How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 season?

[Triumph]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

Seems we always have a CB designated for the IR...if not more than 1. BB will pretty much plan for IR incidents so it doesn't stop the team from winning with a single player gone.

The Pats havent done a good job of finding CBs in the draft who can play either.

Hopefully the pass defense finally gets fixed because I dont believe NE will win another Super Bowl until it is.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

I think the thing that 'reared its ugly head' the most was the choice to send the house and blitz, thus leaving little 5'9" Hobbs one-on-one with 6'5" Burress.

If you remember after the play, all Hobbs could really do was look to the sidelines and shrug his shoulders like "what the hell did you expect to happen?"

I honestly didn't remember Hobbs' injury being as costly as you're claiming, but I could be wrong.

Lots of folks have short or selective memories here. Hobbs was battling multiple injuries heading into that game to the point his return duties were assigned to Maroney in the hope he could at least just play corner.

People also forget that in 2005 and early 2006 Asante Samuel morphed into something you couldn't trade a bag of balls for. Hobbs ultimately came in in week 8 to replace the waste of a 3rd round pick that was Duane Starks and a .500 team began to turn it around. In week 12 a veteran street FA safety named Artrell Hawkins was added down the stretch and further stabilized a secondary that was rudderless for the first half season absent Harrison functioning as it's collective brain. Then in camp in 2006 Hobbs, after outperforming Asante in half a rookie season, beat out Asante for the starting LCB position until he suffered the same bizzare wrist fracture as Tedy. Although both played through it, with a casted Hobbs being shifted to RCB and slot duties. And playing well enough that Asante ended up with multiple opportunities to pick off really bad QB's (half of his seasons picks off Culpepper and Grossman) and suddenly emerged as a superstar...

EHIII was a better corner than the zebras led his critics to believe. Unfortunately he was increasingly injured as well. Although in that fateful 19th game in 2007 he significantly outplayed Asante until the final minute of the game when the DC hung him out to dry.

 

[SeymourTrophies]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

McCourty's play at safety was sugar-coated by the intense incompetence at the Safety position prior to his switch out there in sub-packages. He was nothing special, just competent.

McCourty was out on his feet last season. He had an awful sophmore slump, which he pressed harder to fix, only to make it worse. The instincts weren't there. Let's hope that was because of a lack of offseason and move on. Injuries sustained after Sterling Moore took out all of our anger for us had little to do with everything going wrong for McCourty all season long.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

My question: if McCourty was "worst starting CB in the NFL" type bad when playing press man coverage, and potential pro bowler when playing zone - why would BB insist upon the former instead of the latter?

Clearly there were lots of confounding issues going on with the passing defense last year that included some poor play and a lack of instinctual pass defending moves from McCourty.

 

[lurker1965]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

Not saying it was not his injury, but maybe teams got "book" on him. It is possible he became know to always fall for double moves and he did not adjust well.

 

[VJCPatriot]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

DMac will be healthy in 2012 and have a full camp to learn his role. I think BB and patricia have plans to use him and they will tailor it for his strengths and weaknesses. Dowling might turn out to be our key player in the secondary when healthy. His size and speed will be needed against the increasingly bigger WRs in the NFL today.

Our safeties are still a mystery to me. Is Tavon Wilson going to be Eugene Wilson part II, which would be a pretty good early impact player, or is he going to be the next Chad Jackson? Is Gregory going to prove to be one of those unheralded but great offseason veteran pickups? Remember Waters, Tyrone Poole, or how about Harrison?

 

[Joey007]

Re: How much did the impact of Devin McCourty's shoulder injury affect his 2011 seaso

I'm still one who blames struggles with guys like McCourty, pass defenses and defenses in general was the lockout, I mean cmon, (Hate to say it since my brother's a very annoying fan of them) but the Packers were 32nd ranked in the league in pass defense, and the year before, they were excellent at it.

McCourty will get better. 2010 better?? I don't know, but all of the 5,000 yard passers, all these gaudy offensive stats were simply due to the lockout hurting defenses more than offenses. So give him some camp time, give him more off-season preparation, let his shoulder heal up, then we'll have a better idea of what kind of player McCourty really is.