Rams tweets … 3/2 – 3/5

zn wrote:

“Does anybody care what the Rams traded for Matthew Stafford last year? No.”

On my drive home, somebody on the radio was talking about how there is no way that Watson is worth the opening price of 3 first round picks.

And I thought, “The Rams just traded a young, credible starting QB and 2 first round picks for a much older QB, and all the people criticizing the Rams for how they gave up too much are nowhere to be found.”

zn wrote:

Donald is one of the best defensive player I’ve ever seen and I go back to Mean Joe Greene, Alan Page, and Randy White.

One of the best?

With all due respect to Mean Joe Greene, Alan Page, Randy White, et. al… they aren’t in the same class as Aaron Donald.

I watched all those guys too, and none of them were as dominant as AD.  I get the reluctance to proclaim a player ‘the best ever’, and the desire to be respectful of the great ones of the past, but c’mon…

It’s like saying Alaska is one of the biggest states in the US,  cheetahs are one of the fastest cats, Zooey is one of the most annoying posters…

At this point, saying he’s only *one* of the best despite the statistical and videographic evidence to the contrary is actually disrespectful to AD.

But hey, if you want to risk adding another chip to those hyper-muscled shoulders,  so be it.  I’m sure the Rams wouldn’t mind the additional Super Bowl titles.

IMO, the key in comparing players from different eras is to transpose them completely. If you take someone out of the 1960s and play him today, update the whole kit and caboodle.

As in, that player trains 365 days a year now, instead of half of that time, or none of it. He’s now able to exploit new tech, bio-feedback, AI-assistants, video, personal dieticians trained to work with athletes, etc. etc. Whether or not he takes advantage of all of that is a different matter. But it doesn’t make any sense to drop the 6’5″, 275-285 pound Olsen, say, into today’s game, and keep him at that weight, deny him all the tech, weight-training, and AI stuff, etc.

In short, it really only makes sense to compare people from the same era. How dominant were they compared with their peers? Yeah, it can be interesting to theorize about time travel, but you have to assume the player inhabits that new time in all ways, or it’s really not a fair fight.

I echo WV’s take here:

Merlin couldnt pass-rush the way Donald can, but Donald couldnt stuff the run as consistently as Merlin did.

And I still don’t think there’s ever been a more dominant DE than Deacon. It’s not even really close for me.

Plus: I think a lot of Steelers were elevated (rep-wise) because of those Super Bowl wins. Aside from Greene and Lambert, perhaps, I think the rest of their HOF guys are overrated. If the Rams had won a coupla back then, they would have had far more in the Hall, especially on Defense. Not winning basically doomed too many of them to second fiddle status, or obscurity.

wv wrote:

 

======= I dunno. I hate the whole ‘who is the best player’ question. I mean, how in the world do you ‘compare’ Jerry Rice and Merlin Olsen ? Lawrence Taylor and Orlando Pace? Deacon and Lance Allworth? Its hard enough just to compare same-position-players from different eras. Like Merlin vs Aaron Donald. Can Donald do it as long as Merlin did? Merlin couldnt pass-rush the way Donald can, but Donald couldnt stuff the run as consistently as Merlin did. I dunno. If i ‘had’ to play one version of the game, best I could do ….Donald is the best DT of his era. His era being, somewhere around a decade or so. Also, Zooey is the one of the most annoying “California” posters of his era. w v

I was comparing Donald to other DTs only if wasn’t clear in my post.  I agree it’s problematic to compare players from different positions with the goal of determining who is the best.  Is Aaron Donald better than Tom Brady?  Is he better than Jim Brown?   There are comparisons one can make (who had the bigger impact on the game, who was more important to their team’s success, etc) but they wouldn’t fully answer the question “who was the better player?’.  I’m a huge fan of Merlin Olsen, and before the advent of Aaron Donald I considered him to be the best DT to ever play.  I disagree that Donald can’t stop the run as consistently as Merlin could.  Merlin played in an era when stopping the run was a DT’s primary duty, and he did it better than anybody.  Donald plays in an era where a DT’s primary responsibility is to get inside push on the pocket so the QB can’t step up.  I think if Donald was asked to primarily be a run-stuffer, he could do that better than anybody.  It’s just that the nature of the position has changed.  Of course, that’s speculation on my part, but I think it’s true.

zn wrote:

I get what you’re saying. But to me a lot of it is era-dependent. The game changed and DTs in the 60s and 70s were different animals. Merlin Olsen for example fit his era perfectly. I think in the 60s or 70s Donald would have been a linebacker. Though I think one guy who would translate from the past to the present is Alan Page. Which takes nothing away from him, obviously. All the players who know the game and praise Donald say he is a unique blend of quickness and strength. Plus a lot of what he is comes from harnessing his skills and working endlessly on his game. Even the most dedicated players in the 60s and 70s did not work on their games at that level and to that extent. In fact they couldn’t even if they wanted to.

I think trans-generational comparisons can be reasonably made. Donald is considered the best right now mainly because of his play against the pass.  DT’s of the past weren’t measured by their ability to rush the passer as much.  However, picture Aaron Donald playing DT in an era that any incidental grabbing of the defender’s jersey or hooking of an arm by an o-lineman would draw a flag.  Imagine AD playing when the head slap was legal. 😉

Donald is more dominant than any DT ever of any era.  Entire offensive game plans are constructed with Aaron Donald in mind.  What DT ever garnered the attention Donald does?  He routinely has to fight through double and triple teams.  The 60’s and 70’s could probably be considered the golden age of DTs.  Olsen, Joe Greene, Alan Page, Randy White, even Larry Brooks (John Hannah called him the best DT he ever faced) but none of them from an individual standpoint impacted the game like Aaron Donald.  It’s hard to even know which one of that group was the best, whereas Donald is head and shoulders above his contemporaries.  Sapp and Suh at their best aren’t in the same class.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by nittany ram.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Plus: I think a lot of Steelers were elevated (rep-wise) because of those Super Bowl wins. Aside from Greene and Lambert, perhaps, I think the rest of their HOF guys are overrated.

Have to disagree! Ham and Blount were genuinely great players, up there with Greene and Lambert. Blount even survived the transition from the pre-rules changes secondary play that made them mostly assassins, to the new-rules secondary that transformed them into coverage backs. He thrived in the later world just as much as he did in the previous world.

Okay. I’ll givya Blount and Ham. Webster too. On the fence about Franco Harris. But after that? No way on Swann’s (way), or Stallworth, for instance. Shell was good, but I don’t think he was HOF. Bradshaw was gutsy, and had his moments, but I think he’s in there because of the Super Bowls. To me, he was never head and shoulders above his peers at QB.

It’s obvious they had a lot of talent. But, again, I think if you switch, say, two of those Super Bowls to the Rams, the membership of the Hall looks quite different today, with several more guys in horns.

Zooey wrote:

I like how Colin thinks.

if i was stafford and donald, i’d be willing to take a discount to give the rams some flexibility.  cuz if this team can get one or two more championships, they could easily get that money back in endorsements.

a dynasty would sell.  la would eat that up in a second.

zn wrote:

For some reason, for a long time, I was dismissive of him. I don’t know why. But he grew on me. Not just because he started loving the Rams. I would listen to his reasoning and he was always adding something to discussions.

if rodgers goes to an afc team, the nfc would be there for the taking.  it’d be a weak conference.  brady and the patriots benefited from that for a decade.