Re: Discussions should be had no matter what

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zn

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73Ram

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I have no idea why Havenstein declined this year. Vinny believes he’s been playing hurt.

My idea is both Havenstein and Whitworth had to not only deal with their positions BUT had to keep an eye out for the guy next to them and help out. That has a ring of logic to me....

Who knows?

My point is that it’s shortsighted to believe that ANYONE on the OL would be immune to a decline in performance.

Well it's also impossible to act that way. (This is one reason why I don't play "armchair blame-game." As often as not, it's just asking for the impossible as if that were the same as setting standards.)

That would mean every team would have to have 2 entire sets of ready to play, starting caliber linemen. Heck it's probably impossible for all 32 teams to have even 1 complete set of those.

BTW I don't think Hav declined because he was "helping out." That doesn;t explain his poor play. Especially since he was playing next to a vet.

I think it's clear that what happened is that the 2 OTs regressed all on their own.

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No one operates in a vacuum on the OL. And while I do believe Whit and Hav declined on their own to a large degree, I’m not naive enough to believe that being surrounded by inferior performers had no impact.

But my greater point here is that it was obvious to the veriest tyro that the OL was an issue in the later part of the season. And the Rams miscalculated how to address it. They did not anticipate the likelihood of OL injury and decline. Some critics say it was hubris, others say it was poor evaluations. Either way it should have received more attention, and did not.

I already addressed that so I'm just repeating. You can field 2 newbies inside if the OTs hold up. Calling a position different from yours "naive" isn't an argument---it just tells us which way your personal take on this goes. Once you field 2 regressing OTs, the newbies compound the issues. That's my take. I won't call your view "naive," yours is just a different view--though I stand behind mine. For one thing Hav was not playing next to a newbie. For another, it may actually be that AW looked better next to Saffold than he really was. I don't know that that's the case but it's at least remotely possible.

No it was not "obvious"--some liked to worry about the newbies but the real issue turned out to be the OTs. No one predicted both OTs would regress. So in the entire universe of "I like to say I was right" posters, not one called it. Which is usually the way it goes--in spite of "I like to say I was right" posting, the vast vast majority of the time, very few people ever actually predict things well. And even the ones that do hit it now and then simply don't have a high enough percentage to crow about their prescience.

No one expected both OTs to regress. That's just an easily verified fact. Forget who was "right." I say, stick to analysis of what's actually going on.


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/01/2019 07:19AM by zn.