i could see the irony in this when the season is midway through. If the Titans start out 2-6 or 3-5, all the VY lovers will start posting the reason is b/c they lost their best receiver, running back, and defensive player.
And, if unfortunately, VY gets injured...then the lovers will point to the regression of the team as a result of his injury, not because they lost their best wideout, rb, and cb. I guess I just have to always be annoyed.
If Vince is injured, it is to show his humanity. Since he can heal, remaining injured is completely by choice.
Because obviously, football is a 1 on 1 sport between quarterbacks... those other 50 something players don't matter!
they were on a 10-win pace while being outscored and buoyed by an abnormal streak of good fortune. 60-yard game-winning FGs; teams collapsing and coughing up 21-point 4Q leads; 3 defensive TDs in a game in which those 3 returns outgained the offense; two games in which the now-departed travis henry totaled 321 rushing yards, and, of course, they won a coin flip to start a certain OT game. considering that rather extensive list and the talent they seem to be losing so far this offseason, i think expecting anything better than last year's 8-8 is foolish.
exactly; or if one isn't successful. leadership, in relation to sports, is really just another way of saying winner. case in point: jeff garcia. leading philadelphia into the playoffs, he was heralded as a leader. it was bounced back and forth here when the texans expressed interest in him... funny how no one was writing about what a great leader he was when his teams in cleveland and detroit were sucking. sure, leadership can stabilize an environment; and yes, a stabilized environment can be more conducive to winning. more conducive? talent. leadership travels about as far as the locker room. on the field of play, far more often than not, talent wins out. it's why a "leader" like major applewhite is a coach and not playing the NFL. it's, as you stated, overblown.
Of course, they also lost two of the four games they lost with the new QB by a grand total of 2 points, one on a missed field goal of their own. And they lost a running back, but they also drafted a rookie in the first round last year. There's no way to really tell how good or bad they'll be at this point, especially given that we're in April and the draft hasn't even happened. But Texans fans have spent the last five years trying to justify how they could be good with Carr that it seems that they've really convinced themselves that QB is "just another position" on the team. It's not a coincidence that the teams that are consistently successful are the ones with the great QB's. The only teams in the last several years that have been year-in and year-out good are the Colts and Patriots, along with the Eagles when McNabb was healthy. If you have a great QB, you can change a lot of other pieces and struggle in a lot of areas and stay good. Whether Vince will become that great QB is still up in the air, but he showed plenty of signs of that last year.
Certainly, leadership without talent is not going to get you anywhere. On the flipside, though, talent without leadership gets you nowhere either.
It's also not a coincidence that the consistently successful quarterbacks are the ones with at least pretty good talent around them (the Eagles have always had an outstanding offensive line along with Brian Westbrook, the Colts talent goes without saying, etc.).
Then again, they've had virtually no receivers and Westbrook was a part time player for most of their run (Duce Staley and Buckhalter were also parts of their backfield at various times). Westbrook wasn't even on the team when they started their consecutive runs to the NFC championsip game. Kind of like the Texans having once constant over the past 5 years (Carr), the Eagles had basically one constant throughout their best-in-the-NFC period (McNabb - plus the coach). Similarly with the Colts, they've changed out running backs and receivers (Wayne, Stokley, tignt ends) seamlessly. It's a lot easier to change other parts of a team when you have a great QB that stabilizes everything - that's why those teams are the ones that are consistently successful, as opposed to going up and down. Makes those new players look a whole lot better, too. Teams like Tampa Bay and Baltimore won it all, but they didn't have that QB that could help them sustain that success, so as quickly as they went up, they went down again.
Major Applewhite's leadership skills didn't cost him a chance as an NFL starter; his lack of talent on that level did. In fact, it could be argued possibly (though I don't have sufficient knowledge of the situation) that he got starts over a slightly more talented QB at UT because of his leadersihp skills. If talent, coaching, and schemes are equal between two teams and team 'A' has better on-the-field leadership, team 'A' wins. But, as you and I have agreed, many overinflate the importance of it--notice how many other factors have to be equal.
The players might've switched, but the talent level remained fairly high. Also, you left out the superb offensive line play, which is a huge constant with the success for the Eagles and Colts. It's funny that you mention the Eagles - I think they're an example for the case you're arguing against. Twice in the last five years, McNabb has gone down for an extended period, and a relatively mediocre backup (AJ Feeley and Jeff Garcia) has come in behind a dominant offensive line and led the team to significant success for 5-7 games. With Tampa and Baltimore, it's not merely that those teams lacked elite QBs. They lacked elite talent anywhere on the field on offense. The running backs were subpar, receivers average at best, and offensive lines mediocre. While Dilfer and Johnson played some role in those teams fall back to mediocrity, the lack of talent anywhere else was also crucial.
Out of the ruins Out from the wreckage Can't make the same mistake this time We are the children The last generation We are the ones they left behind And i wonder when we are ever gonna change it Living under the fear till nothing else remains We don't need another hero We don't need to know the way home All we want is life beyond the thunderdome