There is absolutely no clear answer on what is “old” for a quarterback because the only thing that has actually been proven in the last ten years of watching players like Tom Brady go until he’s 45 and Drew Brees until he’s 41 and Peyton Manning until he’s 39 and Cam Newton until he was 29…Is that every case is unique.
Matthew Stafford is 36. Is that “old as ass”?
According to Jason Fitz at Yahoo Sports, Matthew Stafford has reached the “old as ass” category and Aaron Donald is “4,000 years old”, which seemed like something he thought was a relevant point until immediately realizing his mistake and trying to pivot to making about retirement and not having Aaron Donald. In fact, this whole rant by Fitz for a segment about the Rams on Yahoo Sports feels like that: A person who thinks he has a great point at the beginning but is speaking so fast that he never stops to consider if what he’s saying is accurate or even understandable.
Like, what does this mean: “Your whole defense is going to have to rework.”
“Jason Fitz: This is simple: Your quarterback is old as ass. And your defensive tackle is 4,000 years old, he retires all of a sudden. Look, at the end of the day, your quarterback is not a spring chicken and I know he had a great year last year, but quarterbacks get hot. You have no Aaron Donald. If I’m being serious, the number one thing here to me is no Aaron Donald just means your whole defense is going to rework. And I know it’s not the Aaron Donald of past, but we have no idea what this defense looks like when they have to make up for that sort of a presence. And one thing I always think about with interior defensive line particularly is what it provides the second level of defense and how it then saves all the way back to the secondary.”
The story of Aaron Donald has never been that he was “old”, and if anything it’s that he retired while he still had a lot of juice left. And is “4,000 years” older than “ass”? It sounds to me like 4,000 years would be older than ass, but Donald seemingly could have suited up and played at a high level for the defense which is also the exact same (and contradictory) point that Fitz was trying to make: “This player is 4,000 years old! But also, this defense needed him so badly.”
Okay, well, Matthew Stafford is “old as ass” but he’s “a problem” for the offense?
“I know that Sean McVay can make chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what, but Stafford is not 28 years old and rising. So is there some sort of a wall he hits at some point? He had been injury prone until last year, is there an injury issue? Like there’s just too many maybes and the 49ers are clearly better.”
See what I mean when an analyst talks so fast trying to make a point that they stop making sense? He’s not even sure if he should fantasize about Stafford getting hurt or Stafford falling off of a cliff midseason due to his age. He just knows that “uh oh, I said Stafford is old as ass, I have to keep going down this line of thought because it’s too late to turn back.” We shouldn’t be mad at Fitz, we should be celebrating him and hoping that everyday we get more people with platforms talking nonsense so that we can never go a single day without entertainment.
Co-host Frank Schwab defended Stafford and the Rams and reminded Fitz that L.A. was close to beating the Lions in the playoffs last year, a team that “everyone has in the top-5”.
“I think you’re underestimating how good Matthew Stafford still is. Yes, he’s not young, but I thought he played his best season last year…You go back and watch how in control he was, he looked healthy, he was running that offense at a very, very high clip. Puka Nacua was great, but a lot of that was Matthew Stafford finding him. Matthew Stafford was out of his mind last year, I thought he was fantastic.”
Frank, I think you lost Jason when you said, “You go back and watch”. I don’t think he watched much Rams football last year. Besides what else do you need to know as an analyst other than a healthy quarterback is 36? That’s apparently old as ass.
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