Time to Give Chad Jackson Some Slack

TomBrady'sGoat said:

The Chad Jackson obsession from both sides is annoying. Cut him some slack, but at the same time shut up about him until he does anything in the pros.

He's not the second coming of Jerry Rice. He's not a bust. He's a rookie who can't sniff the field due to injuries, immaturity, or whatever.

That said I can't blame anybody who is worrying that he might be a bust. 5 games into his rookie year and the best and most familiar comparison is Bethel. Hopefully by the end of the year this notion seems foolish.

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Brownfan80 said:

It is one of the positions that is the slowest to develop in the National Football League. It's been shown time and again that many of todays star recievers came out of the gates slow. Rookies like Moss or Glenn or Boldin are rare. They are not what Jackson should be compared to.

And neither should he be compared to our most recent bust player after one TC, 4 preseason games and 5 weeks in th NFL. He's not Bethel Johnson. He's a rookie. And a Rookie that has had an injury.

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MoLewisrocks said:

I was going to post this yesterday but decided to wait for the next CJ thread instead. It's Felger's take so don't shoot the messenger but take it for what it's worth as an FYI.

Yesterday on Felger's show he talked about him again at length because he actually was allowed (or decided) to talk to the media which is not the norm for rookies at Gillette. From the snipets I heard he's not the most easily understood or articulate of the bunch. They were asking him about his progress with the injury and the playbook and basically what the hangup was.

As Felger deciphered it IHO Chad confirmed problem is two fold (and he says it jives with much of what he had been hearing). The playbook itself was never a problem - he understands the offense in theory just fine. But on the field he cannot yet put that understanding into practice because the game at this level is moving too fast for him. There is no time to think through what he knows, and until he gets past that often common hurdle and the game slows down for him and he is able to react instinctively based on that knowledge he will be noticably limited. That is why they are proceeding slowly with him and giving him just a series of plays to focus on each week per game. Unfortunately with that approach there is no guarantee as the game progresses that his number (plays) will be called.

The other problem Felger believes he is having is rooted in understanding what is expected of you in the NFL when injured. Apparently in college players are not always expected to practice unless they are 100% yet they are generally allowed to play unless just too seriously injured to contribute. This tends to feed a mentality where you don't always push yourself or practice hard but you expect to play come Saturday because of your talent. As we all know it doesn't work that way here given the comparatve complexity of the NFL game, particularly for youngsters. Felger says he has to figure out how to determine when it is really in his or their best interest to back off and when it is time to push through not being ideally 100% - because as Brady and BB will often tell you no NFL player is once we get to week 1.

The elevated focus on detecting and treating injuries at this level may have led him to conclude he was not expected to extend himself until he felt he was 110% ready and he has lost valuable on field time in the system in the interim. Agents too will sometimes feed that belief in the hope that they are protecting their asset from potentially looking bad in what can be a pretty unforgiving league. Better to be unavailable than appear to be performing poorly out of the gate because that next contract always looms for them. He seems to be practicing consistently in the last couple of weeks but he admits he remains behind the curve in adjusting to the speed of the game. And that is simply not going to change until he makes it his focus to get on the field as much as possible. Around here you insure you do that from Monday to Friday. Veterans learn that talent alone won't keep you in the NFL. You have to prove you can reliably get or stay on the field, and they learn to read themselves injury wise and balance the risk/reward of playing through some level of discomfort vs. being labeled not durable.

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Brownfan80 said:

You call for objectivity, but then yourself make the comparison to Bethel.

There's a MUCH better comparison to be made regarding CJ:

CJ = 95% of NFL Rookie WRs. Did Bethel's rookie production fit into that 95%? Sure, but just because they're in the same majority doesn't mean they're heading down the same path.

It is one of the positions that is the slowest to develop in the National Football League. It's been shown time and again that many of todays star recievers came out of the gates slow. Rookies like Moss or Glenn or Boldin are rare. They are not what Jackson should be compared to.

And neither should he be compared to our most recent bust player after one TC, 4 preseason games and 5 weeks in th NFL. He's not Bethel Johnson. He's a rookie. And a Rookie that has had an injury.

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TomBrady'sGoat said:

I didn't make a comparison to Bethel, I said that I understand the comparison. Same position, same team, same round, same inability to get on the field. I see it as being a knee-jerk comparison and don't believe it myself, but I can understand where it's coming from.

I don't understand all the people who have proclaimed him a Deion replacement, a #1 receiver, or have banners in their sigs promoting his greatness. The guy has done nothing in the NFL.

Talent and potential used to excite me more but the Pats have taught me that results matter much more than potential.

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patriotsrule said:

You guys should listen to PFW in Progress. Casale address this post at the start of the show and said Thomase wasn't even there when stuff was going on. He asked Casale what happened. He responded directly to here. I have to say, he made a good point. If he made up things that happened there, he would have gotten into trouble because he actually works for the team and Fred Kirsch agreed. If you think about it, he's saying it on Patriots.com and if it was something that wasn't true, wouldn't Belichick or Kraft put a stop to it? I don't know, the way he broke it down on the radio, it doesn't sound like he made anything up. He also said, Thomase only reported one small thing and the joke wasn't what he was referring to in the first place. He also said you could e-mail Thomase and ask him whether or not what he was saying is true. Anyways, you guys should listen.

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BradyManny2344 said:

The fact that BB has actually let Chad Jackson talk to the media when you normally hear next to nothing from rookies has to tell you something. If there was any validity to the CJ rumors, BB would probably not be happy enough with CJ to even give him the chance to defend himself in the media.

My guess is, what has unfolded goes something like this:

Chad Jackson injures his hamstring. Chad Jackson comes back for 3 days and injures his hamstring again. Patriots and CJ decide to come back slow, both physically and in terms of learning the offense. This isn't fast enough for the negative nancies and old farts who for some reason or another just don't like the look of Chad Jackson and assume a lot of things about him without any basis (ie, just look how grossly blown out of proportion the fan's night incident was, is Boston like the town in Footlose or something? guy was just trying to make a joke).

Which leads us to now, when the rumors have continued to grow, again with no basis in reality, and finally, BB and the Pats are letting CJ talk so he can put out a positive message and essentially defend himself from the completely baseless and unwarranted character assault that certain members of the media have launched on him.

At least that's my take on things. I've noticed everytime I weigh in on Chad Jackson, the thread ends. So, this very well could be the last post in this thread again

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5 Rings for Brady!! said:

He's a few weeks behind, and we are only a few weeks into the year. For comparison's sake, how well does Caldwell seem to know the offense?

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BradyManny2344 said:

Casale has disliked Chad Jackson for some time (edited out harshness against Casale b/c I think patriotsrule is Tom Casale or one of his closest friends). The reason why we can't disprove his take on the fan night thing is b/c he won't say what happened! He just keeps being ambigious and foreboding.

Tomase might not have been there, but he probably spoke to someone who was, which frankly makes him a much more reliable source than Casale.

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I'm Ron Borges? said:

Maybe he can't say what happened, did you ever think of that? Those guys aren't Felger who can just say anything. They work for the team and I would imagine have more restrictions on what they can say. My guess is if Thomase saw the same thing as Casale, we would know about it in a second but because he works for the team, he was told to not be specific.

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