Did Bradie James wear down?

[rathalarge]

I was mentioning to my brother that I thought Bradie had injured a leg (thigh) muscle on a play when I think they were playing the Texans. Thinking that he was playing through injury, and not wanting to dissapoint Coach Parcells, I noticed his play dropping off. If anyone watched the NFL Replay last week against Jackonville, Bradie was getting drops so deep, he would be out of cameras view, only to come fly up and crush the screen or short route receiver when the ball was caught. Against Tennessee, this style was also evident on Vince Young's first possible thrown interception which Bradie and Anthony Henry collided. I heard Mickey Spagnola mention Bradie had worn down because the topic was on Parcells' pension for wanting guys to win battles one on one, and the need for a young nose tackle who can eat up blocks and keep the guard from getting a free shot at Bradie each play. Mickey was saying that this should change with Wade Phillips' attacking, stunting style, and maybe Bradie can return to being the player the Cowboys gave the extension to. No mattter how much we complained about James' play at the end of the year, I think we should keep what Mickey is saying in mind, and hope that Bradie anchors the 'D' from his Mike position as he did earlier last season.

 

[CF74]

1st I hear of this but Gawd I hope it's true. He needs to step it up in a huge way...:starspin

 

[Jake0]

Looking lost is more of a mental thing than being physically slow I say... he was just bad.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

His problem was in coverage moreso than the run game although the Eagles absolutely abused him. James does not have the foot speed to do the one one one assignments against backs and tight ends. The coaching staff put him in a position to fail.

Levon Kirkland couldnt cover yet he was not exposed like James was over and over again. I lay this at the feet of Zimmer/Parcells.

 

[Bleu Star]

Looking lost is more of a mental thing than being physically slow I say... he was just bad.

I'll take "was just bad" for $100 Alex.

 

[dwmyers]

His problem was in coverage moreso than the run game although the Eagles absolutely abused him. James does not have the foot speed to do the one one one assignments against backs and tight ends. The coaching staff put him in a position to fail.

Levon Kirkland couldnt cover yet he was not exposed like James was over and over again. I lay this at the feet of Zimmer/Parcells.

Yea, I'm sure Zimmer and Parcells planned that Ellis would be injured, so that Ware would have to rush all the time, and James lose his help in the flats.

Had to be Zimmer's fault, yea!



Rathalarge, nice find with your film study.

David.

 

[Apollo Creed]

When Jon Kitna is criticizing your play, there may be something wrong.

 

[dbair1967]

When Jon Kitna is criticizing your play, there may be something wrong.

more people criticized the scheme

it will be fixed for 2007

I dont recall a single post with anything negative on James in 2005, or even for most of the 1st half of 2006...he went to being "another great Parcells find" to a bum overnight

David

 

[Bleu Star]

more people criticized the scheme

it will be fixed for 2007

I dont recall a single post with anything negative on James in 2005, or even for most of the 1st half of 2006...he went to being "another great Parcells find" to a bum overnight

David

Well David I sincerely hope it was Zimmer and not James. We really need this guy to step it up.

It was definitely Zimmer with regards to the lack of nads by the overall defense down the stretch but I hope Bradie's lack of anything substantive is more related to playing for Zim.

 

[ndanger]

I'll take "was just bad" for $100 Alex.

Daily double Bleu.....If looking lost is mental,what would actually being lost be?....dadadada dada da da dadadada da da.....

 

[flashback]

It looks like we found out in 2006 that Bradie James is basically a 2-down linebacker. There's no shame in that. Plenty of ILBs have made a career on 1st and 2nd down.

I'm hoping for some kind of innovative $0.05 package in 2007. If we take a DB high, maybe we can stay in a 3-4 alignment, replace Roy deep with a coverage safety (or Henry), and let Roy replace one of the inside backers.

 

[Bleu Star]

Daily double Bleu.....If looking lost is mental,what would actually being lost be?....dadadada dada da da dadadada da da.....

Answer: Lost

What do I win Alex?

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Yea, I'm sure Zimmer and Parcells planned that Ellis would be injured, so that Ware would have to rush all the time, and James lose his help in the flats.

