maybe our defintions of a game-changer differ: he's not among the leaders in YPC and he's not even leading his own team in TDs. he's a very, very, very good WR but he's not a game-changer, IMO. he's scored 16 TDs over his last 36 games: boldin has 11 this year in 11 games; smith is averaging nearly 5 more yards a catch this year; and moss has doubled johnson's TD output over his last 36 games. and all 3 have TDs of 60+ yards this year; johnson does not. in fact, AJ has just 2 catches over 30 yards. i mean, wes welker catches a lot of passes (he's tied with AJ this year) - he's not a game-changer. he impacts a game; i would never argue otherwise. but name a game that johnson just flat took over... when was the last time he busted a short route into a long score?... how many times over the last 2-3 years have we wondered why he wasn't getting thrown to more, and do you really think it was ALL because of our QB, scheme and/or the defense? uh... sorry, man - i really don't know how to respond to that. he's certainly not "only in on 4-5 plays a game"; that sounds like someone making a judgement based on a box score. he's getting constant attention all game long from the opposing offense. he's a disruptive force. unfortunately... but the offense around AJ is better than the defense around mario. AJ's catches and total yards never had any impact on the offense until they got a better QB, WRs, TE, OL, RBs and coaches. and even with that, he remains a great possession receiver. i dislike these discussions because i feel too negative toward a very good player whom i like and respct as a player quite a bit. but i think AJ is ever-so slightly overrated by texan fans.
Oh man. gucci, are you watching the games? Are you watching Mario? The guy is flat out coming hard on every single play. The only time he "disappears" is when the other teams run plays away from him, which they do a lot....by design. I would argue that he was "in on" almost every single pass play against Cleveland. He was totally in Quinn's head. A big part of why he sucked so hard was because he saw Mario coming every single time he dropped back.
Agreed with you and Ric. I don't know how anyone can say Mario "disappears often" and is "in on only 5-6 plays per game."
Like I said, Mario can be spectacular at times, the Browns game is a good example of that. But he can also be neutralized, look at the Ravens and Colts game. I'm not hating on Mario by any means, I know it kinda sounds that way. But my whole point is that I don't really buy the argument that AJ isn't gamechanger or playmaker compared to a guy like Mario. Name a game AJ has taken over? You're right in that Mario is getting constant attention from the offense all game long but you can't tell me that the same is happening to AJ on the otherside. 9 catches for 131 yards and a TD vs. Indy 10 catches for 178 yards and a TD vs. Miami 11 catches fro 141 yards vs. Detroit 11 catches for 143 yards vs. Cin 10 catches for 116 yards vs. Cleveland
And as such, you do much better to play up AJ's performance and strengths than attempting to dismiss Mario's. Much, much better.
The biggest "gamechanger" this year, by far, is Spanky McRosenfumble. (unless you all were looking for good gamechanging!)
gucc... WADR, i *did* look at the colt game: i watched tony ugoh commit three penalties - holding, tripping and a false start - in a 1:05 span near the end of the half trying to contain williams. he's neutralized because teams are game-planning for him and it's far easier to neutralize a single DE than a WR. if they can land a space-eating DT or another halfway decent rush end and can rebulld the secondary... you're going to be seeing a lot more of mario williams. name a great DE, and i'll name his nearly-equally great DT or DE. he can't do it alone. thing about mario - his sacks and big plays are always huge. he's not sackng guys when we're down 41-3. he may only have one sack in a game but it's almost always when they need it the most. i can name countless games he's turned or very nearly turned by making plays. he's undeniably among the 5 best defensive players in football, imo. again, my contention is only that i don't think AJ's one of the elite WRs in the league; i think he's a tier below that: still very, very good. his biggest and best catch, probably of his career, was that 4th down grab this year against the dolphins - clutch; went up and took it away from a defender and saved the game. wondeful play. now name his second greatest catch, where he turned a game on its side............. running up catch totals is nice; i think he does draw a defense's attention, too. but i've watched other WRs receive the same attention and they seem to make plays far more often than AJ. and you want to talk about being neutralized: the steelers (until the game was a blow-out), titans, jaguars, vikings, ravens and colts all neutralized AJ this year. that's six of 11 games where he was a non-factor - more than half their games: what elite WR gets marginalized in more than half his team's games? 30 catches (5 after the steelers had built a 35-3 lead) and 1 TD in 6 games against arguably the 6-best teams on our schedule so far. i recognize there are other contributing factors, but..... it shouldn't be THAT easy to negate a guy as good as a few too many texan fans think johnson is.
I hope they dont take away one from the play when Garrard tripped and then tried to run and got tackled for a loss.
not only that but he is coming harder at the end of games. He turns on the gas when the line is worn out. The dude is a complete freak.
Mario had 3 sacks on Thursday night against the Broncos last year and 3 on Monday night this year. Both times we were wearing our ketchup bottle uniforms. Great players step it up on the big stage. The MNF crew just couldn't stop slobbering on him. That was good to hear. The 2006 draft "controversy" seems like it was ages ago, doesn't it?
best outcome ever! Seriously the Bush and Vince haters would only accept a third option. With Vince not even starting and Bush having as many rushing yards as Mario since week 8.....
I thought it was interesting when ESPN showed the summaries of each player on the screen. Sure, the announcers were going out of their way to point out that Houston had made the right decision, but they still couldn't quite admit that they were totally wrong about VY or Bush. They show Mario's highly convincing sack total, and then what do they show of Bush and Vince? Total yards, rushing and receiving (if I'm remembering that right) for Bush. For Vince, just the win/loss record. Come on, ESPN. If the best thing you can think of to praise Vince is his record, perhaps he wasn't the biggest reason FOR that record. On this same team, Kerry Collins has amassed a pretty damn good record as well. Just put his crappy stats (QB rating and all) up on the screen and admit that not only were the Texans RIGHT to draft Mario, but the Saints and Titans were WRONG to draft Bush and Vince in the spots they did (I know an arguement can be made that Bush will still live up to his potential...but he hasn't yet and I personally don't think he will). Edit: And what makes the Reggie Bush thing even sweeter is that we got a guy in the THIRD round making third round money doing what it was everyone expected BUSH to do in his rookie year. Slaton is outproducing Bush as a running back, and he's doing in the way that Bush would have been expected to do it, namely using his speed to break off long, TD scoring runs.
I was thinking about that while watching the replay of Slaton busting that 45 yard run to the outside last night. That's exactly the kind of thing Bush was supposed to bring to the table, yet to date he still hasn't shown the ability to do it. How ironic is it that, after passing on Bush and getting a stud DE like Mario, we get a BETTER version of Bush 2 years later.....in the 3rd round. So we pretty much got over on the Saints not once, but twice. It will be nice when this decision finally starts to show more in the win/loss column.
Yeah, but only one of the teams has been to its conference championship game (or even posted a winning season).
Record without AJ last season: 2-5 Record with AJ last season: 6-3 Too bad he's not a gamechanger though...
