The Quote that Chills Crabtree Supporters
by John Morgan on Feb 5, 2009 2:35 PM PST
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"[Deion Branch] is a known commodity," Ruskell said. "The first round can be a crap shoot, from top to bottom."
Ruskell said that when he was a personnel guru under former Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay a few years ago, the Buccaneers did a study of first-round draft choices. Ruskell said that over 15-20 years, 50 percent became NFL players.
"Fifty percent were busts," Ruskell said. September, 2006
Seattle may select Michael Crabtree with the fourth overall pick, but the odds are stacked against it. This isn't smoke. Ruskell made a still controversial decision to trade Seattle's first round pick to acquire Branch. Since that time he has spent very little to acquire further receiver talent. Rather, he's spent quite a bit, but very little of value. Ruskell's words and decisions make it clear he sees wide receiver as a very difficult position to evaluate.
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That is not how I see it
I did not read anything that picked on WR specificly, it was 50% of the total players taken in the first round, that the study pointed at. He used Dion Branch as an example because we traded a first round draft pick for him. If we traded a first round pick for a DT instead, he would be using the DT as an example instead.
I agree
I read this statement as justification for trading a high pick for a player, nothing more. The 50/50 part refers to the 1st round as a whole, not WR specific.
IMO, our first round pick will be whomever they deem the best combo of measureables/production/instincts, regardless of position.
He doesn't single out wide receiver
I do think that the quote implies he is risk adverse and that it’s noteworthy that he traded a first round selection for a position known for its risk.
On the other hand
One could easily interpret his willingness to trade a 1st as acknowledgment that a good WR is a critical piece of the offense.
I definitely agree that Ruskell is risk-adverse. But by using his past quotes & actions, you could create a reasonable case for why he wouldn’t draft any individual player or position.
I also don’t know how much stock to put in the trends we’ve seen the past 4 drafts (3 where he was totally in charge), simply because we’ve never selected this early before, or faced a situation where we had so many glaring needs.
again....
…who’s worth getting OTHER than Crabtree at that pick?
I don’t see high picks at OT or QB being any less risky.
The second portion of that quote certainly would lead one to infer
that Ruskell will be trying like hell to trade down. If you truly don’t buy the success rate of first round picks, why pay for one? This should get interesting.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
The WWL did a study
It was a Page 2 thing last year or two years ago, evaluating which position, drafted in the first round, had the most success. The O-Line was first, followed by D-Line(?) and then RB, I think. I can’t find it, though. Secondary was up there as well, and QB/WR were near the bottom.
I've never understood why that stat wasn't adjusted...
…something like MBAA (Millen Busts Above Average)? :-)
Seriously, I’ve never understood that quote. When I first read it, it really turned my opinion of Ruskell as a draft-first, build-from-the-inside guy around in a way I didn’t like.
I mean, who gives a rat’s ass if other front offices can’t get the first round right? Why is that at all relevant? Isn’t it more important to have your own scouting house in order, and be able to buck the supposed trend, than to chain yourself to a stat that is borderline irrelevant at best, and base your early drafts on such things? It doesn’t even matter if the Seahawks under Holmgren, or the Bucs or Falcons under McKay and Ruskell, couldn’t get the first round right. The circumstances are completely different at this point in time. Different scouts, different levels of knowledge and due diligence, different everything.
Wouldn’t it be just as easy to say that Ruskell bit the dust no the Branch trade and that he should have drafted Ben Grubbs? If we’re going to play hypothetical, pie-in-the-sky crapola like that, Mr. R, I’ll be over in that area.
I've always liked that quote
Because IMO it shows a willingness to admit that even if your scouts & FO are confident, the draft is an inexact science and that you should keep a open view to how you acquire talent.
IMO, if the goal is to get a #1 WR, then who gives a rat’s ass if you selected him with a pick, or traded the pick for him? (I’m talking in terms of process, not results – it’s obvious in hindsight that the Branch trade didn’t work out.) But it could just as easily been your 1st round pick that stayed on IR (see McIntosh, Chris or Tubbs, Marcus)
More data.
If you’re just looking at your first round draft picks, you probably won’t have more than n=20. Whereas if you’re looking at everyones its now n=600.
still, Doug has a point
You really should throw out at least the Matt Millen and Al Davis picks, and only look at picks by people who were taking an approach to process that is similar to yours.
