"moestavern19 - Steve McNair is the glue that keeps the Tennessee Titans together now, Having watched him run all over Jacksonville numerous times, then come up so close in the Super Bowl, Its hard not to have tremendous respect for the guy. Being a Raiders fan, The AFC Championship in my book proved McNair was the single most valuable player to his team, he kept them somewhat in that game when it looked like an all-out blowout at times. Kudos to The Oilers for making a superb draft pick." High praise coming from a diehard Raiders fan. I think you hit the nail on the head with your appraisal of McNair. He is a true leader!!! Something that is not placed in QB percentages or the distance you can throw a ball downfield. I think last season proved to a lot of people that McNair is an MVP caliber player. Not because of his stats but because he gives the Titans a chance to win everytime he is still on the field. Without Steve McNair in the Titans lineup the Titans are not the same team. The Titans will go as far as Steve takes them. Steve deserves much of the credit for the Titans success. Lets not forget the little fact that the Titans have the most wins of any NFL franchise since 99. Bring on the NFL season!!! I can't wait....
McNair was throwing to a qb last year and we were one game away from the Superbowl. The list of qb's who could pull that off are next to none.
He was also 22/36 during the superbowl. That's not exactly missing players right and left. Revisionist history on this board is always interesting to read.
He's a defensive minded coach. Ric from houstonprofootball.com is the only person I have seen otherwise to say differently. The guy miracuosly has a passing game that gets to the AFC championship when his running game doesn't work.
you're still avoiding the question and i never disgareed with the "defensive-minded" evaluation; just the notion that "defensive-minded" is the same thing as "close-minded." bill bellicheck is an offensive-minded coach who won a super bowl riding his... defense. did he try and turn trent dilfer into duante culepepper? of course not -- good coaches, a group that includes fisher, play to their team's strengths. the list of "___-minded" coaches who put their philosophy aside for the better of the team is long and distinguished, like my johnson, and includes quite a few of fisher's mentors. so why is fisher close-minded when the others were/are not? did he not want to win as much as these other coaches? cutting to the chase, if mcnair has the skills to be the next whoever, why did fisher not exploit that talent for 7 years? i mean, the questions continue to pile up and, i'm sorry, "because he's defensive-minded" isn't a suitable, or accurate, answer.
For someone who writes "Bill Bllicheck is an offensive minded coach who won a super bowl riding his defense" to call my answer inacruarate is kind of funny. Yes I know you meant Brian Billick. The analogy doesn't hold water anyway because of exactly what you said, Brian Billick is an offensive minded coach who had to change his philosophy because he didn't have the quarterback. If I argue that Jeff Fisher is a close to vest defensive coach who favors the running game, why would he have to change his game when he has the running back for it? And further more, Fisher has now had to change his philosophy because Eddie George isn't the same back anymore so now he has to throw more. So in essence your analogy says the same thing I have been saying.
blah... all those stick-up-their-ass coaches whose names start with double B run together. because you claim he has a QB who would be among the best, if only he was given the chance. that reasoning implicitly implies that jeff fisher holds philosophy above talent; that he's not concerned with making his team the best that it can be but that it fit his way of doing things, which, if taken to its natural conlcusion, means winning isn't important to him -- being right is, and i don't believe that at all. not at all. there are no other players you can name in which he's stiffled their natural ability and talent. none. in fact, the run-first, defensive-minded coach employs a pass-catching TE who's, at best, an average blocker; again, flying in the face of your contention. he's worked for like-minded defensive coaches, who rode great QBs to success -- why did he not learn from them that you dance with who brought ya? because, simply, it's a faulty premise. mcnair is tapping his maximum talent -- he's an average QB in the traditional sense who can do some extraordinary things outside the parlance of what a QB is expected to do.