Had to be Zimmer's fault, yea!



Rathalarge, nice find with your film study.

David.

Im just not buying any of this. Singleton and Carp never looked bad in pass coverage out there and seeing that Ellis just started covering receivers for the first time in his lfe last year I imagine they both were superior at it.

Both guys played OLB in the 4-3 in their respective careers and regularly covered backs and TEs. Now you may have a point in that the defense became more predictable from a blitz standpoint as neither had the experieince that Ellis did bit to say Ellis being out hurt that positions coverage ability is just braindead.

Would it have been that hard to have Ayodele who looked rather good over the course of the year switch coverages assigments to mix it up a bit? So yeah that is right at the feet of Zimmer and Parcells.

If a player is failing over and over again and you put him back out there to do the same thing is that really the players fault. As a coach you put your players in a position to succeed not fail.

 

[rathalarge]

Thank dwmyers. I can just remember being fired up about Bradie's ability to get deep on passing downs, and I don't think he's the type of player to just let his play drop because of the contract he's signed. We all know how his family situation plays a big part in his life.

 

[Clove]

From what I saw of James, he looked slow, and not only slow, but slow to react to plays at times. His coverage was horrible, and even if he was there to make a play, he wasn't good at making it.

I do hope that all of this changes in the Phillips 34, but we have to have plan B ready to go in case it doesn't.

 

[CrazyCowboy]

I hope something was wrong with James....

 

[dbair1967]

I hope something was wrong with James....

there was

he was "Zimmerized"

David

 

[ndanger]

Answer: Lost

What do I win Alex?

What do we have for him Johnny? Well Alex we have four pounds of fresh baloney, plus the new home addition of Milton Bradleys armchair NFL.You too can be an owner or GM in the NFL.You can choose between the likes of Jerry Jones,Danny Snyder and Matt Millen.A fun and exciting game for the whole family that includes immediate trade deals and responses taken from real members of cowboyszone and you'll enjoy it in your knew hot tub.Members of the audience will recieve a special edition video of the new fuzzylumpkin movie,Fuzzylumpkin's escapades.Next contestant,COME ON DOWN !

 

[Bleu Star]

What do we have for him Johnny? Well Alex we have four pounds of fresh baloney, plus the new home addition of Milton Bradleys armchair NFL.You too can be an owner or GM in the NFL.You can choose between the likes of Jerry Jones,Danny Snyder and Matt Millen.A fun and exciting game for the whole family that includes immediate trade deals and responses taken from real members of cowboyszone and you'll enjoy it in your knew hot tub.Members of the audience will recieve a special edition video of the new fuzzylumpkin movie,Fuzzylumpkin's escapades.Next contestant,COME ON DOWN !

Pretty good. Thanks for the prizes. It's almost as if I were given the reigns to the greatest Madden franchise ever.

 

[TEK2000]

Personally, I felt like the opposing offenses found a flaw in the way Bradie plays zone coverage. The problem I noticed is that he runs down the field for a while and once the TE gets passed him... he loses track of him completely. Well, then the TE would slip into a hole between Bradie James and Roy Williams. Roy is deep playing the cover 2 and Bradie loses track of the TE that's behind him and it winds up leaving the TE open in deep middle of the field. This started with the Saints and was still apparent against the Seahawks.

The other thing was that opposing offenses used Bradie's "bailing out" coverage against us.... meaning that they'd run TE/Reciever routes to get Bradie going deep into zone coverage and then throw a short screen to the RB outta the backfield that wound up going for longer gains than they should.

Bradie is good against the run... but needs work in coverage. I also think we were UNABLE to use him the way he needs to be used because we ran a Tampa 2 style coverage scheme. Imagine a larger, run stopping LBer like Bradie James trying to play deep coverage zones and you get the exact results we saw... James having trouble in coverage. If we could have given him shorter, smaller zones to cover I think he would have done just fine.

It might be best to have Carp and Burnett as our Nickel LBers because both of them have shown good skills in coverage... Ayodele is not too bad either.