Yeah, it's SO "great" that the Skins ranked 13th in total offense last year, 11th the year before, 30th in 2004, 23rd in 2003...
Gee, you'd think such a "great" line would at least put the Skins in the top 10 in total offense at least ONCE in those 4 years...
Chuckle... he's so bad that he started 61 of the 64 games he played for the Skins...
Once again, a Skins fan sneers at how useless any player who leaves them was... but don't you reckon if he really WAS so bad, your Hall of Fame coaching staff would have figured it out, and replaced him??
Instead, they badly wanted to KEEP Dockery this year, they just couldn't find the cap room to compete with the outrageous offer he got from the Bills...
I actually had Dock rated the second best guard for the Boys to pursue this offseason, after the one they ultimately signed...
Not horrible, that's just you trying to distort my argument... but they haven't really been all that good these past 4 years, the most accurate characterization of their play would be MEDIOCRE... and now they've lost one of the mainstays of that mediocre line, with no quality replacement in sight... so even if they're fully healthy, I expect the line won't be quite as good as it has been in the recent past... and if they suffer injuries, well, your already nonexistent depth is even shakier, now that the only quality backup y'all had is being forced into the starting lineup-- at a position that's not his natural one...
Your O-line is nowhere NEAR great (ours was demonstrably better than yours last year, and you won't see me calling it "great"), and replacing Dockery with Wade is a downgrade... when you saw him play, it was at TACKLE, where a 6-8, 315 pounder ought to be playing... but a 6-8 player is at a disadvantage playing inside at guard, and Wade will undoubtedly struggle with his height in there... a guard also needs to be able to run pretty well, especially when the Skins run the Counter Trey, but Wade's problems in Miami came because of a lack of mobility, causing him to struggle with speed rushers... just like the Cowboys' Marc Colombo would not make a particularly good guard, but is every bit as good if not better than Wade at tackle...
And again, the key is what happens if you suffer an INJURY or two on the OL?? Your top backup isn't available for backup duty any more... hope you enjoy what aging Cowboys castoff Jason Fabini brings to the table...
But I'm not saying any such thing, you're just trying to put words in my mouth... what I AM saying is Campbell showed you nothing last season to make you optimistic that he IS the "future"... certainly, he didn't light it up like Tony Romo did for the Boys... but you just blithely assume that all is well at quarterback, because you're a blind HOMER...
He certainly PLAYED better...
So, you're saying that the line "liked" Betts better than they "liked" Portis?? It was the same line blocking for both of them, and Betts put up better numbers running behind that line... even though Betts had an inexperienced QB running the show, making it likely that opponents would focus on stopping the run, and dare Campbell to beat them with his arm... Brunell wasn't much, but opponents had to respect the threat he posed in the passing game more than the threat Campbell posed...
So yes, I AM saying that Betts is a better fit in the offense the Skins are trying to run... he's even proven to be a better receiver, which kind of surprised me...
LOL... and now, in your frantic effort to tapdance out of the corner you've painted yourself into with your homeristic arguments, you acknowledge that Betts is pretty good, after all... of course, this negates your ORIGINAL argument, about how the Skins were put at a disadvantage because they lost Portis... you now acknowledge that they didn't lose that much at all; I'd suggest they were BETTER OFF after Clinton went down...
At the very least, I'll say if the Skins don't think Betts is all that, I invite them to ship him to the Cowboys, I'm sure Jerry would be willing to part with one of his 3 7th round draft picks this year, perhaps even one of his 2 6th rounders...
Gawd, you have a serious problem with honesty... Moss missed TWO GAMES... that's hardly "in and out with injuries all year"...
And why is it that you guys only have one WR?? Answer-- you made some moronic choices in free agency... problem is, you won't have any more good WRs this year either, so you'll once again be forced to pray that nothing happens to any of them...
Quick, somebody send for the waaaaa-mbulance...
ALL teams have players who struggle with injuries while still playing... apparently, your Hall of Fame coaching staff thought they were well enough to compete...
Or could it be those coaches knew they weren't healthy enough to play effectively, but given that they have no DEPTH, had no choice but to keep them out there??
No, ours wasn't really tested last year... OTOH, you haven't heard me whine that it was, have you?? Given that, your attempt to turn this argument into a "yours versus ours" debate is nothing more than a blatant attempt at misdirection, a shot at changing the subject...
And when it comes to YOUR injury situation, you simply weren't hurt that bad... you lost Portis for a big chunk of time, but Betts came in and played BETTER... as for the rest of your offense, your starters missed a grand total of FOUR GAMES... Lloyd missed one game, Moss missed two, Jansen missed one...
On defense, the only player you lst for a chunk of time was Springs, but of course, he hasn't played a full 16 games in 7 years now... if you guys were counting on him to start every week, you were delusional... but other than that, Griffin missed 2 games, Salavea missed 3, Marshall missed 1, Rogers missed 1...
That's simply a normal run of injuries for an average NFL team, not a team devastated by injury... for sure, it can't compare to the Cowboys a coupla years ago, when they lost their Pro Bowl OT for 10 games, two of their starting LBs for over half the season, and even lost a backup or two at that latter position, resulting them in bringing in players-- and playing them-- from off the streets late in the season...
