Warner Will Not Stay As Eli's Backup (CNNSI)

[AvengerRam]

While I don't agree with all your points, that was a very candid assessment. Nicely done.

[Nick]

Mike Martz wanted Bulger as the qb. Period.

...

Martz simply wouldn't have allowed Warner to be his qb.

...which is why Martz named Kurt the undisputed starter after 2002 and prepared for 2003 with Kurt as his guy.

Oh crap, wait... that makes no sense at all. :confused:

I posted an article on this earlier in the year and I think it's valid. I don't have the exact numbers anymore but basically, there were about 13 plays that I counted where Giants receivers either caught a pass and were stopped at the 1 yard line, flat out dropped a td in the end zone or a td was called back due to penalty (the last two examples only added 3 potential td's I think) when Warner was in at qb.

So this happens to only Warner in the NFL? No other QB has had receivers drop passes that should have been touchdowns, get tackled at the goalline, or had a TD called back b/c of a penalty?

Sorry mok, but these sound like pure excuses to me. Just my two cents.

[moklerman]

which is why Martz named Kurt the undisputed starter after 2002 and prepared for 2003 with Kurt as his guy.

...and yanked him after one game, never gave him a chance to compete for his job again and has praised Bulger as an elite qb in the league and the best qb he's ever coached.

Face it Nick, Bulger is Martz's guy and his actions over the last couple of years show me that Warner wasn't going to get a fair shot once Bulger started to emerge.

So this happens to only Warner in the NFL? No other QB has had receivers drop passes that should have been touchdowns, get tackled at the goalline, or had a TD called back b/c of a penalty?

He's not the only qb or player that has something like this happen, and in sports these things usually balance out. A good pass that's tipped and intercepted will usually, at some point, balance out by a bad pass that a receiver makes a good catch on or a defender drops a sure pick. In Warner's case this year it wasn't balancing out. It was a weekly occurance and for that reason I started to take notice. You can dismiss the argument if you like but you obviously haven't watched enough of the Giants games to know what I'm talking about. I can tell you for sure that it rarely happens to Bulger by comparison. Or Green in KC or Plummer in Denver. I haven't watched enough of the other teams to know of many instances of the same type of thing.

I have watched enough football over the years though that week in and week out, the same circumstance happening to the same player is a bit unusual. In my opinion, 13 instances in 9 weeks makes for a huge difference in production. As an extreme example, adding every one of those instances to his stat's would have given him 19 td's and 6 interceptions in about 9 games. Nitpicking every little thing that could have gone Warner's way would be making excuses. I'm just showing that 1 extra yard by his receivers each week would have easily doubled his td total and that his 6 td's on the year is somewhat misleading and not indicitive of how well he performed for a poor offense.

I'm trying to think of how many td's Bulger "just missed" on this year and I'm coming up with about 5 off the top of my head. Now, he throws a lot more passes and played a lot more than Warner so it seems to me that KW's misfortune was a bit excessive.

No, saying Chris Mortenson caused the team to be distracted and ultimately caused the Rams to lose to Arizona because of it, is making excuses.

[Nick]

Face it Nick

No, I don't think I will, because it makes no sense at all. If Bulger was Martz's guy, then Martz would have at least opened up the 2003 camp to a competition between the two. Considering he didn't, it's hard for me to believe that Martz was in Bulger's corner exclusively, especially considering the size of the bonus the Rams gave Warner after 2002.

No, saying Chris Mortenson caused the team to be distracted and ultimately caused the Rams to lose to Arizona because of it, is making excuses.

I certainly won't disagree there, but as I said, I think you're digging for excuses here to try and pump up Kurt's 2004 season. I've no desire to hammer out a page or two of debate about it, but rather, will admit that I have not watched very many Giants games this season, primarily because I was too busy keeping up with the Rams.

[Yodude]

which is why Martz named Kurt the undisputed starter after 2002 and prepared for 2003 with Kurt as his guy

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Pure lip service and nothing more. You don't give your QB one game to work his way back from injury and then expect everyone to believe that he was "your guy" all along. Mokler is right on the money that Bulger was Martz's guy, period. And the evidence that proves this is Martz's almost by-weekly, thinly disguised jabs and stabs aimed at Warner, which I've seen you yourself criticise as unwarranted and unnecessary.

The bonus had nothing to do with who was Martz's guy. The bonus was paid because it had to be....it was way too early for the team to cut Warner at that time. Even Martz isn't fool enough to have cut Warner solely based on the 5 or 6 (can't remember exactly how many) games Bulger had started up to that point.

