Ah, 2009. It was just over three short years ago and everything was going so smoothly, especially out in the desert of Arizona; gas prices were down, the country wasn’t divided over who to vote for (because the election just passed and everyone went back to not caring about politics for three and a half years at a time), and the Arizona Cardinals were coming off their first Super Bowl appearance… EVER! It didn’t matter that they lost a close game in which they completely outplayed their opponents, the Pittsburgh Steelers, for the entire game except for the final minute of each half (to be fair, it wasn’t the Cardinals fault that James Harrison and Mike Wallace made two of the most memorable plays in recent Super Bowl history). To many franchise this could have been heartbreaking; to the Cardinals, it was just a minor speed bump, because they were finally RELEVANT again. And with young stars like Larry Fitzgerald, there was so much to look forward to that the past was insignificant. Since then, the desert has become a lonely place for the charismatic star with the flowing hair and bright future. His fellow wide receiver, who completed the most dynamic pass-catching duo in the league, Anquan Boldin bolted to Baltimore while his quarterback, Kurt Warner, decided it was time to hang up his spikes and move on with his life. Now, Fitz was all that was left of the once-vaunted Cardinals air-attack. He spent the last few years on losing teams with the likes of Matt Lienart, John Skelton, and Kevin Kolb as his quarterbacks. Yikes! Did the Arizona front office realize what they had done? They took a Maserati and stuffed a 1998 Volvo engine in it and hoped it would run just as well.
(Just over three short years ago Fitzgerald was scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl, and look how happy he was! Oh, how things have changed... http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/superbwlsm/sprbwl15.jpg)
This is the problem with the NFL (and football in general) when it comes to personnel decisions and talent evaluation: football is the ultimate team sport, in which each player’s success is completely dependent upon his teammates. When you have great players around you, it isn’t difficult to look like a good one. Take the quarterback position, for example (the most teammate-reliant position in all of sports). Alex Smith, of the San Francisco 49ers, spent the first five years of his career struggling through losing seasons on bad teams and being labeled a bust. Suddenly, within the last two years, his team got good (and I mean REALLY good) and he began to turn into not that bad of a quarterback. Just a year after many questioned the ‘Niners resigning of him, he outdueled Drew Brees in the playoffs as he led TWO go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter to beat the Saints. Smith is an example of how quick a quarterback can go from cast-off to hero thanks, mostly, to a change in the players around him (not to say he didn’t improve or his coaching didn’t get better, they both did, but a lot of it had to do with the rest of the team around him getting better). On the opposite end of this spectrum is the embattled Michael Vick. He, as much as any player in sports history, has had his share of ups and downs. However, this year many people are blaming Vick for the Eagles’ struggles and calling for his benching in favor of rookie Nick Foles. Once you closely watch the film of the Eagles’ games, you would have to be crazy to say Nick Foles would fair any better. Did Vick just suddenly get that much worse once he signed his contract extension? No! He is missing 60% of his starting linemen! Let me repeat that: 60 PERCENT! Most teams struggle when one of their starting linemen goes down (ask the Packers last year), now imagine losing three of them. The Saints game this past Monday perfectly summed up the Eagles’ problems: they can’t block anyone! The Saints defense is not just the league’s worst, they are on pace to become the NFL’s all-time worst defense. Yet, they held the Eagles to just 13 points. My point: it’s damn hard to do anything on offense when people get to tee-off on your quarterback. The play that sums up just how bad the Eagles’ line is came on the opening drive of the game. The Eagles were moving the ball just fine, got into Saints territory, and looked like they were going to move up and down the field at will. Then, the Saints decided to blitz two linebackers right up the middle in front of Vick. They didn’t even try to disguise it, both of the walked up to the line and stared right into Vick’s eyes, essentially saying ‘I’m coming to get you’. What happened? No one blocked one of them! How do you not block the guy standing right in front of you?! To show just how unfair it is to criticize Vick, he managed to spin away and elude the blitzer, only to get smacked right in the chin at the end of his spin by the defensive end, who simply threw the guy trying to block him out of the way. Fumble. Eagles recover, but lose 25 yards. Drive over.
