Patriot_in_NY
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 8,785
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My point is that the drops were not physical mistakes, they were mental mistakes and he simply choked because of the playoff pressure. How can you trust a guy like that? I say bring him back to training camp, but don't pencil him into the lineup. Maybe he can be a No. 3 guy; I like Gaffney as a No. 2 possesion receiver. We need a speedy stud at No. 1.
I'd agree with that. Looking at the "big picture" of the whole season, we squeezed him into a spot that he was NOT prepared for (#1) and perhaps that because of unreasonable expectation, his gaffs last night put a little bit of extra sting into last obvious WR deficiencies.
I'd say that, certainly in my case, because he seemed to step up into that role, towards the end of the year. That caused me (and I bet alot of you guys) to actually begin to say "hey, we actually got some decent receivers, perhaps we'll be okay their after all"
As I sit back now and go over it, what we saw last night was that despite the gains that these guys made all year (learning the system, stepping up on a few key plays, ect....), there is NO HIDING the fact that were playing that position all year with #3 or #4 guys (with Gaffney possibly with #2 potential). The Deion saga of early on could not be painted over. Don't get me wrong, I put 75% (minimum) of that on Deion himself, but I think we all wanted to hope we got out of that situation without cost. It was an illusion.
When it mattered most, TB was not comfortable with Reche (at least) and he reverted to that panic "TE first" mode that made him force that last ball into coverage (he had Heath Evans underneath). To get to the SB requires us to gunsling last nights game with the Colts. To do that we needed TB to be TB of course, but we also needed to give him some bullets. Asking him to do it with #3 or passibly #2's is asking ALOT.
That's my take anyway. Not saying it's right, it's just me trying to make sense out of it all.
Bottom line, Reche gets a pass from me. It's not his fault our WR situation was so F'ed up from the getgo this year, starting with "dollar sign" Deion's antics.
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