Not really.
If Matt Millen hadn’t picked Mike Williams or Charles Rogers, these guys would still have been taken in the 1st round.
This is a rare opportunity for the Seahawks to draft #4
and right now I hope the Seahawks draft Crabtree, mainly because the Seahawks have lacked for many years that one weapon that other teams had to specifically plan against and worry about. Well, perhaps Shaun was that guys for a few season, and I could see Julian in that role, if used properly.
While receivers are a total coin flip in the first round, I would say that, barring some miracle, you wanted to get a stub WR you’ need to invest a 1st rounder to get him. I’m not married to the idea; if someone grabs him before us or he just doesn’t fit in here, I think it’d be just as good to trade down. But at #4 the reward of Crabtree may be just too high to pass up.
Draft Crabtree Damnit
For the pick…value….risk vs reward….Crabtree is the player who needs to be taken with the #4 pick.
We can find solid players in the later rounds that can address our other issues….but no one is worthy of that high of a pick for us. Plus if Crabtree pans out and does become a good/great WR it will make our entire offense better…..our other WR’s, our RB’s, our QB, our Oline….etc….
do it!
What's better?
a potential Larry Fitzgerald or
Logan Payne, Jordan Kent, Courtney Taylor, Ben Obomanu, DJ Hackett, Alex Bannister, Taco Wallace, James Williams, Michael Bumpus, Jerheme Urban….etc
all of them could have became good WR’s….but none of them would have ever reached that top tier….we don’t need another possibly potential solid wr like all of them….we need a legit potential upper echelon WR and Crabtree is that guy.
You're ignoring the potential brilliance of the Seneca to Taco All-Wallace connection
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
I'm still mortified we cut Taco Wallace.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
by Fearless Frog on Feb 5, 2009 6:18 PM PST up reply actions
I read this quote differently than JM did.
He’s saying the first round can be a crapshoot, so he should pick the sure thing. The guy who he’s sure won’t fail, and to me, that is Crabtree. He seems like the guy who will consistenly get 750 yards per season at his worst.
if the first round is 50-50
what is the second round 60-40 in favor of a bust? third round? the whole draft is a crapshoot, but your best shot no matter what is still in the first round.
I really want Crabtree..
but it wouldn’t suprise if Ruskell wants to trade down. lets say trade into the middle of the 1st in exchange for a mid-2nd.
mid 1st: Moreno
early 2nd: Duke
mid 2nd: Chung
early 3rd: Robiskie
that’s just a hypothetical, I’m essentialy trading Crabtree for Moreno and Chung – would you do it?
I think we have seen that risk-adverse nature with Ruskell's previous picks...
Still, at #4 you should have a better idea who are the safest picks vs. risk/reward. I would probably say that the QBs (Stafford and Sanchez) are the riskier picks this year, since they grade out worse than Matt Ryan now but are also underclassmen.
"Hey, guess what? Nobody cares who would win in a crazy fantasy fist-fight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden." The Monarch
At the same time, Ruskell has shown he's not afraid to make a move if he decides the player is right
He moved decisively to get both Branch and Burleson. Crabtree is of high enough quality that Ruskell shouldn’t be moving him off his board.
Am I the only one here who twitched a bit at the "known commodity" part?
That sounds like something straight out of the Bill Bavasi playbook. I pray the Seahawks aren’t going down this path.
Somebody reassure me, please.
Is that the light at the end of the tunnel, or the headlights of an oncoming train?
I think what Ruskell is getting at is that Branch (when healthy) is a talented and productive player.
The Bill Bavasi playbook would justify players like Brian Russell, who brings gritty veteran tenacity to the clubhouse… Or as I like to call it, griteranacity.
When Ruskell gives up on finding talent and focuses exclusively on clubhouse chemistry you can start worrying.
If he keeps Russell around (as has been rumored), then I will worry
Until then, I’m good.
I think we’re quite a bit away from Bavasi territory, though.