These are just two examples of players whose relative worth have been defined, mostly, by the players surrounding them. Now, can you really expect Larry Fitzgerald to stay at that elite level when you downgrade from Kurt Warner to John Skelton? How do you expect him to catch bounce passes and alley-op lobs over the middle with head-hunting and ball-hawking safeties roaming around there? It’s like when you tell your little brother to go deep and then lead him right into a pole; except Fitz isn’t your little bro, he’s one of the best receivers this league has ever had. Now why do you want to see him get creamed every time the ball doesn’t one-hop to him? And the absolute worst part about the whole situation is that Fitz is possibly the best teammate out there. He never complains, never blames anyone else, he just does his job. Did you see him during the Cardinals four-game winning streak to start the season? Every time there was a big play, Fitz was the first player racing down to congratulate his teammate. Watch the defense’s fumble return for a touchdown at the end of the first half against the Eagles earlier this year. You’ll see Fitz sprinting full-speed down the sideline as his teammates run down the field. At one point, it almost looks like he’s going to run onto the field with them to help escort the guy with the ball into the endzone. So, if you’re the Cardinals’ general manager and you have this guy who is one of the best at what he does, never complains, and genuinely enjoys playing, wouldn’t you want to give him a decent chance at winning so he doesn’t waste his whole career on terrible teams? Oh, and it’s not like he’s a quarterback, who you need to surround with talent at all positions, he just needs a half-decent player to throw the ball to him! You can make the argument that they tried by trading for Kevin Kolb, but that was an awful decision. Why would you place the future of your franchise in the hands of a career back-up who started just one game before getting injured? All it would take to get Fitzgerald’s career back on track towards all-time great status would be spending a first round pick on a quarterback. Now, I understand that drafting a quarterback can be risky business and they actually did so when they took Matt Leinart (and that didn’t exactly pan out for them). But think about this, the Redskins traded quite a bit to get RGIII and that looks like it was worth it after just half a season. Couldn’t the Cardinals do something similar? Better yet, why not break the trend of not trading players in the NFL? Wouldn’t they be able to get a player like Philip Rivers or even Jason Campbell for pennies on the dollar? And wouldn’t either of those guys be heads and shoulders better than Kolb or Skelton? Oh please, for Larry’s sake, make this happen Cards!
Fitzgerald is just one of the many players at all levels of football whose talent is being hidden due to the players around him; he just happens to be the best example because his situation seems so easy to fix. Football is the ultimate team game- you hear that all the time from current players, former players, coaches, and anyone else involved with football who knows what they’re talking about. Still, so often talent-evaluators refuse to take this into account; and it is difficult to understand why general managers can’t grasp this simple concept yet. Hopefully, your team won’t be the next team to make this disastrous mistake and leave you with the next Larry Fitzgerald- the best guy in the worst situation.
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I hope you enjoyed reading! If you have any questions, comments, or other suggestions on how to improve the column or any other topic feel free to contact me at my email address [email protected], on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/adam.colman.9 or on Twitter @AdamRColman.
Thanks for the support!
(Just over three short years ago Fitzgerald was scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl, and look how happy he was! Oh, how things have changed... http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/superbwlsm/sprbwl15.jpg)
This is the problem with the NFL (and football in general) when it comes to personnel decisions and talent evaluation: football is the ultimate team sport, in which each player’s success is completely dependent upon his teammates. When you have great players around you, it isn’t difficult to look like a good one. Take the quarterback position, for example (the most teammate-reliant position in all of sports). Alex Smith, of the San Francisco 49ers, spent the first five years of his career struggling through losing seasons on bad teams and being labeled a bust. Suddenly, within the last two years, his team got good (and I mean REALLY good) and he began to turn into not that bad of a quarterback. Just a year after many questioned the ‘Niners resigning of him, he outdueled Drew Brees in the playoffs as he led TWO go-ahead drives in the fourth quarter to beat the Saints. Smith is an example of how quick a quarterback can go from cast-off to hero thanks, mostly, to a change in the players around him (not to say he didn’t improve or his coaching didn’t get better, they both did, but a lot of it had to do with the rest of the team around him getting better). On the opposite end of this spectrum is the embattled Michael Vick. He, as much as any player in sports history, has had his share of ups and downs. However, this year many people are blaming Vick for the Eagles’ struggles and calling for his benching in favor of rookie Nick Foles. Once you closely watch the film of the Eagles’ games, you would have to be crazy to say Nick Foles would fair any better. Did Vick just suddenly get that much worse once he signed his contract extension? No! He is missing 60% of his starting linemen! Let me repeat that: 60 PERCENT! Most teams struggle when one of their starting linemen goes down (ask the Packers last year), now imagine losing three of them. The Saints game this past Monday perfectly summed up the Eagles’ problems: they can’t block anyone! The Saints defense is not just the league’s worst, they are on pace to become the NFL’s all-time worst defense. Yet, they held the Eagles to just 13 points. My point: it’s damn hard to do anything on offense when people get to tee-off on your quarterback. The play that sums up just how bad the Eagles’ line is came on the opening drive of the game. The Eagles were moving the ball just fine, got into Saints territory, and looked like they were going to move up and down the field at will. Then, the Saints decided to blitz two linebackers right up the middle in front of Vick. They didn’t even try to disguise it, both of the walked up to the line and stared right into Vick’s eyes, essentially saying ‘I’m coming to get you’. What happened? No one blocked one of them! How do you not block the guy standing right in front of you?! To show just how unfair it is to criticize Vick, he managed to spin away and elude the blitzer, only to get smacked right in the chin at the end of his spin by the defensive end, who simply threw the guy trying to block him out of the way. Fumble. Eagles recover, but lose 25 yards. Drive over.
