Is all attention "good attention"?
Geno Smith a top-10 QB? That's the least of PFN's worries: Seaside Joe 1580
I try not to spend much time thinking about quarterback rankings or “power rankings”, and I especially detest this concept of calling a website or writer’s rankings or opinion as “clickbait” because that word gets used far too often and it is rarely used correctly. These days—which more accurately is probably “most days for way too long, dating back years at this point”—clickbait is the word people use when they just hate someone’s opinion. That’s not clickbait.
However—and it takes A LOT for me to accuse a website of being controversial for the point of attention—ProFootballNetwork went over the line with the “QB Power Rankings” that they posted on Thursday. My only question is…Was it worth it? When over 90% of the attention is negative, does it still fall under the category of “all attention is good attention”?
At least there’s good news for Geno Smith: He’s top-10 and that’s the least of anyone’s concern.
I usually feel like I know where to begin, but I’m at a bit of a loss here, so I’ll just start at the bottom.
It’s understandable if a website wants to make the job slightly easier by defaulting the rookies to last place. It makes sense to see Baker Mayfield in the final spot for veterans. But did PFN go too far by putting off/injured/suspended seasons for Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford, and Deshaun Watson as the next-to-last?
The rookies go 30-31-32 because we don’t know anything about them yet, but what do we know about Desmond Ridder or Jordan Love? Yet somehow those two are less controversial than having Jimmy Garoppolo at 15 and Jacoby Brissett (for all we know, a backup to Sam Howell) at 20.
As for the Seahawks quarterback, I have said since this time last year that he could be a top-20 quarterback right away, if only because there are always a dozen starters on the hot seat. I never get into arguments over "Well, you have this guy one spot ahead of this guy!” (many in the comments on Twitter are simply mad that Justin Herbert is fourth and Jalen Hurts is fifth) because it’s a meaningless difference, so Geno ahead of Aaron Rodgers—it doesn’t really matter. Conversely, Tua Tagovailoa ahead of Geno—it doesn’t really matter.
But then for the most part, I see the names behind Geno Smith and I can see the argument for Seattle’s quarterback, most of them are either average or only possess upside. Yet somehow then I get down to the bottom of the list with Watson, Stafford, and Wilson, and it hits me that this order is just super damn crazy. Wi
Geno will be ranked ahead of his predecessor on all QB rankings going into the season, but 10 vs. 28 is a wider gap that anyone would reasonably expect. Just as a general football fan who likes a good comeback story, I’ll be interested to see if Wilson returns to form this season; I think you either like him and want him to do well, or you dislike him…but in that case you should also want him to do well. “Villains” are always more interesting when they are more dangerous.
You don’t keep watching The Dark Knight because you think the Joker is a joke.
We’ll see if tweets and lists like this pay off for PFN—home of Tony Pauline and his rumors of the Seahawks trading up for quarterbacks in the draft— like they have in the past for PFF. Is all attention considered “good attention”? I’m sharing the tweet with you for this edition of Seaside Joe, but is it the type of share that a website actually wants?
Let me know your thoughts in the Seaside Joe comments.
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Nothing you ever write, Ken, could be called "clickbait" because there is no incentive to post other than to have people read interesting content. There are no ads. No eyeballs are counted. The same is not true of virtually any other source of information--when a low-information hot take is posted it deserves the clickbait label.
That said, that PFF article if written a year ago would have had the positions for RW3 and Geno reversed. Rank-ordering any group of 32 will exaggerate the differences between 1 and 32 (or between 20 and 28) when there are more likely to be performance tiers as you have discussed previously.
But if I were betting (which I am not) I would say that even with an improved season from Russ, Geno's final stats for 2023 (barring injury for either player) will be superior in completion %, yards, and TDs. Geno just has more weapons and a more complete roster than is the case in Denver.
The fact that they tweet this out with the question "which top-10 quarterback surprised you and who should be much higher," literally inviting readers to criticize them, is all the evidenced you need to know they didn't take this seriously. You don't even have to look at the ranking to know that it was created with the expressed intent to cause a negative reaction from readers.