"Hey, guess what? Nobody cares who would win in a crazy fantasy fist-fight between Anne Frank and Lizzie Borden." The Monarch
by crushedoptimist on Feb 6, 2009 12:28 AM PST up reply actions
If he and Mora
keep Russell around without even trying to tind a replacement (like they did last season) then shouldn’t all of you consider that maybe something is happening in the 90% of his plays that you can’t see that proves him better than you think he is? Doesn’t it mean anything to you if four or five brilliant defensive minds who all have twenty times the relevant data as all of us (and are right now heavily analyzing all of it) come to a different conclusion? Shouldn’t you consider they might know more about the situation than we do??
Yeah, I love all the hand waving and foot shuffling
from people trying to explain how they know more than those with twenty times more knowledge and facts than they have. What you’ll never see amonst all the hand waving is an explanation for why a player supposedly so bad that there must be fifty safeties better wouldn’t just be replaced by these brilliant defensive minds on the staff.
This post is a prime example of the
appeal to authority fallacy.
by BrianL on Feb 6, 2009 11:16 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
You're wrong.
Appeal to authority involves inferring infallibility on supposed experts. It does not have anything to do with why we shouldn’t hire doctors or interior designers or electricians, who have way more of the relevant knowledge in an area than we do. It doesn’t have anything to do with why we shouldn’t believe passengers of flight 1549 about what it’s like to be in a plane going down, or any other source of information we ourselves don’t have.
You should read your own links. You’d see that it discusses the validity of believing genuine experts. You’d also see that it says nothing whatsoever about whether or not to put any stock in someone with more relevant information than you have.
`
The idea is this: Brian Russell is a bad safety.
The evidence are numerous plays that look like this:
Your rebuttal is this:
What you’ll never see amonst all the hand waving is an explanation for why a player supposedly so bad that there must be fifty safeties better wouldn’t just be replaced by these brilliant defensive minds on the staff.
Doesn’t it mean anything to you if four or five brilliant defensive minds who all have twenty times the relevant data as all of us (and are right now heavily analyzing all of it) come to a different conclusion?
Shouldn’t you consider they might know more about the situation than we do??
That’s a fallacious appeal to authority.
In summary, this is what you’ve said:
The coaching staff has “twenty times the football knowledge” that you clowns have. Therefore, they are an authority on the subject.
The coaching staff (which has twenty times the football knowledge that you clowns have) let Brian Russell play.
Therefore, Brian Russell isn’t a bad safety.
And before you say it
No I’m not saying that you should never trust what the coaching staff says. I’m simply saying that you can’t hinge your rebuttal on some sort of vague interpretation of the coaching staff’s actions.
You can’t simply dismiss the idea that Brian Russell is a bad safety because the coaching staff didn’t play someone instead of him.
You keep strawmanning because
you don’t want to admit that knowledge (relevant data/facts) do make a difference when it comes to reaching sound conclusions. You can’t see 90% of Russell’s play. They can. They want the team to win as much as you do, right? They want to get rid of stumblebums as much as you do right? When someone with ten times more data and information about a subject reaches a different concusion than you do, it is no fallacy, nor is it appeal to authority to conclude that they have a better chance of being right than you.
And you still haven’t answered the question I predicted you couldn’t answer: If they guy is so bad then there are many others readily available better than him. Why don’t they replace him?
I don’t know why they didn’t replace Russell.
I can’t peer into their heads. I don’t know what factors went into that decision, be it personnel issues or poor conclusions about his abilities as a football player. That’s beyond the scope of my knowledge and beyond the scope of what I can control.
What I can do is formulate an opinion of a player based on the evidence at hand. That evidence points to Brian Russell being a bad safety.
I guess I’d better forgive John McLaren and Jim Riggleman for trotting Jose Vidro out at DH for four months because, gosh darnit, they must have seen something I just didn’t see in him. If they think [X] player is good at [Z] job then by golly they really must be.
But that makes no sense on the face of it.
There are plenty of reasons to keep a poor player once the season has started, particularly that it is often difficult to find starting level replacements once the season starts, especially in baseball. But there is no reason at all for coaches in the offseason with 100% of every movement a player makes on tape to entirely miss the obvious bad play that is so obvious that fans with less than 10% of a players play can see it. How could they miss that? And now an entirely different staff is going to all miss it too? Does that really make sense to you?
What makes tons more sense is that Russell isn’t really as bad as he looks. He’s about average for an NFL safety except that he often sells out and goes for the big hit and looks sillier more often than the average safety. He hasn’t been replaced because the Seahawks haven’t been able to find a better player at anywhere near the cap cost.
