Doyel: Most Colts injury update ever: Darius Leonard's ankle masked severity of back

[ChoppedWood]

Originally Posted by Hoopsdoc

Chopped wood has an irrational hatred for Reich.

It's not irrational, he sucks as a head dog. Thankfully that is starting to be called out by the local media instead of just gagging on his nuts as they have for far too long. I am glad this is clearly his prove it or lose it season. And for the sake of the team I hope he does prove he can do this, and I will own my apology to him if he does (from the reports out of the mini- Hines may be our # 2 in terms of catches, and if that's so, then good for him for f'king utilizing weapons vs burying them under the dirt of his rehab boy).

[JAFF]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

It's not irrational, he sucks as a head dog. Thankfully that is starting to be called out by the local media instead of just gagging on his nuts as they have for far too long. I am glad this is clearly his prove it or lose it season. And for the sake of the team I hope he does prove he can do this, and I will own my apology to him if he does (from the reports out of the mini- Hines may be our # 2 in terms of catches, and if that's so, then good for him for f'king utilizing weapons vs burying them under the dirt of his rehab boy).

Dont hold back, tell us how you really feel.

[ChoppedWood]

Originally Posted by JAFF

Dont hold back, tell us how you really feel.

LOL!
It's true though. The more you look back on last year with more and more actual critical reviews by smart inner circle football people and the reports of how this offense has already in just a few days on the practice field appeared to look entirely different- with the same personnel mind you as it has been Hines Patmon and Dulin not the rook getting the hype (yeah there's still a long ways to go and we won't know for 3-4 games if it is a real change), but the over arching theme is- Wentz was just f'ing trashing every principle of Reich's scheme. I know I sound like a broken record but I am ON RECORD with it- sure blame Wentz, and he deserves it for sure, but when it is THAT pervasive, that extends way beyond Wentz- that's much more on Frank for not having the sack to put a stop to it. So in my eyes, we missed the playoffs last year as a result of Frank refusing to give up on the concept that Wentz was this conquering hero figure that would lead us to the promised land if we just trusted him. Terrible decision and it cost us bigtime.

[Hoopsdoc]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

LOL!
It's true though. The more you look back on last year with more and more actual critical reviews by smart inner circle football people and the reports of how this offense has already in just a few days on the practice field appeared to look entirely different- with the same personnel mind you as it has been Hines Patmon and Dulin not the rook getting the hype (yeah there's still a long ways to go and we won't know for 3-4 games if it is a real change), but the over arching theme is- Wentz was just f'ing trashing every principle of Reich's scheme. I know I sound like a broken record but I am ON RECORD with it- sure blame Wentz, and he deserves it for sure, but when it is THAT pervasive, that extends way beyond Wentz- that's much more on Frank for not having the sack to put a stop to it. So in my eyes, we missed the playoffs last year as a result of Frank refusing to give up on the concept that Wentz was this conquering hero figure that would lead us to the promised land if we just trusted him. Terrible decision and it cost us bigtime.

They gambled on Wentz and Reich deserves criticism for it. But once the season started, there was no other decent option. They were gonna go as far as Wentz took them because he was the only option.

[apballin]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

LOL!
It's true though. The more you look back on last year with more and more actual critical reviews by smart inner circle football people and the reports of how this offense has already in just a few days on the practice field appeared to look entirely different- with the same personnel mind you as it has been Hines Patmon and Dulin not the rook getting the hype (yeah there's still a long ways to go and we won't know for 3-4 games if it is a real change), but the over arching theme is- Wentz was just f'ing trashing every principle of Reich's scheme. I know I sound like a broken record but I am ON RECORD with it- sure blame Wentz, and he deserves it for sure, but when it is THAT pervasive, that extends way beyond Wentz- that's much more on Frank for not having the sack to put a stop to it. So in my eyes, we missed the playoffs last year as a result of Frank refusing to give up on the concept that Wentz was this conquering hero figure that would lead us to the promised land if we just trusted him. Terrible decision and it cost us bigtime.

I totally agree Reichs love for Wentz clouded his judgment, I disagree he’s a bad coach. He’s had a different QB every season and hasn’t gotten a true camp out of any of them due to injury Covid or whatever. So I’m very excited to see this offense ran by a QB with an entire camp to work with Reich

[ChaosTheory]

Originally Posted by apballin

I totally agree Reichs love for Wentz clouded his judgment, I disagree he’s a bad coach. He’s had a different QB every season and hasn’t gotten a true camp out of any of them due to injury Covid or whatever. So I’m very excited to see this offense ran by a QB with an entire camp to work with Reich

Aside from '19 when a backup had to start on two weeks notice, we put up like 27-28pts/gm under Reich. He's had a good QB twice and they were good seasons. People say, "He hasn't even won the divison" during his good seasons. But...