[Nick]

The bonus had nothing to do with who was Martz's guy. The bonus was paid because it had to be....it was way too early for the team to cut Warner at that time. Even Martz isn't fool enough to have cut Warner solely based on the 5 or 6 (can't remember exactly how many) games Bulger had started up to that point.

It would seem to me that if Bulger was Martz's guy and Warner was only going to get one more game anyways, there was no need to pay Kurt the bonus.

Sorry, it's just not adding up for me.

[theodus69]

think some people could actually see what was going on as opposed to the ones who just wanted Bulger as the QB! :tongue:

[txramsfan]

Do you think maybe the speed of the NFL has finally caught up with Warner? He may have the worst mobility of any QB in the NFL. Just look at his sack total compared to Eli's. Please, don't come back with the sorry O line story either. It's not like the Rams have a stellar line this year.

[Nick]

think some people could actually see what was going on as opposed to the ones who just wanted Bulger as the QB! :tongue:

I think if Martz really had Bulger as his guy, he wouldn't have wasted the 2003 camp by having Warner work almost exclusively with the first team after declaring him the man. If I were a coach and I had a young guy I was trying to push into the starting role, I would have gotten him some work with the first unit. Martz didn't do that, and it's stuff like that that makes me question this whole topic.

[r8rh8rmike]

Do you think maybe the speed of the NFL has finally caught up with Warner? He may have the worst mobility of any QB in the NFL. Just look at his sack total compared to Eli's. Please, don't come back with the sorry O line story either. It's not like the Rams have a stellar line this year.

"Maybe" is the key word I think a lot of us have a problem with because the Rams never gave him a fair shot to prove himself, so there's no way of knowing either way.

It would seem to me that if Bulger was Martz's guy and Warner was only going to get one more game anyways, there was no need to pay Kurt the bonus.

Sorry, it's just not adding up for me.

Your right, this doesn't add up, but on the flip side it seems even stranger to pull Warner after one game despite all the off-season publicly stated support and huge contract. When the change was initially made, it was on the premise that Warner had a concussion and needed to sit out the next game. No mention was ever made of a permanent change or any injury complications. Then, without any qualitative evidence showing the viability of the quarterback the teams future was mortgaged in, he is benched?

This just doesn't add up for me. It seems logical to believe Martz was just waiting for any excuse to pull Warner and insert Bulger.

[Nick]

Your right, this doesn't add up, but on the flip side it seems even stranger to pull Warner after one game despite all the off-season publicly stated support and huge contract. When the change was initially made, it was on the premise that Warner had a concussion and needed to sit out the next game. No mention was ever made of a permanent change or any injury complications. Then, without any qualitative evidence showing the viability of the quarterback the teams future was mortgaged in, he is benched?

I agree that this is concerning and questionable. Personally, I think Martz was worried about what the reaction to pulling Bulger would be, especially after Bulger's success in 2002.

While I think Martz could have inserted Warner back in the starting line-up after the Week Three loss to the Seahawks, he probably felt a revolving door at QB was going to be bad for the team. What happens if he puts Warner in and Kurt continues to struggle? Does he make yet another switch? I think all these questions were weighing on Martz's mind, and perhaps he was just indecisive. Perhaps after Warner's 2002 season, Martz didn't want to gamble with more losing streaks, even though Kurt was far from the only problem on that offense.

Still, I think there's far too little actual logical thought to declare this some sort of agenda by Martz. Too much that doesn't add up. I think Martz was just feeling pressure to get some wins under their belt, and after the New York game, was afraid that Warner just wasn't going to do it. After a 7-9 season where you started something like 0-5, you've got pressure to perform.

[r8rh8rmike]

Still, I think there's far too little actual logical thought to declare this some sort of agenda by Martz. Too much that doesn't add up. I think Martz was just feeling pressure to get some wins under their belt, and after the New York game, was afraid that Warner just wasn't going to do it. After a 7-9 season where you started something like 0-5, you've got pressure to perform.

I might agree with this if the decisions involved here we're based on more than one game. After all the glowing rhetoric backed by a contract that had a huge impact on the teams future, the benching just adds up to some sort of agenda. An agenda that was impulsive and in my opinion, unwise.

While I think Martz could have inserted Warner back in the starting line-up after the Week Three loss to the Seahawks, he probably felt a revolving door at QB was going to be bad for the team.

