your analysis.

I think we’re looking at slightly different things and valuing them differently. Which is exactly why educated intelligent people have different opinions.

For me it’s more granular that what the stats show alone and requires watching each play to make determinations of how things are valued. Statistically, completions of a certain distance are equivalent, but the quality of the two passes may not be equivalent at all. You’re absolutely right to take quality of opponent into account, which is sometimes ignored.

My opinion is that looking even more closely at a pass-by-pass basis I see Beck throwing more accurately (not just in the catch radius, but where in it relative to the defender), more timely, and making lesser receivers look better as a result. Some CBers in the past have made fun of the phrase “throw a man open”, but it’s a real thing with a truly great and accurate passer. The timing and precision he had not just with his best players, but with average to below-average FBS receivers made them look great. Even in games where they dropped a lot of balls (rewatch the much-referenced ‘06 Oregon game to see what I mean) he put them in place to succeed again and again by anticipating the window in which they would be open and putting the ball on its way to that narrow space before they looked or had even started to make their break.

I think limitations of time with your receivers have made this less common in CFB overall and we’ve become more dependent on backshoulder throws or near-enough balls that your receiver is good enough to win. And we’ve been blessed lately with receivers who just win matchups with talent. That wasn’t always the case. We’d have a Todd Watkins at times who could take the top off, Austin Collie was an aberration too. In ‘06, Harline was awesome (though probably not significantly better than some other TEs we’ve had recently or now), but otherwise it was really Beck making lunch pail receivers look great with a level of timing an accuracy that we don’t appreciate very well unless we go back and watch grainy footage from the Mountain.

Again, Hall is awesome. The stats support that. I just think Beck got to a level at the end of his career and did things with his arm that comparative stats don’t fully communicate and so most of us don’t recognize (some didn’t appreciate at the time either).

I’m super glad we have Hall. I was the guy who, after attending many practices with both, said that Hall wasn’t just mobile and that his passes and especially his long ball were better than Romney’s and most comparable to Wilson’s.
I’m also glad we still have Beck working with guys like Hall and Wilson. He imparts to them some of what he understood and did, and it continues to raise the game of our QBs.