Rex Grossman endears himself to the media

WSCR 670 The Score is currently commenting on the Jim McMahonesque stunt today that Rex Grossman pulled today: addressing the American media about '...how ignorant some of you guys are' (love to know who was laughing in the background!)

Apparently it's all about selling newspapers. Grossman is all about playing quarterback, so let's see how he shaped up:

Regular Season:
262 for 480 (54%) for 3193 yards, 23 TDs and 20 INTs for a rating of 73.9

Post Season:
32 for 64 (50%) for 426 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INTs for a rating of 75.4

This puts him in the same territory as Alex Smith and Matt Leinart (better ratings) plus Brett Favre and Charlie Frye (worse ratings). It may or may not be significant, but none of those players played for teams with winning records this season.

Here's Jim McMahon's stats for the '85 regular season:

178 for 313 (56.8%) for 2392 yards, 15 TDs and 11 INTs for a rating of 82.6, 10% better than Grossman this season and at the same kind of level as Chad Pennington, Steve McNair and Jake Delhomme in 2006. None of those three had a losing season; the Jets and the Ravens made the playoffs.

Here's a stat for y'all: over the last ten years, the average regular season rating for winning Superbowl QBs has been 91.8. Here are some players from 2006 that scored above that - Drew Brees, Damon Huard, Marc Bulger, Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, Tony Romo, Donovan McNabb...and Peyton Manning.

OK, football is a team game and the result will not hinge on the performance of one player, but all things being equal it's obvious that Manning is a better quarterback than Grossman and I'd even go as far to say that Chicago has got this far despite Rex Grossman rather than because of him.

Another way of looking at both QB productivity is OL strength. I don't have the time or the resources to come up with a Football Outsiders style analysis but I do have a modified version of their OL stats that I use for the analysing OL performance in the EFL.

The Colts gave up the fewest sacks in the entire league during the regular season (15), but have already given up a third of this total in three post season games. Although the Bears have been inferior in this respect, they've actually been more consistent throughout (25 sacks given up in the regular season) and there's nothing much between them on average yards per rushing attempt; one possible reason for the difference between regular and post season sacks is that Indy have a 47/53 run/pass ratio in the post season as opposed to 56/44 ratio in the regular season - basically, Manning has had to pass more, so realistically the amount of sacks should increase.

Madame Zaza wants to interrupt again: if the Colts can get back to a more balanced offensive approach on Sunday, it might be the crucial difference. If Indy can establish the run early then Manning can run the offense that got them to the big show; if 'Bad Rex' turns up and all the Bears can do is run, then it could be a long afternoon for Chicago fans.

All I'm saying is that there is an 'Indianapolis winning a blow out' scenario.