My Reality Check Rant.......(long)

I hope you did. Btw great post.

How can you say a receiver who drops more touchdowns (7) than he catches (6) is elite?

He is not in the same class as guys like Larry Fitzgerald and Andre Johnson

YOur take on Daniel Thomas is spot on. I keep hearing how it was only his rookie year and he needs time to grow, which I would be fine with at any other position on the field. The top RB’s around tend to be strong out of the gate. Becasue the position is so largely based on physical attributes and instincts, which don’t generally improve after a few years in the NFL. I didnt see enough out of him to tell me that he was worth the draft position. ANd the injuries are very concerning.
Nothing to add about Moore, you nailed it.
My problem with your take on Philbin is that I think you are undervaluing the role of the HC. Yes, all coaches say the same thing when they are first hired, but you cant just summaril dismiss his offensive success in Green Bay. ANd to say our personell will ony get us to 8-8, regardless of the coach completely dismisses teams like San Fransisco, who went to a conference championship game with a new coach, and generally the same personnel as the years prior when they were a lower tier team. ANd just because Cam Cameron went from OC to HC and was a disappointment doesnt mean Philbin will be as well. So with your logic we should never hire OC’s, like Cameron, college coaches, like Sabin, ex-head coaches, like Jinny Johnson, or defensive coordinators, like Dave Wannstedt, becasue they all came here and failed. SO where should we hire a coach from?
And actually, it’s not that we disagree on Marshall, I just think you think a bit more of him than I do. I just can’t put him in the same class as the truly elite receivers in the league. Although I think it would be ridiculous to trade him, especially if they plan on putting a better class of QB on the field with him this coming year…

LOL!

(and rec’d)

Glad you are back.

The years of blind optimism have long since evaporated for me. I’m happy with the coaching change, however, and believe that eventually we’re back in the playoffs but dont realistically expect a major uptick from last season’s 6-10 just yet. I’m skeptical about the Daniel Thomas pick…the meh stats and propensity toward injury don’t blow my socks off either. There’s always hope for good FA aquisitions and a good draft. We’ll see,

You were missed on this site.

An I completely agree with you

I would run them the other way also, Bush will break down, I promise you. And I really like the guy here, but he is not a every down back. I think we have a better chance this year of moving towards the playoffs with the soft line up, for the first time in years other then the last time we made it. I will get hammered for this, but I would rather start this season with Henne over Moore, but I think it might not be either of the two.
Nice post Train and Rec’d

Oakland actually finished 8-8… just like the Jets … so he didn’t beat a single team with a winning record.

Matt Moore has not beaten a team with a winning record this year. Believe me I wanted to believe that he was the guy. I was waiting for him to step up. But the fact is he never did. We need to move on and not waste any more time wondering what he might become… Deep down you know he never will… accept that.

I do think if Philbin thinks Matt Flynn is the guy we have to kinda take his word for it.. he was the closest to him the last few years and got to measure him every day against Aaron Rodgers… So if he thinks Matt Flynn can be the franchise QB we are looking for… I am pretty excited about that actually.

I like what I have seen from Philbin so far. But I am always an optimist… but it is what keeps me going… I was all in with Saban… then I was all in with Cam Cam… then I was all in with Sparano… Now I am all in with Philbin… THIS TIME FOR SURE…. lol… I like hearing that he put together the game plan for the Packers every week and that he got on the practice squad players because they were not giving the defense a good look. I like to see that. But when it all comes down to it.. it is just blind optimism…

Totally with you on Marshall… we really don’t have any idea what we have with the guy until we get someone that can actually get him the ball. The guy is a workhorse and a matchup problem for every team.

As far as Daniel Thomas… I can’t believe we actually traded up for a Ronnie Brown clone who doesn’t run as hard as Ronnie Brown…. When are we going to get a big back that RUNS LIKE A BIG BACK? I will take Ronnie Brown or Ricky Williams over Daniel Thomas at this point though… But hopefully he gets in the offseason program here and we coach him up and he proves me wrong… Is Larry Johnson still available? He was still running strong.. not sure why we dumped him… guess we don’t like it when guys produce for us…

And for the record,….I love these type of posts for a few reasons. They are logically and pull no punches, they are well written,…..and completely different from the norm around here ( for the most part ). Not to mention it is completely different from the stuff I put up here. Great job Fr8 !!! And for that I gave you the magical 10th rec !

But id rather call it logical. Lets hope your wrong on all accounts, but the fact is, your more than likely not lol

Retarded MOS school is retarded. Feel bad for any schmucks that get stuck at Lejeune.

As for the 4 players/coach you approached in this post I will take them one by one. The hedgehog is cute btw.

First is Daniel Thomas. Daniel Thomas is a hard player to talk about because my opinions of him developed and changed so much over the course of the season. Excluding the preseason for a second lets look at the regular season and his performance over the course of it. As you know, he didn’t play in Week one on Monday Night against the Patriots (although Reggie Bush only carried 11 times in his absence that night, along with two carris from Lex Hilliard), but he saw significant action in the Houston game in Week 2. I really liked what I saw from him and the game encapsulated some of what we want from Thomas. The scheme was really clicking that day and Thomas hits the hole hard. What is very impressive is how well he can drive into his first cut and explode through the hole. He is a physical back and when the scheme is presenting itself as well as it was on a few of Thomas runs in that game, he showed some flashes of the downhill one-cut runner that got him into the second round of the draft.

However as the season went on we began to see some of his struggles. It is very rare in the NFL for holes to present themself so blatantly as they did a few times in the Houston game (and once or twice in the Cleveland game). His job as a back is to see the scheme develop and make a decision whilst in motion. He is a one-cut runner so he only has one opportunity. If he doesn’t commit and go he can’t succeed as a back in the NFL, he doesn’t have the proper skillset. As the season went on it was painfully obvious that he didn’t trust the scheme/understand how to diagnose blocking assignments and the result was a propensity to either try to kick the ball outside, hesitate before commiting to his cut or abandan the scheme entirely. He also never develped how we envisioned into the back we want out of the backfield. A major reason he was draftetd so high is because of how quickly he can commit to an area of the field (often moving through the line) and set himself up on screen passes (he also has good hands). Yet in Miami we saw very little of that explosion. He can no longer rely on speed in the open field, not in this league, so he has to learn how seperate against defenders and run in open field. He also was hampered by his injuries which stunted his development.

Two last points on the kid. First is my vision for him. I envision him developing into Ryan Matthews. He is who I use as his goal. Granted they are slightly different players. Matthews is more elusive in space naturally and doesnt quite possess Thomas size but they are both explosive single cut runners who struggled with the same things in their rookie seasons. Ryan Matthews has gone from an incredibly mediocre back to one of my favorite backs in the NFL, especially in the screen game. Alot of the things that Matthews does, Thomas can implement to his game in terms of understanding blocking for a single cut runner in a man scheme and patience and vision in the open field.

The second point is about the decision to draft him. I understand what Jeff Ireland was doing. He wanted a back far different in style than Reggie Bush so as to present problems for a defense in preperation. However a one-cut runner in a predominatly man blocking scheme is going to naturally have some problems. I have often thought how much better he may fit in Houston or Washington for example. Ryan Matthews has turned out to be a great fit because he is still elusive and has become a lethal weapon in the screen game. That is Daniel Thomas standard in my eyes.

chad henne and matt moore are synonymous players) is that it seems very “pre-philbin.” things have changed. and it seems too early to be ‘realistic’ about the interplay of events and characters that no one yet knows anything about, even if this site is of course a great place to voice opinions.