Taylor is a liability. He can't pick up the blitz and I don't trust him with the ball.
It speaks volumes that Taylor was many posters binky, but you are the first poster who will come to his defense after two days. Tay;or's also averaging about one yard a carry and reception.
1) Never was my binky, don't think too highly of him, never was impressed, never said I was impressed. Good try with the old standby of the "I listen to talk radio" crowd, "speaks volumes." Nut uh.
I did say he's 23, a 2nd year guy. You are quicker than the Foxborough brain trust at evaluating talent when guys are still on their rookie deals, but then, you probably also have inside information that they don't have access to. Wait, that's the opposite of the case.
If BB wants to ditch Taylor, fiiiiiine. But me even SAYING his name in this conversation is a measure of how little stock I put in LeVeon Bell.
Again, if BB wants to ditch Taylor and kick the tires on Bell, huzzah! Speaking NON-sarcastically, he might have access to all sorts of good intel suggesting it's worth a flyer. I don't see great demonstrated value in Taylor, but I do see a guy who is cheap to keep and who NE apparently does not think they're ready to dump. I don't see great demonstrated value in Bell in recent years, and I do not see a guy who is cheap to keep.
Stephenson also has a fumbling reputation and can be a joke on the blitz. But Stephenson is an every down back, not third down.
You really don't want Harris in this role.
We're really thin.
Stevenson (with a v) has a "fumbling reputation"?
He fumbled once in Week 1 and they put him in New England Rookie Fumble Protocol until Week 5 against Houston. He has not fumbled since. He's an effing rookie. So his NFL "fumbling reputation" is that he fumbled that one time 10 weeks ago.
As for his blitz pickup work -- see, I'm open-minded, not just an attack dog -- show me some clips where he's been the liability. I love his game, but I never focused on that aspect, more him as a weapon. I was saying in the preseason it looked like he had all kinds of upside, but then, you mean one very specific skill. (And bear in mind, I might just be buying Stevenson at the top. Who knows. He could plummet from here on.)
As for Bell the value proposition: As late as May 28 of this year, Bell was saying the Steelers "should have paid [him] what [he] was worth when they had the chance." So putting aside that league min. for him is way higher than Taylor, whom he'd almost certainly just bump off the roster, do you think he's playing for league minimum? The rest of this argument will be about a hyopothetical, humble AF Le'veon Bell. (although he said the right things when the Ravens cut him.)
By the way, his position vis a vis Pittsburgh was that he didn't want to be paid just like the no. 1 guy at his position, he should also get no. 2 receiver money. Or some such nonsense. Clearly that's not on the table.
I mean, again, for league minimum, sure, no attachment to JJ, if the brass has none. But my gut says its a mistake. It's that "build my fantasy team from 2015" instinct, at runningback, the position where the wear and tear hits hardest. The decline is there, it's happened. Before he even proved he was worth it, given what he's proven thus far, he'd have to disprove the default assumption, which is that he's not.
Here's one quote from an article about his performance against Miami...
But Bell appeared to struggle with blitz pickups against Miami and again lacked the burst that had made him so elusive in Pittsburgh, where he had three 1,200-plus-yard rushing seasons in his first five years. His
rushing yards over expected — a statistic that measures the difference between actual rushing yards and expected rushing yards — was minus-1.53 yards per carry, the lowest among Ravens running backs and one of the worst rates in the NFL.
So I mean... to say one of the guys you have "at times" was a joke in blitz pickup, and replacing him in that role with a guy most recently spotted being a joke in blitz pickup... you have to be betting that what you see ain't what you get.
I don't think you and I know what BB & co. think taylor's upside is... or whether they're just twirling their whistles around with no reason NOT to cut him (he's cheap).
I don't think you and I know any reason we would pick up Bell except for his
previous abilities. But if he came as cheap as the league will allow, and BB & co. agree, I wouldn't squawk about dumping Taylor for him. I'd be astonished at dumping any of the other backs, and I am not too sure about the Taylor move. But sure, if they do it, I'm not going to ***** about how much we need JJ Taylor.