Doesn’t that make a lot more sense than saying: “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist!”
Well, here's a hypothetical.
Most everyone at FG agrees that Russell is our worst defensive player, and quite possibly the worst safety in the league. What if I were to flip the tables and say that every NFL team felt the same way, and would not want to start Russell and that all their data suggested otherwise, but for whatever reason the Seahawks wanted to keep starting him? Obviously its a big hypothetical, but we can’t assume that all the other teams have a similar disdain for Russell either.
I’m not saying what I’m saying is right, I’m just going by your assumption that the person with the most data is the party thats in the right. The only thing you can really do is look at the data thats avaiilable to you and conclude what you can from there, and I think BrianL, JM, and others have done an excellent point of explaining why they think Russell is not worthy of starting.
Don't look at me
all I’ve done is provide hilarious gifs of Brian Russel’s failures on the field.
If not the worst DB in the league.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
by Fearless Frog on Feb 7, 2009 10:02 AM PST up reply actions
Let me answer your question with another question or two.
If the Lions knew Matt Millen was a horrible GM, why did they extend and keep him arouind for so long?
If an addict knows that him being addicted to something is ruining his life, why doesn’t he just quit whatever he’s addicted to?
Life isn’t always 100% logical.
I feel like we’re going in circles here.
I'm not pushing for logic, I'm pushing for reason
And reason dictates that we favor the best available theory.
Here's the important thing to remember before you are shipped off in a box with padded walls:
you said
You keep strawmanning because
you don’t want to admit that knowledge (relevant data/facts) do make a difference when it comes to reaching sound conclusions.
No one is arguing that knowledge is good for making decisions. The argument is that Russell’s perceived value as a coach on the field is far outstripped by his lack of actual ability to perform.
Also, your “90% of his play is invisible” argument is a baseless, artificial claim. The only thing worse than ignoring people with good information is making up facts and using them as argument.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
What now?
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
Its from Zoolander...
Zoolander asks about something, he gets a thorough explanation about the subject, but then asks the same question again.
Great thought, wrong audience.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
Also, this should read "No one is arguing that knowledge isn't good for decision making"
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
Yeah, someone is
I’m saying the people with all the info are in a much better postion to be right than those with 10% of the info. Someone is saying that is a logical fallacy.
No.
What I said that throwing our conclusions out and dismissing them because someone else has more (or different) information is a fallacy.
Not once did I say that “knowledge isn’t good for decision making.”
"Not once did I say that "knowledge isn’t good for decision making.""
Who said you did?
I keep saying, right from the start, that 100% information is far better to reach the right conclusion than 10%. You kept repeating that that was argument by authority fallacy, which it is not. It’s not a fallacy at all. It’s true. I am not arguing that it is certainly true. I’m saying you guys should strongly consider the possibility that you’re wrong about Russell.
Huh?
Have you ever tried to follow a safety’s play during a football game? The camera stays on the ball. The safeties, if you can even see them in the initial formation shot, immediately disappear at the snap of the ball. Sometimes you see them come up in run support, sometimes they are doing something else and you don’t see them at all. Sometimes you see them double covering a receiver and sometimes you don’t. It averages out to them being on TV broadcast camera less than 10% of the time. What facts am I making up?
Let's start with the "10%" number that you've now used in several of your arguments.
That or the complementary “90%”. That isn’t a fact.
The assumption that those in charge must be making correct moves because they are in charge is circular logic. That IS a fact.
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
10% is rough approximation of
how much of most any safety’s play you can see on the TV broadcasts. How much of it do you think we can see? And:
“The assumption that those in charge must be making correct moves because they are in charge is circular logic.”
…is a strawman. I never said anything like that. What I said is that 100% of the info is far better for reaching the right conclusion than 10. They have 100 on their tapes, we have 10%.
Do you yell at the mirror when you brush your teeth?
Doesn’t it mean anything to you if four or five brilliant defensive minds who all have twenty times the relevant data as all of us (and are right now heavily analyzing all of it) come to a different conclusion? Shouldn’t you consider they might know more about the situation than we do??
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
You know it's hard to lose an argument
when you change the subject every five minutes.
... but what if I just scream LOUDER!!!
HOW BOUT NOW, MOTHER FUCKERS?
