The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I have been saying for years that GM's should pay more attention to the Internal Fortitude of players. On 1 end you have guys like Albert Hanynesworth and on the other end, guys like Zach Thomas. This is the reason I don't want Coples.

Thought I would share.   


http://www.phinatics.com/blog/?p=788#more-788

I agree to a certain degree.  There is a need to avoid the very "toxic" type of players, but you can't discard the thought of drafting certain players because of a single incident.  Just as you can't draft players because they are nice guys.

This is a metric based 100% on hindsight, and is therefore useless as a method of evaluating future players.

Please consider what the "IF rating" for the following players should have been on draft day:

- Peyton Manning
- Ken Dorsey
- David Carr
- Alex Smith
- Michael Vick
- Vince Young
- Cam Newton

I have to admit I don't spend much time evaluating guys coming out of college. It is time consuming and unless I am getting paid for it, wasteful. Of you list, the only guys I know enough to comment on is Newton and Manning. They both have it.

I could be wrong and knowing if a guy has the IF or not is difficult. However, I think a good GM could tell if he sat and talked to him. JMO 

Peyton Manning most definitely did not have IF on draft day.  From the article:

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines fortitude as: Strength of mind that enables a person to encounter danger or bear pain or adversity with courage. Internal is defined as situated near or inside the body or relating to or belonging to or existing within the mind. Put together and applied to athletics, Internal Fortitude becomes a  measurement of the heart and conviction of the minds competitiveness and will.

The Peyton Manning that came out of college was a silver-spoon choker who lost literally every year to Florida.  Immediately after losing Peyton Manning, Tennessee won the national championship.

Not to mention a toxic/trouble maker who sexually assaulted another student while he was in college. 

There is no silver bullet in the answer of who to draft, who not to draft. 

So....the 2 NCAA records Manning holds for lowest career INT% and single season INT%, and the 30+ SEC records he holds count for nothing? 262 yards and 2 TD's in the first half against Florida is meaningless because the Tennessee defense gave up 41 second half points of that game are also meaningless? Senior year first-team All-American, the Maxwell Award winner, the Davey O'Brien Award winner, the Johnny Unitas Award winner all because he had a silver spoon, but had nothing to do with his actual ability? Really? How on earth did he NOT have the IF factor with what he did in college? He didn't play defense, so I'm not following how you can hold the Florida games against him. It's not a "choke" by the QB when the defense gives up an average over 43 ppg. Even if you completely ignore all the
"stats" like the author of the blog suggests, Manning finished his degree in 3 years. He gets no credit for internal fortitude for that? -EK

Um, Peyton Manning does not hold either of those NCAA records.  For a season, the immortal Matt Blundin had 0 INTs in 349 attempts in 1991, and the legendary Kellen Moore had a 0.7 INT% in 2009.  As for career, "Big Game" Billy Volek holds the record, with a 1.28 career INT% from 1997-1999.

You may notice that none of these QBs amounted to a damn thing in the NFL.  That's because holding NCAA records is meaningless when it comes to evaluating an NFL career.  I mean, just take a look at list of all-time NCAA records. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_football_records)  Even at the FBS (Div-IA) level, with a tiny handful of exceptions, it reads like a who's who of NFL never-weres.

Doesn't "overcoming adversity" usually have something to do with winning?  It would be one thing if you could play the "he was the only weapon on a bad team" card like you can with his brother, but the year AFTER Peyton left, Tennessee won the national championship!  With Tee Martin!

When you throw 4 INTs in a game you lose 35-29 (http://cfreference.net/cfr/schedule.s?id=60036), that loss is not on the defense.  Sorry.

So then, I guess Alex Smith rates highly on this scale, too?

