08-09-2021, 06:13 PM
(08-09-2021, 11:46 AM)tms Wrote: Are you from the straw man factory? We were looking for you. We were running out of supplies to protect our we-don't-ever-need-to-do-anything crops, and you came through like divine intervention. Nice to see.
Your two questions can sort of be grouped together. If motivation is not his problem, then he's not good enough. Would that not be worse? Given the depth of the draft class, we were promised somebody who would be good enough and somebody who would be slotted in there right now. Urgency was the word of the day. This wasn't a 'project' draft for us, we did not have that luxury. Our QB had had his knee theismann'd, and we were told that we would do everything in our power to protect him from this day forward (FA, draft and coach). Literally nobody was saying, "We're gonna snag a backup guard in R2 and see what happens a few years down the road"- there would have been fireworks. That was not the bargain. Nobody was talking about a backup IOL at his presser. So motivation would be the lesser of the two evils here. You don't want him not being good enough, as it would imply outright negligence in view of the "deepest draft class" in recent memory.
So ok, they chose Carman as their horse, now they gotta ride him. Camp started with the "you have to earn it!" rhetoric. Which is all well and good, even intuitive, but I don't hear such an emphasis being placed on "earning" it in... Vegas with Leatherwood, KC with Creed (and Trey Smith for that matter), NY with AVT, Denver with Meinerz, Zim with Wyatt Davis, on down the line, whether they're starting or not. This is professional football, after all. These draft picks needn't be reminded of having to earn it if they have their head screwed on straight. Hell, I don't even see them talking about that in Chicago with Teven, who hasn't taken a rep yet- or Borom, who's been his replacement. The mere fact that you're hearing about it over and over in Cincinnati is not a good sign. Of course it implies motivation issues.
Which is only reinforced by the fact that they played MICHAEL FREAKING JORDAN with the starters yesterday. Is that part of the master plan to protect Joe too? To move the same guy who literally apologized to Burrow for being bull-rushed so bad by J Allen that Burrow had to spend the next 8 months in recovery, just to the other side of the line? No, they're running out of wrenches in the toolkit and resorting to this. It's not like Carman is waiting behind Alan Faneca. You can't even argue they're showing him "tough love" since his rookie peer was out there with the starters on the other side. So feel free turn and look the other way if you want to, but it would just be more of the same.
They needed a plug and play, we were promised a plug and play, and he's been anything but a plug and play. That's evident. He's sliding on the depth chart before playing in any games. That's also evident. So while I appreciate your straw men, you should save them for next April when they can be of better use.
We were not promised a plug and play guy. All I heard was that he would have a learning curve moving inside and that the long term plan would be that he could replace Reiff. Nothing like that sounds like plug and play. Why in the world would Carman be considered plug and play when he never played OG in college?
