DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Thought about Savage...

let's do it this way...

Here is the roster of '04.. where are we better or.. who from that team could start on this team?

QB - Garcia, Holcomb, McCown

RB - Green, Suggs, Jackson

FB - Smith

WR - Northcutt, Morgan, Davis

TE - Winslow, Heiden, Sanders

OL (in no particular order) - Faine, Fowler, Garmon, Tucker, Verba, DeMar, Beasley

DE - Brown, Lang, Ekuban

DT - Warren, Myers, McKinley

OLB - Taylor, Bentley, Thompson, Holdman, Boyer

ILB (or MLB) - Davis, Gardner, Unck

CB - McCutcheon, Henry, Bodden, Lehan

Safeties - Little, Crocker, Jameson, Griffith, Jones

ST - Dawson, Frost

I agree...if we're looking at his body of work outside of PR, I think he'd be safe.

His draft record looks shabbier with each passing year, but the draft is a fickle beast that I tend to afford lots of leash on. Frye for example...I know we've talked before so no need to re-hash it, but I don't think a 3rd rounder who got pounded for a few years while we put a line together was a disatrous investment. I also think that if down the road we find a decent scheme and Wimbley serves a role as a situational rusher, the fact that he was a teens-first rounder isn't the worst thing in the world, mainly because that vision includes winning. In the end, any finished product is going to have a lot of failures along the way.

Also, with each draft I begin to supsect the Butch-esque tactics of 'sleeper' picks intended to show intelligence. Also, we all used to rag on Butch for picking players based on pure athleticism. Whether you like the picks or not - Leon Williams being a prime example among many - they reek of that Davis-era coveted athleticism.

I have no problem with picks based primarily on athleticism in the later rounds... after all, I can take an athletic specimen and hope I can teach him to tackle or catch but there is much less chance that I can take a guy with great hands and technique and make him considerably taller, stronger and faster...

Problem is I don't think I've seen very much teaching of anything since '99.

I am finding this interesting jabber about people, and I put coaches and Savage under personnel as well. It is great to evaluate positions, but I got tired of reading about rants of what we need that ignored some more basic and biggest picture things. 1) We nned better personnel on D, and some of these folks need to be disappeared. Suppose we cut all who missed over 50 tackles in a season, for arguments sake, some yardstick to make them accountable with a different number, how many secondary would be left? As the season sucks clear to its end, I am seeing more problems with the stubborn insistence or cowardly lion game plans that provide no pressure and haven't improved enough to matter that are in place. My point is schemes, and I have discussed 'em before. We are not an effective 34 squad, we were not when the Gut made that decision for RAC, we have not gotten the needed personnel or developed them for it; its ongoing ineffectiveness despite a BOATLOAD of DC changes, player rollovers, FA busts, draft "projects" that have yet to arrive, all point to poor coaching and decisions in personnel. The D scheme is horrific; we have forced people to play about half a defense, and we handcuffed on our sidelines. The practically blitz free "scheme" flies against what beats us (Colts pressure for one), and how other teams in the top third of the NFL handle themselves. No acceptable reason to overlook this, or the OC failure to go deep, make us run badly, avoid vertical attack in favor of pointless short and wide passes that fail to produce TDs. This is on Chud and RAC. IF you fail, coaches need to adapt and coach out stupid mistakes. Our pattern is to apparently ignore the, "put them behind us" as I see so often, and we get them the next game, throughout seasons and so on. Such as crappy tackles, no push cover, no blitz.
Strike one: 1) Lousy schemes that have panned very little gold and little player growth. Great for
apologies and pointless explanations, though!
Strike two: 2) Lousy judgment in initial gameplans and how aggressively we attack opponents. Also, how
do we adjust to stuff killing us? On D, little pressure; on O, little misdirection and attacks
on blitz teams. Really awful and really sideline to blame 1st.
Strike three: 3) Stats. We have been horrible in many categories. Our success has been as individuals. I
really don't care if they like him; player/coach is important not vital. If less popular = more
wins because of sensible NFL "Bigs" schemes, then I am for it.