Daugherty: Can Andy Dalton reach the 'elevation' the Cincinnati Bengals need?

[*rfaulk34*]

(07-26-2018, 02:45 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Paul Daugherty shares his views on Dalton as part of his recent blog post. What are your thoughts on what he had to say?

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/blogs/daugherty-blog/2018/07/26/daugherty-can-andy-dalton-reach-elevation-cincinnati-bengals-need/840780002/

With Dalton, the discussion always returns to one word:

Elevation.

The great QBs, the Super guys, make their teams better. It might be just for one year (Nick Foles last year) or it might be for a career. Cite the usual suspects: Brady. Brees. Roethlisberger. Rodgers.

Groomed by Jay Gruden, improved by the mind of Hue Jackson, surrounded by Pro Bowl pieces. Never bothered by competition, or pushed by it. No January skins on the wall.

Mike Brown uttered the utterly familiar when talking about his QB.       

“He needs a good horse to ride and we’re going to try to get him a stronger horse. I think we can. And when we do I think you’ll see him run a faster race.”

The horses Dalton has ridden over his seven years could fill out a Derby field.The Bengals keep adding them: Price and Glenn this year, Mixon and Ross the year before. Not to mention the conga-line of studs that preceded them, when the team was making the playoffs every year.

Now, Dalton is Bill Lazor’s project.

“Part of what you do to make a guy better is push him past his limits,” Lazor said to Owczarski. “If you’re always practicing what Andy does well, then Andy will continue to be what he is. If I, in an individual period or in practice, put him in a tough situation that pushes his limits of what he thinks he can do, he’s got a chance to become a better player.”

It’s a mission the quarterback had readily accepted. He knows that to join contemporaries Cam Newton, Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson in the “top quarterback” conversation, he must reach the same levels they have.

Here’s a thought: Maybe Andy Dalton simply isn’t those guys. He doesn’t have Wilson’s legs or creativity, he doesn’t have Newton’s size. He hasn’t elevated the Bengals the way Ryan did the Falcons two years ago.    

He doesn’t beat the Steelers. He’s 0-4 in the postseason, though to be fair three of those Ls can't be laid squarely on him. Only the home defeat to San Diego was a Dalton mess. But he didn’t make the Bengals better in the other three, either.

Elevation. That’s the point. 
    
The Bengals, because they are the Bengals, stay with the tried and not-quite-true. You can keep fixing your beloved ’65 Mustang. It’s never going to be a Ferrari.

Will this be the year that validates all the others? Twelve games in 2015 suggest it’s possible. All the other games suggest otherwise. As the great philosopher Popeye once noted, “I yam what I yam.’’

It's pretty straight forward and spot on. If you put the pieces around him, he can play up to that level, under normal circumstances. He's played well in prime time in spots, so he has the ability there. He hasn't shown much of anything in the post season. Excuses be damned, so don't bother.

He's not really near the top tier QBs to where he can make the throws to win big games semi-consistently. But he has the ability to win in the playoffs. The first half of the Chargers game proves that. The defense just has to stop shitting the bed in the playoffs and they need to shut someone down and get some turnovers. And when they've done that, THEY NEED TO NOT MAKE STUPIDASS BONEHEADED PLAYS TO LOSE THE GAME. Yeah, i'm over it, really. 

It makes my blood pressure start to rise when i have to type out all of those if's, but at this point i'm already too invested in this post to say fluck it.