09-18-2015, 07:20 AM
(09-17-2015, 11:35 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I agree that pregame speeches aren't a huge deal, but there's much more to leadership than just speeches.
It can mean whatever people want it to mean.
One guy said that Andy isn't a leader because he wears a rubber wedding ring so no one respects him. Someone else said that he's obviously an inspiring leader because of his "huge hog". Now, those are 2 extremes, but very good examples of how you can pretty much define leadership any way you want in an attempt to fit your preconceived feelings.
Personally, I just take the players and coaches word for it when it comes to this sort of thing because it's really one of the things that only they truthfully know. We can speculate whether the players and coaches are being 100% truthful, but why would they lie about that?
Example. A.J. Green wasn't asked "is Andy a leader or not?" In a recent interview. If he was, I'd completely understand people saying that he only called him a leader because he "has" to and he couldn't throw his QB under the bus. What really happened was they asked him about Andy in general. His response was something like, "he's our quarterback, he's our leader, blah blah blah". It wasn't something A.J. was tricked into saying, he threw it out there on his own free will and other players and coaches have done the same in the past.
Until something shows me otherwise that crappy pregame speeches mean anything or that Andy can't handle a leadership role, I'll just trust what the other guys in the locker room have to say about it.
With all of that said, give me good players over good locker room "leaders" any day of the week. People really over value leadership around here just to defend their favorite guys that aren't very good. This part isn't about Andy btw because his leadership that we usually discuss is more about on the field than off, I just wanted to note my feelings on the "omg but we can't upgrade PlayerX, he's good for our locker room!!!!" crap that I hear on these boards. That's mostly regarding the old vets that are over the hill that we keep around and let onto the field for some reason.
