Originally posted by WillistheWall:
Well since you wont accept my apology i take it back because i checked and on reply 187 you blamed the ol for his demise and state that had they done better he wouldve continued his gunslinging ways. but smith had played with worse ols but you dont absolve him of any blame and with a similar ol shaun hill had success. you blamed martzs 7 step drops for jtos failures but state sing is a lunatic in a previous post and thats one reason sing fired martz.
Oh, I'll accept your initial apology. I stated in whatever post that JTO made his fair share of mistakes but that the porous OL played a big part in his demise as well. Gore's numbers have declined over the last few years in part for the same reason. It all starts in the trenches with OL, we all know the niner OL has been a problem so it shouldn't be that difficult to agree with.
Yeah, I think that JTO could've kept up his performance for the most part had OL protection not broken down forcing him to run for his life almost every play. In the first few games, he proved that he could play behind good protection so why wouldn't you think that would've continued had the OL held up?
Smith might've played behind a bad OL but he has well-documented and massive inherent problems playing the position. Problems that were first highlighted by Meyers (who called him "non-functional") before he ever played an NFL game then graphically illustrated by Jaws (who discussed his horrible mechanics and throwing motion) and subsequently covered in numerous official articles on this site where his lack of pocket presence, awareness, inability to process the field of play quickly in real time, his inability to avoid pressure and sacks and his lack of touch and accuracy on his throws were all discussed in detail. Nolan's poor handling and mismanagement of him only further contributed to the problem.
Turner and Martz were also well aware of his shortcomings that existed well before he got injured. JTO, on the other hand, proved he was clearly more physically gifted than Smith, proved he could be productive on the field and didn't have the problems Smith does which is why I place the majority of blame on Smith and his dysfunctional problems.
Yeah, I think MS is a bit of a weirdo and his pants-dropping incident along with his ridiculous ranting and raving that made Letterman proved it. He's embarrassed himself and the entire organization before ever coaching a game as HC. IMO, no OC who orchestrated the kind of improvement that Martz did would ever be fired from any other team 7 step drops or not. Every OC makes mistakes which are addressed accordingly before moving on. Surely, far less successful 1st-year OC's have made mistakes but did not get fired after one season because of them. That, along with MS not being qualified to fire a guy like Martz (despite his "HC" position) is the reason for my opinion.
[ Edited by Sabrason on Jul 26, 2009 at 21:06:19 ]