strngplyr

...I just found this funny, you should proof read your insults.

PATSNUTme

It's when a baseball is hit out of the park in fair territory, but that's not important right now.

patsfaninpittsburgh

Perhaps I did get a lil' too cute.

Pithy retorts are always difficult.

PATSNUTme

Almost impossible when you have been banned from the thread.

BelizePats

If anything this just speaks to our depth!

JackBauer

Oh, I don't know. I guess if you think of a home run as a Jevon Kearse, then certainly Chung wouldn't qualify.

I don't delineate talent evaluation along baseball analogy lines, so there are no singles, doubles, triples, etc. Basically, I view a home run as a successful starter; a guy who doesn't need to contribute right away but improves every year, stays relatively healthy, etc. I realize that's a pretty modest standard, but so it goes.

Deus Irae

Well, then, Chung is clearly not a home run. It's cut and dry.

__________________
"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius

Rob0729

It takes three years to evaluate a draft and people are calling Cunningham and Spikes busts two games into their second season. Jeesh!

I have an idea. Let's go over to Spikes' twitter account and overanalyze every one of his tweets. I don't think anyone has tried that yet. I don't know if anyone realize this, but his bio says his location is "Hell on Earth". I would never expect any local media to write an article on this or anything, but I think that clearly means he hates to be a Patriot. I know this theory is so radical and new to you all, so please take a minute to let it set in.

lamafist

I don't have the data to back this up, but my general impression is that injury rate graphed out by year would look like an inverted bell curve, with injuries being more likely in the first couple of years, tailing off, and then becoming more common again as the players approach their mid 30's.

This should actually be expected. By all accounts, the difference between the physical toll of playing in the NFL vs. college is an order of magnitude. Makes sense when you consider that you're now exclusively colliding with the biggest, strongest and fastest 2% of recent college players.

Many players discover that while their bodies held up under the strain of NCAA Division 1 football, they start to break down under the demands of the NFL. I remember one orthopedist quoted, I believe in the Globe, referring to it as the "tissue issue." There's a great deal of variance from person to person in the strength and elasticity of our soft tissues -- our ligaments, tendons, fascia, nerves, etc. that results primarily from one's genes. Environmental factors, like poor developmental nutrition, can have a detrimental effect, but there's really nothing one could do to improve it, short of getting oneself bitten by a radioactive spider.

A lot of players end up washing out of the NFL not because they were unskilled, but because some part of their bodies just didn't have enough tensile strength. I believe, on this board, the common diagnose is being "made of glass." These guys generally wash out of the league in a few years, so as you start looking at 3rd, 4th, and 5th year veterans, you're looking at a population where the innately injury prone have been weeded out, and thus, you'd see a decrease in injury rate... until they get older, and between the amount of cumulative wear on their bodies, and a naturally diminishing healing rate, and the injury rate rises again.

lamafist

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit taking banned supplements.