If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

[im4bflo]

... would he be in the HOF today???
Look at his start of his career! What if they yanked him, everytime he didn't perform a miracle, and win the game, and stuck in the 2nd stringer, just because he had more experience, but not a QB of your future?
You've got to let them sink, to learn how to swim.
This has been the start of many QB's who now are great.
Why can't we take a year, and be SURE if he's the man or not?
All this crap is just dragging our problem on and on...
Holcomb might win a couple more games NOW, but that's not the goal, the goal is nothing less than a SUPERBOWL CHAMPIONSHIP (it should be!)
And we may be sitting on another Aikman (or not), but we'll never know, playing games with Holcomb.
As far as I'm concerned, if a decision is made, for any other reason, than to Win a SB, it was a bad decision.

[Tatonka]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

yeah.. this has been stated over and over.. almost no qbs in the history of the game looked good in their first full year.. we have yet to see jp in his first full year.. and in a half year, he got 8tds and 8 ints.. i still cant see how that was as awful as some make it out to be.

[RockStar36]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Big Ben is about the only exception to the rule that I can think of. Just about every other young QB struggles in the first few games.

I tried to use that logic last year, but it just didn't work. I was told that Holcomb gave us a shot at the playoffs even though any normal intelligent Bills fan would have known that the Bills, as a team, didn't have a shot in hell at the playoffs. Those games that Holcomb started were wasted.

We could be going into this season knowing what to expect from QB after going through a year of development. Instead, we have another year of not knowing what to expect because games were wasted last year w/ Kelly Van Holcomb.

Ridiculous.

[Historian]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

1-15 Van Holcomb fans. That was Troy's Cowboy 1989 record.

1-15

[Night Train]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Big Ben is about the only exception to the rule that I can think of.

Marino. He came out smoking against the Bills in 1983.

Ben R. didn't do anything near what Marino did, other than to not make the killer mistake that cost his team the win. I still don't consider him an elite NFL QB at all. Look at his SB game performance....Terrible.

[Historian]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Kelly was an immediate starter too, even though it was for the Gamblers.

I even remember fans calling for Elway's head in 1983.

[YardRat]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Using Aikman or Peyton Manning as historical references to the situation with JP and Buffalo is an unsound argument. Neither Dallas or Indy were coming off of 9-7 seasons, just missing the play-offs.

[The_Philster]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Using Aikman or Peyton Manning as historical references to the situation with JP and Buffalo is an unsound argument. Neither Dallas or Indy were coming off of 9-7 seasons, just missing the play-offs.

it's not like JP had an identical team to work with. For one thing, the defense was far worse.
And as far as Big Ben, his team may have had a good season his rookie year...but he wasn't asked to do much for the most part. The team was stocked pretty well around him. I've seen some seem to think that since Big Ben's Steelers did well his rookie year, that's the standard that 1st year QBs should be measured by. That shows a serious lack of understanding of the game of football..no QB does it on his own and JP had far less help than Big Ben did

[jmb1099]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Using Aikman or Peyton Manning as historical references to the situation with JP and Buffalo is an unsound argument. Neither Dallas or Indy were coming off of 9-7 seasons, just missing the play-offs.

But...our 9-7 record contained a string of wins against teams that were less than spectacular. We couldn't even turn the corner against Pitsburghs third string so it may have looked like we were playoff bound (I was one that really wanted that to be the case) hindsight and history prove otherwise. The first year starter argument stands, there are a few exceptions to the rule, but they are not the rule.

[ICE74129]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Using Aikman or Peyton Manning as historical references to the situation with JP and Buffalo is an unsound argument. Neither Dallas or Indy were coming off of 9-7 seasons, just missing the play-offs.

Rat, you know better so don't go there. It was a joke of a schedule playing the worst teams in the NFL. It wasn't a 9-7 team and 05 showed it.

[ICE74129]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

it's not like JP had an identical team to work with. For one thing, the defense was far worse.
And as far as Big Ben, his team may have had a good season his rookie year...but he wasn't asked to do much for the most part. The team was stocked pretty well around him. I've seen some seem to think that since Big Ben's Steelers did well his rookie year, that's the standard that 1st year QBs should be measured by. That shows a serious lack of understanding of the game of football..no QB does it on his own and JP had far less help than Big Ben did

Exactly. Apples and oranges. Those that point to Ben are JP haters period or as you say, show a serious lack of understanding of the game of football.

Put Ben on last years Bills, fans would be calling for his head. JP on the steelers in 04/05 and I don't know if they win a superbowl, but he would be considered the next phenom QB. No QB in NFL history got drafted into a better situation than Big Ben

[bills suk]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

It's hard for a team to just sit back and lose games. And really, I know you guys aren't comparing JP to Troy. JP might be good and he may not be getting a fair shot at playing, but to compare him to Troy is a little crazy. QB's like Troy or even Jim Kelly come around once in a blue moon. If he was that great the coaching staff would have seen that in practice buy now and he would be starting every game regaurdless of the outcome.

[The_Philster]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

It's hard for a team to just sit back and lose games. And really, I know you guys aren't comparing JP to Troy. JP might be good and he may not be getting a fair shot at playing, but to compare him to Troy is a little crazy. QB's like Troy or even Jim Kelly come around once in a blue moon. If he was that great the coaching staff would have seen that in practice buy now and he would be starting every game regaurdless of the outcome.

For one...Mularkey just wasn't that bright last years pulling the QB switches...although he may have seen how great JP might eventually be...which would explain why he was named the starter last offseason.
For another thing, JP might very well have shown the current coaches that he could be great as well and the QB competition may be more for the benefit of those who think it was unfair to just hand the kid the job than anything else...he may already have the starting job all but locked...we've no way of really knowing that

[bills suk]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

For one...Mularkey just wasn't that bright last years pulling the QB switches...although he may have seen how great JP might eventually be...which would explain why he was named the starter last offseason.
For another thing, JP might very well have shown the current coaches that he could be great as well and the QB competition may be more for the benefit of those who think it was unfair to just hand the kid the job than anything else...he may already have the starting job all but locked...we've no way of really knowing that

We will know in about a week who has it. A lot of coaches these days seem to be pulling the QB switch. Miami tried doing it as well. It just doesn't pan out right when you don't give a QB his time to get in a groove.

[Stewie]

Re: If Troy Aikman (HOF)!!! got treated like JP...

Big Ben is about the only exception to the rule that I can think of. Just about every other young QB struggles in the first few games.

Big Ben's numbers weren't that great. He had a piddling quarterback rating in his first 10 games. He played on the best overall team, which helped, and he limited his mistakes.

I can almost guarantee that no one has run as much as pittsburgh since roethlisberger's rookie year.