Tom Brady, Cam Newton, and other QBs have had stunning seasons so far. Will it last?
Reuters, AP Images
Every week, our panel of sports fans discusses a topic of the moment. For today's conversation, Emma Carmichael (writer, Deadspin), Jake Simpson, (writer, The Atlantic), Patrick Hruby (writer, ESPN and The Atlantic), and Hampton Stevens (writer, ESPN and The Atlantic) talk about this football season's stunning offensive accomplishments.
Hey guys,
You may have heard by now that it is The Year Of The Quarterback (TYOTQ). The Worldwide Leader has branded it so, and they even came up with a friendly abbreviation (YQB) and self-produced statistic (the Total QB Rating, or QBR). The QBR will help us track the YQB, you see.
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I'm not yet convinced that the QBR will revolutionize the way we quantify football skills, but I will say that the first two weeks of the young season have been almost endlessly entertaining because of superb quarterback performances. In Week One, we saw two passing records broken : Cam Newton threw for 422 yards in his first pro game, the best debut for a rookie QB in NFL history, and then Tom Brady became the first QB to throw for more than 500 yards in a season opener. Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Matthew Stafford have all had pretty stellar debuts, as well. (There's also, though, the traumatic prospect of a season without Michael Vick and Peyton Manning--but I'll stick to the optimistic stuff for now.)