Dead on Spider. What a QB does in college means nothing as to what he will do on the NFL level. Joe Montana was a 3rd round pick, nuff said!  McNabb played in a FREEZE OPTION in college. And outdated offense from a dated era. He only went to play in 1 super bowl and played in 4 NFC Championship games. Pretty successful NFL career. You have guys like Big Ben and Pennington who went to MAC schools where the competition was sub-par (at least back then it was now its improved some) and they did fine in the NFL. Flacco went to Delaware and he has been a success in the NFL.  Tony Romo went to Eastern Illinois, he is a quality (not superstar) NFL QB. Then you got a guy like Alex Smith who played in a god awful Mountain West Conference and ran the Spread-Offense, he isn't great but he went #1 overall running an offense that isn't anything like any NFL offense and is decent enough.

Being an NFL QB is about height, arm-strength, brains, and can you make the necessary throws outside the numbers. Because in college a lot of these QB's are getting poor coaching or surrounded by sub-par talent who hold them back. Or they play for a college coach who will try and save his job by any means necessary and if that means running the ball 40 times a game so be it. His job isn't to showcase his star QB. That's how guys like Flacco go in round 1. Doesn't matter what they did  in college, their stats in college, where they played or who they played against. Its about the "skill-set" they have!

Sorry- I should have worded that differently. When he left school he held both of those records. They have obviously since been broken. While you were piling on Manning, nice way to dodge the point of him finishing his degree in three years. How does that not give him internal fortitude? How many elite athletes NEVER finish a degree, never mind doing in at that pace? -EK

I'm pretty sure that a record that was set in 1991 was not held by Manning "when he left school." 

How did I dodge the point?  I mentioned Alex Smith, who graduated in two years (with a 3.74 GPA)... and was a bust.

Ryan Fitzpatrick graduated from Harvard (while winning the 2004 Ivy League MVP in the process, mind you).  Where should that academic achievement have put him on the draft board?  Because he ended up going in the 7th round.

In what world is Alex Smith a bust? Having a different OC every year of your career, and then taking your team to a 13-3 record and the NFC title game speaks volumes about his IF and his ability to deal with adverse situations. Give me Smith over anyone under center in Miami for the past decade. I'd say the same for Fitzpatrick. If this thread is really about drafting based on IF, and not about stats, which is what I'm getting from your argument, maybe you should spell out a little more clearly what you would define as IF, because we seem to have a disconnect on that point. -EK

And now we have arrived at the logical conclusion of your position.

If your system tells you that Alex Smith is a good choice for the #1 overall pick, your system is fundamentally broken and worthless.

You are the master of putting words in people's mouth, I'll give you that. Please show me where I said he was worthy of the #1 pick overall. I said he wasn't a bust. Those two things aren't the samething; IMO they're not even in the same ballpark. I have no idea where I would have placed him in that draft, because I honestly haven't thought about it much. No player that has a revolving door of OC's and still leads his team within one dropped pass of the Superbowl can be labeled a "bust." Don't change my words or argument to fit your agenda. Stick with what I actually said. Jay Fiedler, who for his career had 69 TD's vs. 66 INT's and a career QB rating of 77 is CLEARLY better? 68 TD's 58 INT's and a career rating of 76.4 for Smith. That's supposed to convince me Fiedler's "clearly" better? You can do better than that, Spider.

Edit- nice way to edit out the Fiedler rference in your post after I put up their numbers.  ::)  -EK

The man has made the playoffs once in 7 years.  He has never sniffed a Pro Bowl.  Even when you include his "breakout" Brad Johnson-esque 2011, his career passer rating is 76.4.  2011 only upgraded him from "one of the biggest busts of all time" to "a serviceable caretaker or backup if you have nothing better".

You talk about "one pass from the Super Bowl," but Smith's career playoff record is 1-1 (both at home).  And if getting to the conference championship game is a notable accomplishment, Alex Smith needs to make way for one Mark Sanchez.

So should speed of graduation be a factor, or not?  Peyton graduated a year early.  Smith graduated 2 years early.  Since you're saying that you don't believe Smith was worthy of the #1 pick, does that mean Peyton was also not worthy?  I await your explanation on how speed of graduation should be factored in to draft decisions.

P.S. Ryan Fitzpatrick graduated from Harvard.  Should his IF have been higher?