Jeff Fisher does not hold philosophy above talent, the guy had arguably a top five running back also. That's the key point you are ignoring in this argument. Its not like he gave up a passing game to defer to Stacey Mack. We are talking about Eddie George, one of the best running backs in the last five years. He chose to go with Eddie, which matches his philosophy, instead of McNair.
ok, this will be it for me, because i keep refuting your same, redudant, flaccid point, over and over and over and over... if mcnair had the talent you claim, the team would maximize it. period. end of discussion. bud adams and floyd reese wouldn't pay the guy millions of dollars every year to only deliver on half of his potential. it simply makes no sense. nor does it make any sense for fisher to turn this into an either/or situation, because it doesn't have to be, another faulty piece of your contention. before getting hurt, the rams had a top 5 QB and a top 5 RB -- did they defer to one over the other? of course not; they created a system that exploited both talents. green bay did the same thing when they landed ahman green; kansas city with green and holmes; hell, even seattle with hasselback and alexander. the list is endless. there's simply no logical reason for fisher and the titans to stiffle mcnair's talents; to make themselves one-dimensional and thus, easier to beat. they're a better team with mcnair and george clicking on all cylinders. to argue otherwise is, quite frankly, asinine. it flies in the face of common sense. it acts on the assumption fisher wants his team to only be this good instead of that good, all because he's defensive-minded and would rather run than pass. i mean, i've listed scores of examples, answered each and every one of your counters (or, rather, counter -- "he's defensive-minded") with definitive evidence to the contrary and have asked you countless times to specifically refute the many claims i've made. and all you've come up with, each and every time, is that he's a defensive-minded coach. sorry -- not good enough. so either find a new angle or have your final say, 'cause i'm out on this. mcnair's a limited QB with average to below average traditional QB skills who is not being misused by fisher, but, rather, is being used perfectly. he would not be a top throwing QB if he was unleashed and there's no evidence, nor any reason, none whatsoever, that fisher has stiffled him or would stiffle him.
He passed for over three thousand yards the last two seasons. His 01 passing rating was 90. The Marshall Faulk comparison doesn't fit because Marshall Faulk isn't a pound it between the tackles runner. A better example were the Cowboys. Troy Aikman's a better passer than McNair, I won't argue that. Troy Aikman's best years as a passer, 3400 yards, 3300, 3100. The three superbowl years he passed for 3100, 3100, and 3400. You don't have to rack up Kurt Warner passing statistics to be a good passer. Yes Steve McNair doesn't rack up those yard totals, but the Rams example is extreme. The Dallas example is more fair. Oh and BTW, McNair has never had a go to guy like Michael Irvin, Torry Holt, or Issac Bruce. His best receiver has been Derrek Mason.
One more note on Jeff Fisher, someone mentioned Chris Chandler throwing down field in this offense before Steve McNair took over. In thirteen games in 95 Chandler threw for 2400 yards, very average. In twelve games in 96 he threw for 2100, very average. Now we know Chandler is a good passer, and he threw for 3100 yards for Atlanta in fourteen games in 98'. I guess he just wasn't that good when he played for the Oilers and Jeff Fisher, because OBIVIOUSLY, Jeff Fisher wouldn't hold anyone back.
wait!! Chandler had a much better team around him with Atlanta...they went to the freaking Super Bowl! the Oilers were no where near Super Bowl performance as a team. just because the receiver didn't make the play down field, doesn't mean the attempt wasn't made.
yeah, in 1993. in the run-n-shoot. by 1995, (his last year), jeffires' prime was a thing of the past. while i admire your attempt to actually interject some form of evidence to support your claim, your statistics, like much of your argument, are shoddy. in '95, chandler did play in 13 games, but he only finished 11 of them. and who knows how often he played hurt, groggy -- based on his history, probably quite a few. in his two incomplete games, he totaled 67 and 111 yards, respectively, throwing fewer than 14 times in each. throw those out and he totaled 2288 yards in 11 full games; an average of 208 a game; which is still average. but look at cris sanders' numbers: 35 catches (second most on the team), 23.5 ypc. that's an unbelievably high number, especially when you consider moss' best year is 19.0 ypc. sanders was not a terrific run after the catch guy, either, so they were going downfield to him a lot. in '96, again, 12 games, yes, but only chandler only finished 10. in those 10, he threw for 1896, again average. but sanders, who led the team with 48 receptions, once again had an impressive 18.4 ypc. so in two years, with chandler at QB, sanders averaged 20.3 ypc. the leaders in that category since chandler's departure (with at least 20 receptions): 16.1, 14.4, 17.1, 16.2, 15.5, 14.5. the team undeniably went downfield more often with chandler at QB. and he didn't have mason or dyson or even thigpen, all of whom would rank as better receivers than sanders.
