08-01-2015, 04:53 PM
(08-01-2015, 04:46 PM)BigSeph Wrote: It's almost like you Bengals fans have Stockholm Syndrome or something when it comes to Dalton.
You will circle the wagons to defend him and put blame on AJ Green, Marvin Lewis, the defense, anyone BUT Dalton for his repeated failures.
Something positive comes along about AJ McCarron, and Bengals fans everywhere (not just specifically here) bash him, downplay it, and dismiss it. "Oh he hasn't thrown a preseason pass yet." Well neither have Mariota or Winston, and their respective fanbases are excited about it, they want to hear good news on those guys, the positive news feeds their hopes for the upcoming season.
Among Bengal fans, the positive news on McCarron is viewed as an assault on Dalton, and everyone attempts to downplay it to the point where some of you guys become negative when you hear positive news about your own player!
I've been lurking and reading this thread, and doing lots of research on AJ McCarron over the past few months. Yes there have been more successful 1st round QBs than 7th round QBs, and that can be said for any other position on the football field. But guys like Jeff Garcia and Tony Romo weren't even drafted, Tom Brady sat around forever, and sometimes the NFL scouts are restricted by what they see at the time, not what the potential is.
McCarron had a bum shoulder which affected his throwing strength. It's fixed.
McCarron had a set of bad interviews because he viewed himself as the best QB in that class. That remains to be seen.
McCarron worked with Tom House to improve his throwing strength, to become more efficient at QB, and he put in the work. NFL scouts interviewing him probably viewed that behavior as an impossibility from the guy who thought he was the best QB in the world, they probably thought he would just coast (ala Manziel) and expect his natural talent to be better than anyone else's. But Tom Brady thought that, other great QBs have thought that, and it has fueled them to become great. They put in the work to become great and maximize that talent.
You guys have a QB here who is doing all the right things, saying all the right things, approaching it the right way, and has something already that Andy Dalton will never have - the desire to be great, the will to win, and a refusal to accept losing. That's between the ears, it can't be taught, and even if he ends up being a great backup for a few years, can't you guys be happy with that?
Other people see so much more potential in him than a backup QB, and that's fine. I'm one of them.
But to dismiss McCarron and rally around Dalton isn't much different than the Patriot fans who thought Bledsoe was the answer and Brady should have been benched the second Drew came back from his injury. How'd that turn out for them? And do you guys realize the similarity between Bledsoe's style of play at QB and Dalton's? The appreciation of regular season stat accumulation while pretending those playoff failures are someone else's fault?
You guys will grow to love McCarron, whether you want to or not. He'll find his way onto the football field and he won't be removed from it until he decides to retire. He has that fire and that drive. He has that experience in big situations, that ability to excel in them rather than lay an egg. Andy Dalton has a career 1:6 TD:INT ratio in playoff games. Russell Wilson? 12:6. Roethlisberger? 21:19. Aaron Rodgers? 23:7. Matt Ryan? 9:7.
You don't get a chance to improve on your playoff stats when you lay an egg in every playoff game.
Remind me again why you guys defend Dalton so much and dismiss McCarron so easily?
He's the one guy on this entire team that could take you from perennial playoff 1 and done to SB contenders.
Drew Bledsoe career playoff TD:INT? 6:12. Tom Brady? 53:26.
You'll learn to love him.
Random Bama fan checking in
