His job becomes easy when he has perhaps the best cover safety of all time, solid corners, and a good pass rush. He's perfect for that defense because his mistakes can be covered up and allow him freedom to take risks and make plays. That's when he's at his best (he was much better the year we had Dunta and him together here). He's better at coverage than we saw from him here last year, but still sub-par. We had absolute garbage around him in the secondary and little pass rush. Bottom line is we needed an overhaul in the secondary and Wade's defense calls for two good cover safeties. There's absolutely no grounds to b**** about letting Pollard go based on the way our defense played.
I hated Pollard's game for our team last year. Loved his physicality though. Would have made a solid special teams and situational guy. The thing about Pollard last year was that he brought something to the table on a defense that had no identity. At least he brought something... Y'all are making WAY too big of a deal about him "quitting". It was a contract year and the season was already over. He did what was best for him. Look at what happened to Adrian Petersen on the last game of the season.
The Texans may not have gone after Joseph if they had drafted Peterson. Watt was and is an awesome pick. Besides the guy they supposedly wanted was Aldon Smith who has had a great year too, but I was not too high on him.
Let's start greasing these skids now because I would be shocked if JJ isn't back returning punts next year: He was 2nd in the NFL in attempts, averaged 10.6 yards per attempt (14th) and was one of only 16 players to bring at least one punt back for 6 points. Factor in zero turnovers (prior to, you know...) and JJ most assuredly did not suck. He wasn't a world-beater; but average to above-average.
I don't necessarily blame him for it, but it made it clear that he either didn't want to be or didn't expect to be a Texan this year. You don't refuse to play a game for a team you want to re-sign you.
I'll be surprised if Jacoby is back. There has been no improvement in his WR game, and he continues to make rookie mistakes as a punt returner. He is getting paid too much to play that bad. He is not special and can easily be replaced in free agency and/or the draft.
Bringing Jacoby back at his salary is a waste of resources unless you literally cannot find a replacement at all. If he had any value as an actual receiver it would be one thing, because as the poster mentioned he is not bad as a PR. He just makes too much money to be a decent PR and a terrible WR.
I expect Jacoby will only be back if they really fail at improving the WR spot in the offseason. If they draft someone in the first couple rounds or sign a notable FA, then Jacobs drops down one more spot on the depth chart. Down to 4th (hopefully 5th if Lestar Jean improves). At that point, all you really have him for is his punt returns, and I'm sure they can find someone to do that job at least as well as Jacoby.
I'd rather not, Peterson's still a work in progress while Watt is already full-on beast. As for Pollard he's a much better fit in Baltimore's scheme, not sad he's gone at all.
The biggest factor in Jacoby returning is Kubiak's love affair with "his" guys. Jacoby doesn't get resigned last summer by coaches with a sense of fair evaluation. He's an average return guy and a piss poor vertical route receiver. The obvious move is to cut him and draft 1 or 2 WRs, targeting one that can take over PR duties as well. I personally think chances are less than 10% that Kubiak cuts Jacoby. Best case scenario is that Smith needs to cut $1M more to retain Mario and Jacoby's the last contract in the way.
I think a shortened offseason which featured a much-needed focus on defense played a much bigger part in his resigning than this continuing dead end idea that Kubiak can't fairly evaluate a team that, at one point, was 10-3 last year and is now thought by many to be a Super Bowl contender. I don't think they'll hesitate to replace him as the #3 WR. But I think there's room on this roster for him as a PR/4th-5th WR, if Kubiak so chooses. FYI: prior to the Raven game, Jacoby hadn't fumbled a punt since 2008. He's averaged 10.2 YPR with 3 TDs in 179 career attempts.
Peterson was pretty awful at corner this year, worse than the Kareem Jackson/Jason Allen combo. He was better than Jackson was a rookie (although I can't imagine anyone worse), and he still shows promise, but he wasn't good at all. I wouldn't trade JJ Watt for a special teams player/project corner.
