(09-04-2020, 12:41 AM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ] (09-04-2020, 12:30 AM)JagJohn Wrote: [ -> ]I think you need to step back and take a breath.
Why? Is what I said not true? All of these things have happened to bring the team to its knees. We have active players congratulating recently traded players for getting out.
Publicly.
Insubordinate (Fournette), criminal (T. Smith), blatant liar (Ramsey), disrespectful- all of them, and others I'm sure. Tell me these things are not a factor along with everything else I listed above.
While the team certainly can't be blamed for Telvin Smith's plunge into criminality, I DO believe they bear some responsibility into the state of the locer room. That said, there is no way I blame Caldwell for drafting those guys in the first place.
Everyone knows I am no huge fan of Vic Ketchman, but he had a quote that he used often I think is appropriate: "Football is not a game for the well adjusted."
This isn't to say that all football players are completely dysfunctional, but if you are looking for complete angels in this business, you can forget it. Plenty of teams- many of them championship caliber- have had talented guys with flaws.
The Shula era 1970s Dolphins had Mercury Morris, who wound up doing time for drug related offenses. The 70s Cowboys had Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson. He played Will in a 4-3 like Telvin Smith, but was even more athletic. Ran his mouth constantly. He famously said of Terry Bradshaw "He's so dumb, he couldn't spell 'cat' if you spotted him the c and the a.' He developed a nasty drug problem. The early Gibbs era Washington team won a Super Bowl with two guys with issues. John Riggins was a big time drinker who would often be drunk at team facilities, and DE Dexter Manley, who was an addict and, oh by the way, illiterate (not necessarily a character flaw, but stunning nonetheless). The Parcells era giants had 1st ballot Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor as the cornerstone of their franchise, who was also a drug addict who used to skip practices all the time. San Francisco won two of their four Super bowls in the 1980s with two guys-Charles Haley and Bill Romanowski who became known for dysfunctional behavior in the locker room. When Dallas returned to dominance in the 19990. they did so with the aforementioned Charles Haley, Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, and RT Erik Williams. The AFC's dominant team of the early 1990s were known as the bickering Bills because of all of the infighting between all of the personalities. In the mid 1990s, the Packers went 1-1 in back to back Super bowls, winning the first with the same Andre Rison cut by TC and the Jaguars in 1996. Even the Chiefs had Kareem Hunt on the roster just the year before winning the Super Bowl last year.
I guarantee you in that rather truncated list above, there was some insubordination, criminality, lying, and disrespect, yet those teams won with those players. The teams erred on the side of talent in most cases and they reaped the benefit.
Assuming these players displayed that level of dysfunction in college and the scouts picked up on it, considering all of the players you mentioned/referenced made Pro Bowls with the team and helped the team win (Ramsey, Yann, Telvin)-even if only for a year.
Now just because I do not blame the team for drafting these guys, the team (INCLUDING CALDWELL) DOES deserve blame for not retaining the players once here. Just within the past few days, we've seen the Bills-a small market team) retain and extend Pro Bowl CB Tredavious White, the Steelers extend Pro Bowl DE Cam Heyward despite having the burden of a franchise QB's salary on the books, and the Texans extend Deshaun Watson to a deal that nets him what...$40 million a year? Why couldn't the Jaguars do that with Robinson, Ramsey and Ngakoue? In fact, yyou could argue the team's actions directly contributed to the dysfunction Ramsey and Ngakoue exhibited. It was clear Ramsey wanted a new deal. Other members of his draft class had gotten new deals. He was as productive at his position as those guys were at theirs. Yet the Jaguars kept pushing their so called leverage instead of rewarding players for strong play. Then when TC came down on Ramsey for what happened in Houston (while in the process of imposing 25 % of the fines league wide n his own team), then Ramsey finally wanted out. That's when Ramsey lied about his back. He had never faked an injury before that point and now he was trying to force his way off the team. Ngakoue was always viewed as a model citizen player during the bulk of the time here. Every time the team spoke of him, it was always in glowing terms. When he had the fight with Fowler, the team blamed Fowler and shipped him away. Even when Ngakoue made it clear he wanted a new deal, most fans and local media lauded him for the way he was handling the negotiations. Apparently just about this time of year last year, TC said something to him to piss him off. Ngakoue and the team broke off negotiations and it's been acrimonious ever since, up until Ngakoue took a substantial pay cut just to facilitate his trade to Minnesota. Ngakoue may well have overestimated his market value. He may have been poorly represented by his agent. But for a money driven player to take $6 million less in salary this year and STILL be subject to a franchise tag next year just to facilitate the trade out speaks to more than just purely financial concerns on his part.
Player after player are leaving this team trashing the organization. This team does not hesitate to go out and bring other players in. In most cases, the free agents have been disappointments. But when they draft their own players, they won't pay the money needed to keep them. Loyalty goes both ways, and until this team rewards high performing players, we'll continue to lose games, continue to alienate players, and continue to have players trash the organization we love on their way out the door.
(09-07-2020, 12:40 AM)iHaunting Raven Wrote: [ -> ] (09-07-2020, 12:12 AM)americus 2.0 Wrote: [ -> ]Um, I'm a girl. The heck kind of dude would have a name like americus 2.0? I'd beat his [BLEEP]. Lol. I was around the mid-2000s as just "americus" but left for about seven years to deal with life. Couldn't remember my login info, thus the 2.0.
Stormy lives here in NC but I'm not sure where. Maybe outside Charlotte. She's doing good the last I heard but it's been a year or so since we last communicated.
Yeah, I had to ban myself from the politics section after I lost my [BLEEP] on someone who shall remain nameless being a total jackwagon. I lurk over there but I don't reply to anything else I go off on that dude again. My sanity isn't worth it and it's a waste of time to argue.
I'm ready for some football.
That's why I asked, all this time I thought you were a guy lmao.
I obviously had another username but I've been here since 2001 and I kinda remember you, Stormy and a bunch of other people that I never see around here anymore.
Yeah..it caught me by surprise too. All these years I'd seen Americus posting and I thought she was a dude. Just found out last year or so. Some good posters have stopped posting over the years. How dare they get lives outside of this board! IS that even allowed?!?
.gif "Laughing")
