DarkVictory23 wrote:A_Biased_Fan wrote:
I would agree with you, but Russ did include himself as someone who needs to play better. If he just came out and said everyone else needs to get better then yeah, that's bad. But this is saying that everyone, including him and coaches, need to pick it up and be better and make adjustments.
Let's not forget, DK also said teams figured them out and they didn't make adjustments. So between him and Russ, and what Brandon Marshal was saying, I'm thinking more than a few players want adjustments from management on how the offense is run.
That's true, he did include himself and to be fair to Russ, I think him trying to say 'I'm tired of being hit' might have been his way of trying to somewhat change what was originally reported as a specific criticism of the O-Line into sort of a general commentary against failures of the entire offense (which is what I hope he was trying to do even if it still kind of comes off as a crit of the O-Line).
And as I said, the primary culprit for our problems, to me, still lie with Pete. That doesn't change what Russ failed to do (and some of the takes I see trying to protect his failure to complete accurate and timely short and middle reads by referencing their magical spot in the progression or his failure to make pre-snap adjustments to his reads as if that's something a HOF level QB shouldn't be expected are ridiculous), but our entire offensive philosophy has needed change for multiple seasons now.
That's going to require Pete to develop the humility to finally accept that he doesn't know how to run an offense and never has and I think Russ is also going to have to accept some changes to an offense that hopefully will not be asking him to make highlight reel plays on such a regular basis.
Overall, I personally just think the O-Line has been too much of a scapegoat for our problems this year. I'm not saying we shouldn't want better than average (which is what our O-Line mostly was, slightly better than average during the early part of the season before every team started dropping two high safeties on us every play, every game) but we also can't act like average OL play leads to some of the worst QB pressure and hit rates in the league. The difference needs to be laid at the feet of our scheme and yes, to some degree, our QB.
Great post!! This is a complex situation with a number of 'actors' contributing to the results we've seen over the years now. You can't just scapegoat one person or group, whether it's Russ, Pete, the OC, the O-line. Nor can you place any one above criticism.. They all have strengths and faults that sometimes mask the others shortcomings but at other times exacerbate them.
I'm personally not a fan of Russ leaving, nor am I a fan of him implying that him getting hit is (maybe) someone else's issue to fix. Everybody needs to be better and hopefully learn from this situation. Pete needs to evolve a bit. Russ needs to run the plays and hit the yards that are there for him. The OC needs to be a bit more creative / aggressive, whether running or passing. And the OLine... they just need to build on what they did last year. They were slightly better than middle of the pack. Continuity and another piece should help. The key to it all lies between Pete, Russ, John, and Shane.
This thing is at a tipping point and it can go either way. The team will either come out of this better than they were before or change into something else and God knows what the results of that transition will be.
Part of me thinks all the mad talk from Russ is him trying to leverage his position to force what he wants... and at the same time push the faults of last year away from himself. I don't like it, but it's the same thing Aaron Rogers did and it got him some of what he wanted.
Another part of me thinks (and this is entirely reading between the lines / shooting at the moon) that maybe the first initial meetings between Waldron, Pete and Russ somehow haven't gone well. Who's zoom'n who? I'm not sure. Could be that Waldron and Pete are aligned and Russ doesn't like it and is taking this passive aggressive tact. Could be that Russ and Wally (yup. Just made that up) are aligned and want to make sure the O is run more aggressively, so subtly forcing Pete's hand.
Or it could be that Waldron has come in and having played the hawks now for a few seasons and looking at our offense from a passing game coordinators eyes, sees some weaknesses in Russ's game that he doesn't like and has tipped the possibility of trading russ for someone he feels can run what he feels he wants to do.
It's just odd some of the stuff that has come out of Wilsons mouth since seasons end. The declaration that he still thinks he's a great QB in this league had an odd ring. A very defensive ring. And that was before the Waldron hire. Then all the talk since... something is definitely afoot. Just hope they can work it out.