After Luck came back from the dead and guys like Castonzo/Hilton got healthy we went 10-1 including spanking the division champs twice including the playoffs on the road.

In 2020, with old man Rivers, we went 11-5 and playoffs. We beat Tennessee 34-17 on the road and only two weeks later we lost to them 45-26. What happened? Well, Buckner, Autry, Okereke, Taylor, and Kelly were out due to Covid/injury; then Castonzo and Willis got hurt and left the game. Seven starters might account for a 36-point swing in two weeks.

(I'm just pointing out that a shit roll of the dice like that can be the difference between winning the division by two games and losing the division to a tie-breaker.)

[Kray007]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

LOL!
It's true though. The more you look back on last year with more and more actual critical reviews by smart inner circle football people and the reports of how this offense has already in just a few days on the practice field appeared to look entirely different- with the same personnel mind you as it has been Hines Patmon and Dulin not the rook getting the hype (yeah there's still a long ways to go and we won't know for 3-4 games if it is a real change), but the over arching theme is- Wentz was just f'ing trashing every principle of Reich's scheme. I know I sound like a broken record but I am ON RECORD with it- sure blame Wentz, and he deserves it for sure, but when it is THAT pervasive, that extends way beyond Wentz- that's much more on Frank for not having the sack to put a stop to it. So in my eyes, we missed the playoffs last year as a result of Frank refusing to give up on the concept that Wentz was this conquering hero figure that would lead us to the promised land if we just trusted him. Terrible decision and it cost us bigtime.

It seems like you’re blaming Reich for Ballard’s failure to sign a competent backup QB. Like it or not, the fact is that Reich was stuck with starting Wentz. The Colts were in the hunt for a playoff spot, and plan B was Ehlinger.

[ChoppedWood]

Originally Posted by Kray007

It seems like you’re blaming Reich for Ballard’s failure to sign a competent backup QB. Like it or not, the fact is that Reich was stuck with starting Wentz. The Colts were in the hunt for a playoff spot, and plan B was Ehlinger.

Well there is that, and I agree Ballard has a lot of culpability in Wentz / team failing to make the playoffs.

But that's not what I am pointing to. We are just a bunch of fans, and of course we are going to rant about all his failures to get rid of the ball- but we didn't / don't have access to coaching film etc... so our view / understanding of calls, of routes, of play design, leaves out a critical part of the analysis that tells whether it was really Wentz sucking that bad or if there was such a void of playmakers that he was hamstrung and it made him look worse than he was.

But NOW the postmortem is complete- there has been plenty of study of what he was doing by real football analysts - AND IT IS UNIMAGINABLY EVEN WORSE than what all of us were saying.

I went ballistic after the game where we threw it 26 straight times and Reich talked about how he didn't realize it and that "usually" someone on his staff will say something to him but nobody did. Forget the incredulous stupidity of that statement, forget his smuggy comment about how we must have been doing something right because of the yards we amassed, it's way deeper than that.

I fully get we had no suitable replacement so replacing him was very difficult and largely not possible. That said, we did have a guy in charge who had the reins to DEMAND he stop, to DEMAND he quit checking out of the plays called, to DEMAND in film review that Wentz throw the damn ball to where the play was called for it to go, to simply take the level of RPO's available to him way down. Was it Nelson that was caught on camera at one point saying to Reich- "can't we just run the fucking play called"?

That's my point in that post. It was Frank's job to stand on him and make him quit doing the shit he was doing, but he didn't, he let it continue all the way to the end when Wentz was performing so badly it cost us a playoff spot. That is 100% on Frank, not Ballard. The Wentz gamble didn't work, and it's very likely to fail in DC as well. I don't blame Frank and Ballard for trying though- they were left with few options. I don't blame them for Wentz just not being very good, they don't control his talent. I DO HOWEVER squarely place the blame for him being renegade hero boy week after week after week entirely on Frank. Good / great coaches adjust, he didn't seem to adjust, he seemed to accept. I believe he didn't adjust because he was too personally invested in proving Wentz was the guy, that if Wentz did magical things his pushing to have him as our QB, would be justified. That's why I dislike him so much, to me he comes across as wanting to prove he is the smart guy and his decisions are why we win vs letting his team turn him into a winner.

[Kray007]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

It's not irrational, he sucks as a head dog. Thankfully that is starting to be called out by the local media instead of just gagging on his nuts as they have for far too long. I am glad this is clearly his prove it or lose it season. And for the sake of the team I hope he does prove he can do this, and I will own my apology to him if he does (from the reports out of the mini- Hines may be our # 2 in terms of catches, and if that's so, then good for him for f'king utilizing weapons vs burying them under the dirt of his rehab boy).

The dirt of his rehab boy?