09-19-2024, 03:45 PM
(09-18-2024, 07:53 PM)HarleyDog Wrote:
So how much of this is due to the Chase or Tee drama? Seeing shit like this is like a young girl scorned and runs to FB to post horrible things about her friend. Similar to the fact that you're looking for public support from people who only hear one side. While many on here tried to play the Hold-in as a positive thing, IMO, It's a childish gesture that disrupts the team.
Agree on that. Similarly, my take is that it almost has to have some sort of impact on the team's morale that skews negative.
It likely encourages at least a bit of underlying ill-will from the team at large towards the organization for the recurring public outcry about how contract negotiations went with Bates, Higgins and Chase (and to some degree Hendrickson). Letting Reader walk probably makes for a bit of disappointed locker room gossip too. Besides Burrow, these are your most recent players with premier talent and all of them got hard-balled by management to the glee of the national sports media. How can that not cause employees up and down the depth chart to wonder about the organization's direction? There's got to be some who taste a bit of that bile by association and recoil.
And this ridiculous trend towards 'hold-ins' could also promote some underlying resentment towards the player from at least some of his teammates. I doubt this is the case for the most part, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that there will be some who think that Chase should and will ultimately get his money, but right now the relentless drama and his conspicuous absence from meaningful preparation is a step backwards in what they're trying to accomplish as a team. Whether that's the goal of a Super Bowl or just the best results possible so their own individual performances can shine in a brighter spotlight for future contracts here or somewhere else, at the end of the day, losing these games to start the season again taints everyone and it's human nature to start looking for someone to blame.
At this time, his offseason behavior and now his on-field outburst is the odd man out, and that's likely not nothing to some on the team. It's simply not a good look, and it can only be part of the problem - not the solution. I truly hope they can push past this funk and stack some positive momentum. They sure shovel enough stink on themselves every year in the hopes to come out clean on the other end.