These are just two examples of players whose relative worth have been defined, mostly, by the players surrounding them. Now, can you really expect Larry Fitzgerald to stay at that elite level when you downgrade from Kurt Warner to John Skelton? How do you expect him to catch bounce passes and alley-op lobs over the middle with head-hunting and ball-hawking safeties roaming around there? It’s like when you tell your little brother to go deep and then lead him right into a pole; except Fitz isn’t your little bro, he’s one of the best receivers this league has ever had. Now why do you want to see him get creamed every time the ball doesn’t one-hop to him? And the absolute worst part about the whole situation is that Fitz is possibly the best teammate out there. He never complains, never blames anyone else, he just does his job. Did you see him during the Cardinals four-game winning streak to start the season? Every time there was a big play, Fitz was the first player racing down to congratulate his teammate. Watch the defense’s fumble return for a touchdown at the end of the first half against the Eagles earlier this year. You’ll see Fitz sprinting full-speed down the sideline as his teammates run down the field. At one point, it almost looks like he’s going to run onto the field with them to help escort the guy with the ball into the endzone. So, if you’re the Cardinals’ general manager and you have this guy who is one of the best at what he does, never complains, and genuinely enjoys playing, wouldn’t you want to give him a decent chance at winning so he doesn’t waste his whole career on terrible teams? Oh, and it’s not like he’s a quarterback, who you need to surround with talent at all positions, he just needs a half-decent player to throw the ball to him! You can make the argument that they tried by trading for Kevin Kolb, but that was an awful decision. Why would you place the future of your franchise in the hands of a career back-up who started just one game before getting injured? All it would take to get Fitzgerald’s career back on track towards all-time great status would be spending a first round pick on a quarterback. Now, I understand that drafting a quarterback can be risky business and they actually did so when they took Matt Leinart (and that didn’t exactly pan out for them). But think about this, the Redskins traded quite a bit to get RGIII and that looks like it was worth it after just half a season. Couldn’t the Cardinals do something similar? Better yet, why not break the trend of not trading players in the NFL? Wouldn’t they be able to get a player like Philip Rivers or even Jason Campbell for pennies on the dollar? And wouldn’t either of those guys be heads and shoulders better than Kolb or Skelton? Oh please, for Larry’s sake, make this happen Cards!
Fitzgerald is just one of the many players at all levels of football whose talent is being hidden due to the players around him; he just happens to be the best example because his situation seems so easy to fix. Football is the ultimate team game- you hear that all the time from current players, former players, coaches, and anyone else involved with football who knows what they’re talking about. Still, so often talent-evaluators refuse to take this into account; and it is difficult to understand why general managers can’t grasp this simple concept yet. Hopefully, your team won’t be the next team to make this disastrous mistake and leave you with the next Larry Fitzgerald- the best guy in the worst situation.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hope you enjoyed reading! If you have any questions, comments, or other suggestions on how to improve the column or any other topic feel free to contact me at my email address [email protected], on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/adam.colman.9 or on Twitter @AdamRColman.
Thanks for the support!
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