I'm not saying speed of graduation should be held highly, lowly, or not at all. I think the idea of disregarding athleticism and numbers in favor of "IF" is dumb to begin with. My point was that if you are going to hang your hat on such a notion, fullfilling your degree requirements ahead of time seems like the kind of thing that would be taken into account. No comment on the Feidler flub? Classy. -EK

I originally mentioned Fiedler two posts prior ("Jay Fiedler was clearly a better QB than Alex Smith, and I don't see how that's even arguable"), but since you had replied, I was going to move everything I added to the next post.  Then I decided that Fiedler wasn't really relevant and would just sidetrack the discussion.  But fine, you want to talk about Fiedler vs. Smith?

Fiedler is 37-23 as a starter.  Smith is 32-34.
No team in the AFC East finished with a better record than the Dolphins for the first three years Fiedler was a starter.  For Alex Smith, the opposite was true for 6 out of 7 years.
Even with the inevitable end-of-career decline, Fiedler's career passer rating (77.1) is still better than that of Smith's (76.4).
Smith has 4 more career turnovers (99) than Fiedler (95)... and Smith isn't done playing yet.  Oh, and Smith has 8 less TDs right now, 80 to 72.

But hey, you want to argue that a #1 overall pick had good "IF" because his career path might be arguably better than an undrafted journeyman?  Go right ahead.  The fact that you are mounting a defense for #1 overall pick Alex Smith against Jay freaking Fiedler PROVES that Smith was a bust.

And THOSE are the overwhelming numbers that are supposed to convince me Fiedler was "clearly" better? That's weak. No one on this planet is going to look at their body of work and say, "Oh yeah, Fiedler is head's and shoulders better than Smith. That's obviosu."  I've already stated that "IF" is a dumb way to draft. I have no idea what you're even arguing. You just keep plugging along trying to prove you're right, but that's not going to happen because you're arguing something that I'm not. Do you not get that? -EK

Wait... so you're arguing in favor of something you don't even believe in?

1) I say that on draft day, Peyton Manning did not have IF.
2) You cited Peyton's speed of graduation (along with some records he doesn't actually hold) as proof of his IF.
3) I point out that Alex Smith graduated even faster, and he's clearly a bust.
4) You say that "'IF' is a dumb way to draft"...?

Why the hell did you even reply to my statement about Peyton Manning in the first place, if even you don't believe "intestinal fortitude" is a factor?  Are you literally arguing just to argue?

No. But I think you might be. Your intitial statement about Manning was, "The Peyton Manning that came out of college was a silver-spoon choker who lost literally every year to Florida." That sounded like, and came across as- whether you intended it to or not- drafting Manning was dumb because he not only had everything handed to him in college and still lost to a rival three times, but also lacked the "IF" that this thread was about. Perhaps that wasn't your intent, but it reads pretty much like, "Drafting Peyton was stupid." I pointed out Peyton's academic success to indicate that, even if you thought he lacked the ability to win the big game, and even if he was "a silver-spooned choker," and you wouldn't draft him because of that (although I have no idea why you'd pass on Manning for ANY reason) he still had some form of IF as far as I interpret it. I didn't bring Alex Smith up at all- you did, but my response is, no, he's not a bust, and no, he's not clearly inferior to Fiedler. And FWIW, the records I mentioned he DID hold when he graduated. They've been since broken, which I already agreed with and said I should have been more clear. -EK

So even though we both agree that "IF" is a silly and useless characteristic to base a draft decision on, you will be damned if you're going to let me say that Peyton Manning doesn't have it.  Got it.

It's not my fault if you assumed that I was evaluating anything other than Peyton Manning's IF.  Read the thread before posting.

I agree. Alex Smith is a BUST for a #1 overall pick or a first round pick really. There is no way to spin that. For a #1 overall pick he is a total BUST! He has one good year (in which he throws less than 450 pass attempts) and now all of a sudden is a good or great QB, no way! Dude is a marginal NFL starting QB. He is on Ryan Fitzpatrick level.