07-08-2015, 11:01 PM
(07-08-2015, 10:13 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: 1.) I find it interesting fans and the media rag on our QB for not winning a playoff game last year, but ignore our defense was very bad (compared to the league at 22nd or 23rd ranked and a huge disappointment from prior years) im 2014 regular season.
2.) Most would give any QB who had a bad defense and decimated by injury at the TE and WR position a ton of credit for getting back to the playoffs.
Not our fans, they ignore it all because we lost a playoff game we were not close to be talented enough to compete against on the road due to injury.
To answer the questions, can we win a playoff game, only a fan ignoring our off season would say no way as more than likely they will be talented enough to get to a playoff game which is step 1 to winning a playoff game.
I say yes we can and I think we will in 2015.
1.) Our defensive rankings in 2011, 2012 and 2013 were: 7th, 6th, 3rd.
So maybe people aren't ignoring the fact that we had a bad defense but more realize that we've had more than adequate ones before and have had the same results. We've also been relatively healthy in previous years, and we've hosted a playoff game.
2.) A ton of credit? He finished 25th in QB rating. He didn't even hit 20 TD's.
To put that into perspective, he threw less TD's than a rookie in Derek Carr, who plays for the freaking Raiders. You want to talk about weapons or lack thereof? Oh, Dalton only had AJ Green for 12 games, and he had to use Sanu instead of Marvin Jones as a #2, he only had Jermaine Gresham at Tight End? Carr's top 2 receivers were Andre Holmes and James Jones. His Tight End was Mychal Rivera. His 1/2 punch at RB was Darren McFadden and Latavius Murray. Need we even get into the OL's?
Andy Dalton's QB rating was lower than that of such superstars as: Shaun Hill, Teddy Bridgewater (another rookie with terrible weapons), Austin Davis, Kyle Orton. Jay Cutler, who was benched for playing so poorly, had a QB rating that was a full 5 pts higher than Andy's. He 50% more TD's than Andy and he didn't even play the full year.
And you think he deserves a "ton of credit"? Who are these "most" you speak of? Most people would give that performance a ton of credit? Are you serious?
Lastly, I find your throwing the defense under the bus very intriguing. It is amazing to me the amount of things that factor into Dalton's performance (excuses). Things like injuries, play calling, throwing too much, throwing too little, wind, flu, etc/. Fine, I guess. But such a simple statement that the defense played bad is commonly used, without much of the same explanation. It's simple, they didn't play great. Forget that they were missing Burfict, forget that Atkins wasn't 100%, forget that they had a new DC. They played bad. How refreshing to be able say and discuss a simple topic, without finding every single reason to deflect blame. It's a shame such obvious statements can't be made about Andy, who by the way, had a worse year than our defense statistcially. (22 vs 25)
Every year I think some of you will run out of excuses. Every year I'm wrong. The lengths people go to combat what seem to reasonable takes (Russell Wilson being very good, Andy playing poorly, etc) just seems incredibly desperate and defensive to me. He needs to be better. He's had good defenses, he's had weapons. He needs to step it up. Period.