No sir, a team with any kind of depth at all should have been able to shrug off the injuries the Skins had last year... but lacking anything in the way of depth, the Skins couldn't cope...
Their depth this year won't be any better, in fact it may be a little worse...
Then you're either too much of a homer to be taken seriously, or you're out of your freakin' mind... the Skins' depth is shaky at best, razor thin at worst, and there's a REASON why that's so-- they trade away their draft picks, then spend megadollars on free agents... free agents COST more than rookies do, which leaves the Skins with less room under the cap to fill out the bottom of their roster with decent players...
Running back, and perhaps TE, are the ONLY positions at which you have any kind of depth...
Chuckle... I'll take our OL depth over yours, all day, every day... indeed, you guys gave at most one backup offensive lineman who could even make the Cowboys' 53 man roster (I'm intrigued by LeFotu)... but I'd wager good money the Boys have at least 3 backup linemen that the Skins would just LOVE to get their hands on-- OT Pat McQuistan, who is being touted as our starting LT of the future, C/OG Trey Darilek, a one-time 4th round draft pick by the Iggles, and C/OG Cory Procter...
Supporting that theory is the fact that your BEST backup offensive lineman, Jason Fabini, was CUT by the Cowboys... he wasn't a free agent, the Boys didn't want him any more...
Except Molinaro stands the proverbial snowball's chance in Hades of making the team... he was signed to be training camp fodder, nothing more...
Gregg Williams is the most overrated defensive coordinator in the league... oh, he's not bad with X's and O's, but his personnel evaluation skills SUCK...
Assistant coaches do NOT dictate who starts, and who doesn't... those decisions are made by Williams and Gibbs... Lindsay was scapegoated by the Skins, plain and simple; somebody had to pay for their miserable showing on defense last year, and they weren't about to get rid of Williams...
They probably should have fired your defensive line coach instead, given that the DL play was even worse than the LB play...
Brain cramp on my part, of course I meant Ryan Clark... Bowen has always been a spare, but Clark was and is a better safety than anybody you tried to replace him with... that said, watch Archuleta play well for the Bears, which will of course be an indictment of your coaching staff's inability to use him properly...
Five years ago... never has come CLOSE to those numbers since then...
ROTFLMAO... oh, are you gonna regret that little barb, 'cause I'm fixin' to show that you don't know what you're talkin' about... the Niners switched to the 3-4 defense in 2005, meaning Carter played TWO MORE SEASONS in the 4-3 after that 12.5 sack season... want proof??
My source for that is the Niners' Scout.com message board... note the posting date...
http://49ers.scout.com/2/396258.html
And of course, he played in the 4-3 LAST SEASON, didn't he?? And how many sacks did he register??
So, since that "breakout" season of 2002, Andre has played 38 more games as a 4-3 DE, and put up all of 14.5 sacks...
19 sacks last year-- dead last in the league, six fewer than any other team-- suggests otherwise...
Yeah, he had 12 sacks in 32 games over the 2004-2005 seasons... he's an AWESOME force on the pass rush...
You should be warned that BS doesn't fly over on this board, and make a mental note to get your facts straight... Williams has been with the Skins for 3 seasons, and in those 3 seasons, the Skins have ranked 32nd, 21st and 10th in sacks... their total for those 3 seasons is 94 sacks, their best season was 2004, when they had 40 sacks...
As a point of contrast, the Cowboys had 104 sacks over those 3 seasons-- and we Cowboys fans have been highly critical of their lack of an acceptable pass rush...
IOW, they haven't really been all that effective when it comes to "bringing pressure" under Williams...
Only if you're a 3-4 defense looking for a "tweener"... if the Skins trade out of pick 6, the best pass rushers will be long gone by midway through the first round... bye bye, Gaines Adams; so long, Jamaal Anderson; see you later, Adam Carriker...
Late in the first round, you'd be looking at Jarvis Moss, all 250 pounds of him, 260 pound Anthony Spencer and 260 pound Quentin Moses... nice prospects all, but if you look at the scouting reports for each of them, you'll find the scouts think all of them would be better off at OLB in a 3-4 (which makes them logical targets for the Boys, if they choose to go that route in the first round), and you'll find they're all described as a liability against the run... or you could reach a little for 2nd round prospect Charles Johnson, who goes 270 and is considered to be fairly strong against the run...
On that, we can agree... but if the Skins are serious about fixing their pass rush, they MUST stay at pick 6, and draft one of the few "stud" pass rushers out there... talking about trading for a linebacker (Briggs) or a cornerback (Samuel) is just asinine... as a Skins fan, you should be highly pissed if they do something so profoundly stupid...
Naturally, I hope they do... Briggs in particular would be a TERRIBLE fit for the Skins, he needs a stout DL to "protect" him, and let him run to the ball...
Said the troll who insisted that the last year Andre Carter played a 4-3 DE role was in 2002... the same troll who told us how Gregg Williams-led defenses bring major heat on the pass rush... LOL...
What, you think being deep at one or two positions at best is good enough??
I'm sorry, I thought I was arguing with somebody who actually knew a little something about football... my bad...
