Quote:Im curious what are your reasons for forgiving some or even all of the losses?Some of our losses last year were poor coaching decisions..Like the Eagles,Raven,and Steelers game.This is a mans game, i don't forgive no losses!

 

Year one - a few were forgivable due to the roster purge and large, large number of "seat-fillers" taking up roster spots.  Scrap heap waiver wire guys and such that ideally have a hard time even seeing the field on special teams in year three.  Many of them are gone now -- which is telling. 

 

Year two it got tougher to forgive losses as some talent was acquired on defense, but even with a number of good showings by that unit, their production wasn't sustainable because they:

 - got no help from the offense

- got very little help from the FS position and young secondary

- had a rotating cast of back-ups at LB

 

Still you have to lay blame primarily at the offense's feet. If they could have mananged 20+ points more often they'd have won 3 or 4 more games. However - how much is too much to ask of 4, 5 and sometimes 6 rookies starting in the NFL? We found out.  

Then you must decide whether you blame Caldwell for fielding so many rookies?  Sure. At least some.  There were three vets that ended up sucking so bad or getting injured that the team had too much youth on the field. 

The only reason I forgive that (partially) is that I happen to really love the idea of building through the draft and saving the $$ for re-signing the youth that performs well and adding a few vets to fill in the ranks.  That's what Dave is doing and this year - I think it will produce about 7 wins with good momentum moving forward. 

 

I totally understand why many folks don't have the patience to wait around so long for a +.500 season. I do. I don't blame them (or you) for feeling that way.  I just like the concept of doing it right even if it takes longer. Gene left this roster in such a horrible place that a patch-job facelift in free agency wasn't gonna' do anything but have the team scraping around the .500 mark and then falling to waste again in a couple years. Starting over with an assembly of young drafted talent was the way to go, IMO.  Sucks to wait for results, but thankfully, I think we'll start to see them soon. 

 

Is it possible that Dave made too many bad choices? Yes. Is it possible that Gus wasn't the right hire for such a difficult re-build? Yes. 

But I'm giving them this year to show me the answers to those questions.  

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