You guys are setting yourselves up yet again.
Yes they are..
I make a post like this post nearly every year, I will do my best to make examples to help build my case but we are truly a team that chases its tail more often then not, and the main reason for that like most of you those with the power within the organization (Haslim) don't understand how to build. And YES I do understand how to build a football team, and YES its simple it really is.
1st notice I don't say re build and thats the 1st mistake. There is no such a thing within an organization that is successful.
Lets look shall we?
1st rule of building keep good players and add in more good players thru the draft. We don't do that we let guys like, Ward, Mack, Gibson, Swartz, Shread, Skrine, Rubin, Cameron, etc., etc. The list in fact so long I can't remember them all.
But here is the key you add to the talent you replace talent as better talent becomes available. We keep doing wholesale change and in the end we are the dawgs chasing our tail.
Teams players and organization that engage in wholesale changes particularly on the player side of things always regress. Teams, players, coaches, and organizations move up the food chain the longer they are together its just that simple.
The longer players play along side one another the better they are as a team. By not retaining our talent we condemn ourselves to perpetual losing.
This is how this whole thing plays out. We suck this year because we are young and have zero playing time together, so in the rush to judge we eject some of the young talent we are on the fence about in favor of veteran leadership, which doesn't make the team better in fact it makes it worse, look at the evidence you have it right in front of you. We have done this rebuild thing repeatedly, use its history to guide you then put that up against teams that win.
BTW I believe coaching is important but at this level its pretty damned even. Playing time trumps everything.
Teams play better the longer they are together period. The talent level does matter no question but there is NO great disparity in talent in the NFL, the real difference is time playing TOGETHER. The difference in winning and losing is narrow that 1,2,3 plays a game that result from time playing together are the difference more often then not.
When you hear a coach like Horton say we are just trying to figure out how the pieces fit together, what is it you are hearing?
What I hear is these guys haven't spent enough time playing together for me to evaluate who should even play much less how to use them. That spells losing every single time. You can choose to ignore what he said or you can listen to what he said and put it together and its true meaning.
I call it roster flipping, when we STOP roster flipping will get better. That doesn't mean you don't swap out players. What you do NOT do is you do NOT let solid players go in favor of the unknown. And when you do bring in players you fit them in slowly over time. When you make wholesale roster flips forget it you lose. Oh yeah there is the 2% chance that it all works out but its highly unlikely.
You must be steady, you must, stick with young talent and allow them to grow and improve. But we don't ever do that when a player reaches their second contract we let them go and suffer greatly for it.
At the end of the day will suck this year, what we can hope for, is we work hard, play hard, and grow together and get better as the season wears on, anything beyond that is dreamy eyed fairy tail stuff.
Player retention is the key to future success sense we hit the reset will suck to a near dead certainty. I don't like it either but when we stop re building and start building around the talent we do have will begin to reap the benefits. But if history is our guide 2 years from now I will be giving you all the same speech. SAD