(12-20-2018, 01:09 AM)LMD Wrote:

(12-18-2018, 03:30 AM)Eric1 Wrote: In hindsight, the trade is awful and a waste of a 5th round pick, agreed completely.

When the team actually made the trade, it did make complete sense. I've never been a fan of Hyde and it was a wasted pick, but we were hurting at RB when the trade was made and the season wasn't exactly over yet...

This team was 3-3 at the time of the trade. Fournette was out indefinitely with his hamstring injury. Grant was on IR and Yeldon was battling through an ankle injury.

Yeldon was our only RB at that time and he was playing with a bad ankle.. That's why they made the trade, because they were one ankle tweak away from having nobody at RB.

Oh, I understand why they made the trade. I didn't dislike the trade at the time, and I still don't dislike the trade in principle. A 5th to get the team's offensive identity back and try to salvage a season with such high expectations is a fine move in my books - and one I'd happily make every time.

It was the fact that after they traded for Hyde they then did nothing with him that gets me. How many games were we watching when everyone had to scratch their heads and say "why'd we trade for Hyde?" Heck, the the team traded a draft pick for Hyde and then in the first game he played with the team, closed the game out by passing on 31 consecutive plays.

He has a total of 40 rushes through 5 games (not counting last week's healthy scratch). And that already-low number's only inflated because Fournette was ejected midway through one game, and this team doesn't know how to adjust mid-game, and the next week Fournette was suspended and they benched Blake for the first time. Without his 23 runs in those 2 games, he only had 17 rushes through 3 games.

And I don't believe the playbook could have been such a big issue; all the guy needed to do in this offense was be told where to stand, get the ball from the QB, and run straight up the middle. He's a professional football player, I'm sure he could have figured that out.  

Trading a 5th for Hyde is fine. Trading a 5th for Hyde and then refusing to even try using him is the fireable offense, in my book. Had they run him 10-15 times a game for 4-5 weeks and said "this guy's terrible," I'd have accepted that and been disappointed at the result. But I could at least say "well, they tried." Trading for Hyde and never using him was just throwing a pick away for funsies.