I'm not sure about this as he had no problems trying to start the revolving door against Chicago.

This entire episode was unfortunate and is made worse by the fact that there will always be questions that remain unanswered and possibilities that never had a chance to be realized.

[moklerman]

Do you think maybe the speed of the NFL has finally caught up with Warner? He may have the worst mobility of any QB in the NFL. Just look at his sack total compared to Eli's. Please, don't come back with the sorry O line story either. It's not like the Rams have a stellar line this year.

If you're going to look, why not look at his completion pct., yards per attempt, interceptions pct. and yards per game compared to Eli's too. Warner chooses not to scramble while waiting for a play to develop. Remember, that thing he was praised for all those years and now it's a liability?

Secondly, and more importantly, the Giants had to dumb down the offense for Eli to even be able to post a qb rating above 0.

What's getting lost here is that I'm just trying to illustrate that Warner's numbers aren't indicitive of how he played. I feel there is a reason they are lower than they should be but am not arguing that they would be up with Peyton Manning's, "if only...".

He was in a new offense, new to the team, with new coaches, coming off a year of not playing, playing with limited talent, an ultra conservative scheme, a #1 overall qb waiting in the wings in the largest, most fickle media/fan base in the world. Add to that the series of bad breaks in terms of td's and I think it's cause to cut him some slack and propose that he actually did pretty well.

primarily because I was too busy keeping up with the Rams.

You may not realize this, but they have a thing called a VCR nowadays. It allows you to "record" a program on your "t.v."(television) while watching an entirely different program. There are also "color" t.v.'s now available. I highly recommend one if you haven't been out of the house in years.

Nice try at a redirect though. You apparently have a lack of knowledge about the rest of the league and try to turn it back on me by implying that I'm less of a Rams fan than you. As far as you "not seeing it" it's pointless to show you since you refuse to acknowledge the myriad examples of Martz's preferrential treatment. You say it doesn't make sense and I agree. It didn't make sense to bench Warner and keep him there. My reasoning is that Martz had a personal agenda.

Is he not human? Is he not emotional and passionate? Has he not held a grudge with players in the past? It's all very plausible that he acted on emotion in regards to Warner and I believe he did. Your whole argument is based on Warner receiving a bonus and being proclaimed the starter in 2003 yet both of those decisions could have come from management. Also, I think Bulger actually got more preseason work than Warner in 2003 so that part of your theory is moot. Warner only threw 25 passes in that preseason, and Bulger, during his time really didn't play very well.

[Nick]

I'm not sure about this as he had no problems trying to start the revolving door against Chicago.

He wouldn't have been naming a new starter against Chicago, but just replacing a guy who wasn't working well. It's one thing to make an in-game adjustment, but another to declare a new starter after a game, IMO.

You may not realize this, but they have a thing called a VCR nowadays. It allows you to "record" a program on your "t.v."(television) while watching an entirely different program. There are also "color" t.v.'s now available. I highly recommend one if you haven't been out of the house in years.

Nice try at a redirect though. You apparently have a lack of knowledge about the rest of the league and try to turn it back on me by implying that I'm less of a Rams fan than you.

Jesus, mok, learn to take a friggin' joke. How many winking smilies do I need to include for you to laugh something off lightheartedly?

I love this though. I "apparently have a lack of knowledge about the rest of the league" because I won't split hairs over Warner's coulda-shoulda-woulda stats or because I don't want to engage in a two page debate about something. It's amazing how far you're willing to look down your nose at me for simply not wanting to debate you about this.

[moklerman]

I love this though. I "apparently have a lack of knowledge about the rest of the league" because I won't split hairs over Warner's coulda-shoulda-woulda stats or because I don't want to engage in a two page debate about something. It's amazing how far you're willing to look down your nose at me for simply not wanting to debate you about this.

No, I look down my nose at you for your tactics. Don't take a shot at me and then say "just kidding". If you want to take a light hearted rib at someone form your words more appropriately. Your smart enough to know how to do that and smart enough to do what you actually did. That's why I don't let you get away these things.

I don't understand your constant claims that you don't want to debate about something but you always chime in with your side of things. When I question your opinion you can't be bothered with explaining yourself. Something there isn't kosher.

Your apparent lack of knowledge is based on your focusing mainly on the Rams. You admit you don't have knowledge about things and then get offended when I put it in a post.

Jesus, mok, learn to take a friggin' joke.

When you actually post something humorous or an actual joke I will be sure to post the appropriate smiley for you.