Mecum Monday Musings

First, a couple of other items…it certainly has been a very active off-season in the NFL. Given the Aaron Rodgers “saga” and the trades of Russell Wilson and DeShaun Watson, in terms of news and activity regarding high-level quarterbacks the past few weeks may be unprecedented. Oh, the retirement and un-retirement of Tom Brady fits in there, also.

The fact that the Browns traded for Watson, giving up a huge bundle of high draft picks AND fully guaranteeing over $200 million in compensation, the latter is unparalleled in NFL history, shows that teams will ignore almost anything to acquire a player they deem to be outstanding and one who can push them towards a championship. Talent wins out.

When I worked in baseball we often spoke of the PQ to AQ ratio. PQ meant Playing Quotient while AQ meant *ssh*le Quotient. The higher the PQ the higher the AQ teams would tolerate. What Watson is alleged to have done is beyond being an *ssh*le, but the concept is the same. This chart showing my ranking of NFL quarterbacks passing performance for 2020, the last season Watson played, is an illustration of why the Browns were willing to do what they did.

 

		RANK	TOTSC
Deshaun Watson HOU		1	3.28
Aaron Rodgers GB		2	2.82
Patrick Mahomes KC		3	2.57
Ryan Tannehill TEN		4	1.78
Derek Carr LV		5	1.36
Josh Allen BUF		6	1.36
Drew Brees NO		7	1.12
Matthew Stafford DET		8	0.87
Kirk Cousins MIN		9	0.68
Baker Mayfield CLE		10	0.68
Philip Rivers IND		11	0.60
Tom Brady TB		12	0.57
Justin Herbert LAC		13	0.57
Matt Ryan ATL		14	0.50
Joe Burrow CIN		15	0.34
Gardner Minshew JAX		16	0.27
Teddy Bridgewater CAR		17	0.17
Russell Wilson SEA		18	-0.02
Kyler Murray ARI		19	-0.35
Lamar Jackson BAL		20	-0.40
Jared Goff LAR		21	-0.58
Ryan Fitzpatrick MIA		22	-0.60
Ben Roethlisberger PIT		23	-0.78
Tua Tagavailoa MIA		24	-0.90
Can Newton NE		25	-1.02
Daniel Jones NYG		26	-1.21
Mitchell Trubisky CHI		27	-1.40
Andy Dalton DAL		28	-1.53
Nick Mullens SF		29	-2.07
Nick Foles CHI		30	-2.55
Drew Lock DEN		31	-2.80
Alex Smith WSH		32	-2.96
Dwayne Haskins WSH		33	-2.99
Sam Darnold NYJ		34	-3.03
Carson Wentz PHI		35	-3.72

 

TOTSC is a metric that combines how far above the league average a quarterback is in terms of the two individual stats that matter most: yards per pass attempt and interceptions. The league dispersion, or distribution, of those variables is also part of the analysis. Yes, the talent and coaching surrounding a quarterback are factors in his statistical performance. A side note: the fact that Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow were above league average as rookies–and Burrow for a team with a 4-11-1 record–presaged their breakout performances in 2021.

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Second…do any of you subscribe to Hulu or Hulu + Live TV? We have been using the latter the entire time we have lived in Arizona, but in the last week the platform has really begun to act up. It has reached a point where most of the time the TV has to be unplugged for 15-20 seconds before Hulu will load correctly. Calls to Hulu “customer service” have proven to be useless.

Television is not an important part of my life, but when I want to sit down to clear my head and watch TV for 30-60 minutes I don’t want to have to experience such complications. By the way, Amazon Prime Video works without a glitch, but doesn’t have much programming that I want to watch.

I don’t really want to switch to the streaming TV service provided by the Evil Empire, AKA Guck Foogle, and many of the other services have very limited channel selections. We also don’t want to sign up for multiple streaming services. Does anyone have any suggestions? We have heard/read that Hulu and Samsung TVs, the brand we have, can have issues.

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Not surprisingly, I took dozens if not hundreds of pictures during the four days of the recently concluded Mecum auction. I could easily show 25-30 photos per post for the next few posts, but don’t want to overwhelm my readers.

Another tangent…Dana Mecum was in the house although not for the entire four days. For many months he had been absent from the auctions that he started. One morning before the auction began my wonderful wife wanted a picture with him. We walked up to him and he graciously consented to the photo. When I said it was good to see him he replied, “It’s better to be seen than viewed.”

The car shown below hammered at $2.75 million ($3.025 million all in), which I think was the highest price recorded at the auction. I give you a 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4:

 

 

Yes, as is our custom we sat in the front row. Buying a Gold badge to a Mecum auction has its perks.

Once again, I was smitten with a 1930s Oldsmobile Business Coupe, in this case an L38 model.

 

 

This car was bid to $50,000, but did not sell. Just one more photo for today:

 

 

Despite the clunky continental kit at the rear–I think that these look bad 90% of the time–I really liked the looks of this 1955 Mercury Monterey. It hammered sold at $19,500 or $21,450 all in. The continental kit can always be removed.

 

I hope to show the “V Car” for the Cars A To Z series tomorrow.

 

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