When your favorite team is bad, and you watch them play every week, you get used to seeing bad players making bad plays. When occasionally, a few of those players make some good plays, many of us get suckered into thinking, “Hey that guy is pretty good.” Compared to what?
When your favorite team only makes the playoffs 7 of the last 21 seasons, the bar gets lowered. We are so starved to see something good, I think sometimes we see “good” in players that in reality aren’t as good as we would love to think.
That in a nutshell is one of the biggest problems with this entire organization. This FO vastly overrates its talent, while also vastly overrating their own abilities to right this organization’s 25 year drift to consistent playoff irrelevance. Let’s face it, 30 other owners would have fired this GM and his children long ago.
What I hope is Mike McCarthy (or someone JJ listens to) has the stones to tell his bosses a series of truths that need to be addressed:
- This roster needs a major overhaul to be competitive for something more than mediocrity. We cannot sit pat. We must accept who we are: A below average football team.
- We need at least 7 new starters on defense. Keepers: DLaw, Gregory, Diggs, and maybe LVE although he’s so fragile, he’s probably worth considering a replacement.
- We need help on offense too. We may need a LT sooner than many want to believe.
- This isn’t just a talent problem. It’s a culture problem.
- This culture is diseased. There is a lack of focus and commitment from top to bottom. It’s been there for far too long. These players need to be challenged to show something more or we will keep getting what we’re getting.
We all want this team to improve and start competing. But this team needs a butt kicker in the locker room to start expecting more. Maybe have a Jimmy J training camp again complete with an asthma field.
And finally- like any organization that has 33% rate of even qualifying to compete for a championship, you won’t get better until you look in the mirror and admit your team sucks and you’re sick of losing and everything that contributes to it. Currently I don’t get the feeling from enough people at the Star to make a difference yet. Until enough people get sick of this repeated failure, expect the same.