Originally posted by Fanaticofnfl:
I feel this comment on a spiritual level and I'm going to add on to this:
Not only do casual fans like physical, flashy plays, but they also really like close, flashy wins because they're so entertaining. For some reason, playing like garbage for 53 minutes and then pulling out a 24-23 win at the last minute out of your rear is considered a more highlighting, better quality win than blowing a team out 42-19. Real football fans know that the former just means you played meh or poorly for a much larger portion of the game, but casual football fans eat it up as a "sexy" win like candy while falling asleep and forgetting about blowout wins.
To me, that's the REAL reason why people are so skeptical on Purdy yet basically worshipped Wilson when he was a Seahawk. ESPN showed these game-winning drives like they were legendary hall of fame moments while people get bored watching Purdy do his thing from kickoff (or in the case of yesterday, from the start of the second quarter).
It's extremely unfair. A player who plays brilliantly from start to finish should get a LOT more props than a player who plays terribly for 55 minutes. Anyone remember the 2014 NFC Championship? Wilson literally had a 0.0 passer rating for 3 quarters but the entire league worshipped him the next day
Thank you, and yes......there's a weird bias towards winning these grinding dramatic late one drive to go games over being a dominant football player.
Montana had a bunch of those, but that was cemented by having dominant play as well. And of course back then, it was harder to be good on offense, so this was more natural.
Now that offenses are easier to function in, what's the excuse?
And yes, Wilson played horrifically in that game (he never played very well in his post season career except the Panthers game that preceded that), and people just ate it up. People tend to forget that Kaepernick would eventually win in the same manner but by then because the Niners were only a .500 team and not a winning team, people didn't care.
So much bias out there, it's crazy.
But it's good to know we're not alone.