At the end of the day I don't think it was talent or athleticism or character that led to his departure. I think he was dense... Talent is only as valuable to Bill as it's ability to do the job as he assigns it on the field. He would rather work with a lesser or more limited talent he can trust instinctively than an athletic kid with lousy instincts who is a loose cannon on the field. He can do more with less as long as less can do the job as coached...allowing Bill to adapt the rest of his cast around any known limitations.
We will never know, but we have clues.
Up through last season BB kept putting him out on the field.
After 4 years as a starter, all of sudden he is gone with Chung, a ster, a 2 yr vet who played sparingly in those 2 years, and a 2nd year UDFA who's play last year left a lot to be desired.
Its not as if we acquired such a wealth of talent at the position that there were just 4 better players.
Character pretty much goes out the window when you look over to 92 who has under any criteria much more baggage.
All I have left is 2 choices.
1) A swift decline in skills. Now this is more possible this year with the lockout and no contact with the team for months. Meriwhether could easily have partied it up for 6 months then showed up in Foxboro physically inferior to the condition he left.
2) Coachability. If he has continued to make mistakes, which we pretty much agree on here, there comes a point where an acceptable amount of coaching up reaches the point of doubt it will ever be learned.
I don't know any of the facts that would help give us the answer but these are the 2 possibilities I can see at this point.
The other thing that puzzles me is that it seems blatantly obvious that we have at least 2 dead men walking on this roster because we need a G and a TE. Why wouldn't we have kept Meriwhether as one of those in order to make a trade? Surely with another couple of days to work on it, that could have happened. This leads me to believe there is some kind of attitude issue, and BB just wanted him out of the building.
Very bizarre indeed.