Better team? His main receivers were terrance Mathis and Tony Martin, not exactly Rod Smith and Ed McCaffery. And to Ric, Chandlers yards per attempt in 95 was 6.91 and 6.56 in 96, so you're Chris Sanders stats are what they are, flukes.
no they're not. first of all, i specifically threw out receivers with fewer than 20 receptions for the express purpose of avoiding "flukes." in '95, sanders was second on the team with 35 receptions; in '96, he led the team with 48. averaging 20+ yards over an 83-catch span is anything but a fluke. second, you're using yards per attempt, not per completion. notice, sanders' numbers don't acount for balls thrown his way that weren't caught, so why should chandler's? chandler averaged 10.9 and 11.4 yards per completion in '95 and '96. why ESPN, et al, use yards per attempt, i don't know, but it's not a relevant stat to this discussion (or for any discussion, really). the team leaders in YPC definitively trend downward, proving that under fisher, the team did indeed go downfield with either more success or more regularity with chandler at QB. the player finishing second to sanders those two years (malcolm floyd, i believe) averaged around 12-13 YPC, which was almost right in line with the leaders under mcnair. since sanders was never more than a mediocre WR at best, with questionable hands, i'm gonna have to assume it's because they took more chances deep. the numbers seem to verify my (admitedly fuzzy) memories of those days.
Ypa is the standard stat, but if you want to break down the stats further here goes, 1995, Chandler, ypc=10.93 in 225 completions, McNair 13.87 in 41 completions. 1996 Chandler, ypc=11.40 in 184 completions, McNair 13.60 in 88 completions and a higher completion percentage. 1997 McNair's first year as a starter ypa=6.4 but ypc=12.33, still better than Chris Sanders best years with the Titans/Oilers. 1998 McNair ypa=6.56, ypc=11.16 1999, probably a down year McNair ypc=6.58 ypc=11.65 2000, probably the Titans best year, had it not been for McNair's pass bouncing off of Eddie's hands, and two DelGreco misses the Titans probably go to the Superbowl, McNair's ypa=7.19 ypc=11.47 So McNair's starter statistics are about the same as Chandler's through 2000, and definitly better the last two years and further more especially in 1996 better in the same year. Almost every statistic you can use except Chandler's 95 QB rating. You're argument falls on Chris Sanders and that isn't good enough.
and... i'm spent. again. but before i go, let me ask you -- why did cris sanders never average 20 yards a catch with mcnair? and don't give me eddie geroge, 'cause george was there in '96, rushing for 1300 yards, when sanders averaged 19 YPC. that out of the way, right off the top -- i never argued chandler was a better QB, which you seem to be implying ("every statistic you can use except Chandler's 95 QB rating.") QB rating has no relevance to our discussion, nor, really, do any other stats. i'm trying to prove ONLY that, under the defensive-minded fisher, the oilers threw the ball downfield with chandler but haven't with mcnair and would like you to tell me why since you seem to think mcnair's randall cunningham redux. as for the gist of your post, i didn't bring yards per completion into the discussion to prove or disprove anything, just to dispel another misnomer on your part -- that sanders' YPC avg was a fluke because it was so much larger than chandler's yards per attempt. so it's actually a worthless stat, too (for these discussions)primarily because it doesn't differentiate between how far the pass actually travels and how many yards the WR picked up after the catch, and therefore, doesn't tell us anything. mcnair could be throwing 3 yard passes that his receivers turn into 10 yard gains. it proves nothing. that's why you look at the individual WR. if a team's top receiver is averaging 20+ yards a catch, the team is throwing the ball downfield. period. there's no other way to spin it. WRs don't average 15-20 yards after the catch. how chandler balanced that out (to average 10-11 YPC) is irrelevant and it certainly doesn't discount the data. the ONLY argument you could make that would support your theory is that mcnair never had a downfield threat. and to some degree, i would probably agree with you. i would even go so far as to concede that one of the (smaller) reasons fisher held mcnair back was precisely because he didn't have a consistent, game-breaking WR. the problem with that, though, is two-fold: 1) dyson and mason were both better receivers than sanders and every bit as fast; 2) sanders played 3 or 4 years with mcnair (and never averaged 20+ yards a catch when he caught 20 or more balls).
