Very informative post.
And this thought actually occured to me today after I wrote this blurb in a different thread:
OBJECTIVE #2 (talking about Pre-Season play) is probably:
For Veterans: To Not Play To Your Strengths, But To Play To Strengthen Your Weaknesses
For Rookies/Youth: Play To Find Your Strengths *(and Develop Them)*
* just added
And Im glad you linked this article, and im glad I read it because it saved me for saying something similar and I cant write that well nor find time to cite visual examples.
And I think what I said in the above quoted holds some truth.
For a veteran player especially one with starting experience, the pre-season isnt about dominanting, the team and coaches have spent countless hours analysing game film and practice performance and have a general idea about a player's strengths and weaknesses. And I think the best coaches will put those players in a position to fail in order for them to succeed.
For Williams, I think they want him to master the kick-step technique, but they are asking him to do it in off-coverage, without pressing, that way the opposing WR has space to maneuver and Williams has better opportunity to practice the technique.
Where as a younger player, they are going to ask him to do a myriad of different things and try to indentify his strengths, and rather stress his weaknesses and overwhelm him, they'll put him in a position to succeed by playing around his strengths.
And I think that has been the key part of the Seahawks development system.
Put young players in a situation that caters to thier strengths to be successful and build a winning confidence.
As that player progresses in the system continually challenge him against his weaknesses to develop a more well rounded player.
A good example, would be Sherman who has dramatically improved his run defense over the last two years becoming a more complete player.
And the Seahawks are probably one of the best teams at just letting go of players more so young prospects who dont necessarilly have a strong dependable strength they can utilize or the ones who just arent improving on thier weaknesses when challenged.
Most of us like to analyze these pre-season games by talent vs talent but we have no clue what
these players ultimately are actually trying to accomplish or what thier assignment is.
Player A could have a seemingly dominating day to the outside eye but could still earn negative marks by the coaches if he didnt stay true to his assignments and continually went off-script.
Player B could have had a frustrating day to the outside eye but if he stayed true his assignments and the scripted plan of action and was able to learn and develop from what the coaches wanted from him, then that player could have earned positive remarks.
And that is essentially what pre-season is about, not about winning or dominating but about identifying, learning, growing, processing, and developing accordingly.
Analysing is important to a point but I feel criticism and expectations should be tempered and reserved for the regular season and allow the team to settle on the roster as well as give the players the opportunity to continue to refine thier flaws and polish thier strengths before throwing these guys under the bus and feeding the roadkill to the wolves as busts and wasted signings.
A little understanding and patience can go a long ways.
