02-25-2017, 07:33 PM
(02-23-2017, 03:35 PM)Benton Wrote: Getting a little OT here, but...
It used to make sense. Under the old agreement with escalating contracts every year, if you drafted a guy in the first and paid an outrageous sum, you didn't want him getting overzealous in the first few games and being out 1-2 seasons with an injury. Better to keep him on the bench while he learns from the staff and teammates on how to play without getting a serious injury. Especially considering some of the bonus bucks (I think Bradford got something like $50 million in bonus on his rookie deal).
But that was years ago. Now, contracts are more level year to year. It's foolish not to put a guy out there and see what he's got. If he looks horrible by game 16, you know you need to do something in the off season. Which is — in my opinion — better than Marvin's approach of giving a guy a few years of irregular playing time and then trying to decide in the final year if he's "ready." By then, you're a year or two too late, and you run into our current problem with center, corner and (to an extent) receiver. With the latter two, we had guys on the roster who never saw much time so now that we need them, we aren't sure what they can do. So we spend more draft picks and hope somebody steps up.
Preach. Im notorious for not playing guys just because they are young. Also im cool with the best players getting the most PT. But guys like Peko and Malauga and others who are clearly not performing or on a downward spiral need to be phased out. We give those over the hill players too much play time and then sit and wonder why we cant keep up with guys over the middle. Peko has his moments but he shouldn't be our starter. Rey shouldn't be starting. Weve failed so badly at stocking our defense that its sad. Worse part is its starting to show because of our lack of draft hits over the past couple years.
Us not playing younger corners is CRAZY. Because the science is there that when corners hit their 30's its OVER.
