Who is "your guy"?

[3wt]

(06-23-2017, 10:13 AM)Wyche Wrote: Atkins was drafted that low due to size concerns, not talent or drive.  I will say Hayes was one of our better position coaches.  The point is, Boling was better than his draft position coming out of college indicates....so was Atkins....so is Dalvin Cook....so is Joe Mixon.  Injury concerns, character concerns, physical concerns, and scheme fit concerns often drop players on draft day versus where the talent level actually is.  Exhibit A.....I give you Vontaze Burfict.  

Clint Boling was already a good and polished player when he got here, he wasn't magically coached to this level.  The game has passed Alexander by, and he really shouldn't have been here to begin with, coming off of a staff that produced the second worst decade in all of professional sports history.  Where's the accountability?

I'm not going to say that the game has passed Alexander by.  Too many people in the league think too highly of him.  I think it's interesting that Joe Walter does not approve of the training our O-linemen are getting, but he was coached up by Jim McNally and may be biased.

I was listening to the Ross Tucker podcast and he was talking about how when he was playing (for either Washington or Buffalo) that McNally was insisting on having him handle an overpowering DL that he was to stick to the technique he had been taught, and his tackle was telling him to just cut block the guy.  McNally insisted on him using the prescribed technique and it was not until he started following his tackle's advice that the guy was brought under control.

My point is that the best guys make mistakes.  And there have been mitigating factors in the failure of Og and Fisher.  And the best guys just get it wrong.  But Alexander has done well with Boling, Anderson, L. Jones and R. Braham.   His most notable failure was Ghiaciuc.

Boling was evaluated all over the place - from the 4th round to the end of the 2nd round (Huddle Report).  AJ Green told us we had gotten a steal in the 4th round.  Drew Boylhart said he could have been a high pick if he was put at his correct position (his opinion) - tackle.

Atkins did not get a lot of playing time at Georgia.  Boylhart speculated that it may have been an attitude issue for Geno (obviously not), but whatever he did not get a lot of snaps there.  When he did (at DT) he dominated.

And the Bengals took their sweet time picking him themselves.

I started watching Amazon's documentary on the Cardinal's 2015 season.  They desperately wanted Ameer Abdullah - who ended up going to the Lions.  They ended up picking up David Johnson in the 3rd round as a consolation prize and ended up with the better back.

Getting good players and the timing of things like injuries - and just plain luck figure strongly into how things turn out for players and teams.  Coaches, teams and players probably get more blame and credit than they deserve.