think Geno, McCown or half the other JAG QBs in the NFL would have seen it and executed well enough for their team to score a TD on that? I don't. It's also the same principle as not being able to discredit a win because it was against a weak team. As for the Titans D being a weak D, and one of the worst in the league, that's just not true if what I've seen posted here by other posters is accurate. I've seen several posts saying that the Titans had a top 10 ranked D. If Fits throws for 450 yards and 5 TDs against the Pats, that isn't just an A game. That's an incredible, superb, stupendous, almost unfathomable A+++++++++++++++++++ game.
Focusing on Calvin Pryor III. He's about as stout a DB as I've seen since Polamalu or Sean Taylor I think. He's like a slab of concrete, you run into him and that's where it ends, you don't gain an extra inch and most likely he knocks you back a couple yards. One of his two missed sacks. Has a great feel for the snap count, perfectly times his blitzes. Forces Mariota to avoid the sack by running right into Demario Davis. Also, watch the RT get some help from the TE again to slow down Mauldin. Seems like he's already making a name for himself. Another great blitz over the middle with perfect timing. Takes out the TE in the process to allow Mo to get the sack. Working the run. Again, perfectly timed blitz over the middle, finds the hole and stuffs the run.
I think the objection is that since you are criticizing 'hawks grading, maybe you should come up with some gifs and analysis as evidence for your grade. Else, its just opinion without backup which is fine, but loses when compared to 'hawks empirical reports. That Fitz won a weekly award doesn't hold weight here with most, I think.
I don't mind Hawk grading Fitz a B for this game. Heck, the rookie QB who got blown out 30-8 passed for more yards than Fitz did, so a B is OK. If you want an 'A', you gotta beat the rookie!
I'm not getting into the argument on the B vs A - just doesn't interest me personally. We won and he was a huge part of it. Love your posts btw DBH - my fav part of the week What I do feel like should be pointed out is that Fitz's stats were almost entirely compiled by the first half. The team played two full quarters of garbage time. Regardless of his stats at the end of the game he was huge and on fire when the game was still competitive. He may have gotten to 450 yards, 5 TDs but he never needed to. One of the most efficient performances I've seen
I can't believe how much ground he can cover so quickly. I see him do this every single week and it still surprises me every time
Lol and if you take away his easy throw to a wide open Decker and the screen pass to Powell he had zero TDs and about 150 yards. It's almost as if all he had was incompletions and near INTs. When a QB has 3 TDs and you arbitrarily take one away, you're taking away 1/3 of his TDs. Btw, that was a brilliant play on the part of Fitz, Mangold and Marshall. But let's not give him any credit for that. _
What do you think I gave him a B for if there was nothing positive about his performance? He had a good game, he wasn't perfect. If you can ignore the 2-3 shots he gave defenses to pick him off (dropped picks), a handful of throws that were way off his receivers, him forcing the ball to Marshall, staring down Marshall or Devin when Decker was wide open or in 1 on 1 coverage with no safety help against a scrub corner, then that's up to you. To me it just wasn't flawless. That doesn't mean it was bad, I don't know why you think that saying he was "just" good means he was bad. Profootballoutsiders ranked him 8th behind Cousins and Brees for week 14. Profootballfocus graded him negatively. I don't agree with PFF (I never do) but you just can't act like he was flawless or that he had a close to perfect performance. The only 2 QB's from week 14 that had close to perfect games both play in the NFC (Eli & Russell Wilson). In the AFC nobody deserved it. But that's just me. It doesn't make sense to give somebody an A for a good game and then a week later if he puts up 6 touchdowns against a tough defense you're gonna give him the same grade again?
If you can take that one positive play away, you can take the negative plays away and bump him to an A+. The fact is Fitzpatrick stealthily coming out of the shotgun, getting Mangold on the same page and then tossing it to Brandon is part of his performance. Not every quarterback sees opportunities like that. See Colin Kaepernick. But I'm not going to harp on it because I see your point and I enjoy these posts.
DaBallHawk, thank you for your effort with this thread. I missed the game this weekend and did not record it. This was helpful getting caught up. I agree with you, I definitely am impressed with Pryor. The defense was totally different when he was out a little while back.
This is why zone coverage can be so frustrating. At the bottom Revis in man coverage takes the WR out with ease, yet in zone this is what happens a lot of times, there are always holes in the defense, easy catches, first downs, maybe touchdowns. Even though the defense played it pretty well. Gilchrist is in deep coverage, Revis has the outside but nobody is underneath.
