A Tip of the Helmet to...

Bulldog's Twin said:

Philip Rivers has been a top NFL quarterback. He may not be a Hall of Famer like Rodgers or Brady, but he is in that next tier of passers that you can DEFINITELY win with if you surround him with good talent.

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Agreed. Real good. But not HOF. Very capable of winning a Super with the right coach/team.

He showed the year that Brady missed the entire season that he could coach a team to an 11-5 record with a low round draft choice in Matt Cassel, who never took a snap as a starter at USC!

If that doesn't convince you, nothing objective will.

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Oh, I'm convinced.

I'm convinced that the team around Cassel knew their hero would return the following year. Less hard to rally the troops and circle the wagons when everyone's telling them they're sunk.
And, bottom line, they didn't win the Super Bowl. It's not that I don't think Belicheat is a decent coach. It's just that he stumbled upon a quarterback that had the drive to be great, and intangibles that no one in the league saw, including the Patriots. He then was able to exponentially accelerate the learning curve, and gain the complete trust of the entire team, by the massive cheating that took place in filming the oppositions practices, signals, etc..., to build the team, and win Super Bowls. Playing in a division that didn't provide much consistent competition didn't hurt things either.

During the 1980's and 1990's, in talking with friends and family that were Giants, Bears and Cowboys fans, I always made the point, which I truly believe, that Joe Gibbs would have won 5 Super Bowls if he had a HOF-caliber quarterback.

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Exactly. That's why it burns my ass that they all fawn over the cheater.

Hell, if Gibbs 2.0 would have had a second tier guy like Phillip Rivers he'd have won the Super Bowl his second year. And maybe more.