I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!!! I DRINK IT UP!!
Should Seattle's coaching staff make better decisions than Seattle's fans? Yes
Should the information available a coach help them make better decisions? Yes
Does it? Maybe yes and maybe no.
Therefore, a person’s position and access to information does not make their opinions any more or less valid.
I wish to enroll in the John Morgan School of Succinct Speaking.
There’s a reason I hide myself away fixing computers all day.
I will fight this this fight until I am dead and in the ground
so might as well do it in as few words as possible.
You're stating in a way that is true
yet still not addressing what I’m saying. Their position and access to information does not make their opinions more valid, but they have more motivation to make the right decision, they have much more of the exact information needed to make a better decision and they got where they are by having more education, wisdom and experience with just these decisions. Maybe this would be clearer if I give you an analogous situation:
“Ring!”
Mr M: “Hello”
Nurse VBJ: “Hello is this Mr M?”
Mr M: “Yes it is”
Nurse VBJ: “Mr M we’ve gotten the results of your recent tests. How are you feeling today?”
Mr M: “I feel great. Never better”
Nurse VBJ: “Well I’m sorry to say we need you to come in for more tests. Your results came up positive for prostate cancer”
Mr M: “Didn’t you hear me? I said I feel great.”
Nurse VBJ: “Mr M. Your results have been reviewed by five different specialists, you really should come in for more tests.”
Mr M: “Argument from authority! That’s a fallacy!”
Nurse VBJ: “Mr M, they’ve looked at your cat-scan, your MRI and your blood tests. These are some of the most respected experts in the field!”
Mr M: “Their position and access to information does not make their opinion more valid than mine!”
Nurse VBJ: “sigh!”
by VBJohnson on Feb 6, 2009 8:02 PM PST up reply actions 1 recs
"Your results came up positive for prostate cancer"
Where is the evidence that Brian Russell is not terrible?
This is where the fallacy comes in. In your scenario a test has been taken and they’re attempting to add proof to the diagnosis. In the real discussion your argument is that because the coach plays him he must be at least average. Coach says so is appeal to authority, scientific medical tests indicate you may have cancer is not.
No, not because he plays him
Because he, and a whole new set of completely different coaches have evaluated him, have made themselves aware of the alternatives, and have judged him to be the best alternative at the position. If they were free to (and wanted to), they would surely show you all the evidence for why they are keeping him. You would see all sorts of film and learn all sorts of details that you have no access to atm. Do you have any doubt that there would be reams of stuff they would tell you that you don’t already know?
This doesn’t mean he is great, it means that two sets of coaches, a GM, and four or five pro scouts, with all the evidence on him and every other NFL safety that you don’t have, who are paid to spend a great deal of time evaluating exactly this evidence, can’t easily find a suitable replacement. If he was so shitty there would be plenty of other options at his cap cost, wouldn’t there? The GM in charge didn’t seem to have any trouble taking a 6M cap hit just to get rid of the former star RB. If Russel was as shitty, with his tiny cap hit, he’d be gone in a heartbeat. Maybe he will be. If not though, it’s because of what I’ve said above.
Why did Dick Williams think Rodney Scott was a great 2B? Why did Ford give us the Edsel?
Why did JFK, LBJ, Robert McNamara and the Whiz Kids get us into Vietnam?
People have blind spots, and people make stupid decisions, and sometimes a whole carking slew of really bright people combine to do something really stupid. Properly speaking, what you have here isn’t an appeal to authority but rather an appeal to intelligence — but ultimately, it still doesn’t work, because intelligence and access to all the facts still doesn’t guarantee a decision that makes any sense.
by The Ancient Mariner on Feb 7, 2009 9:07 AM PST up reply actions
You're right about blind spots, but
although I can’t make the entire argument myself (because like Nurse VBJ, I don’t have the data myself, I am only relaying the opinions of those with the data), I am saying that all the best arguments I have seen about Russell here aren’t very good. I’m not just trusting the Seahawk braintrust. If I saw a great argument here for how Russell is close to the worst safety in the league, I would side with the great argument. But the arguments here are flawed because:
1) They only involve 1/10th of Russells play, not even randomly selected plays, but plays selected for his mistakes. In other words the analysis is being done by looking at his mistaken plays without taking into consideration his good plays, most of which never make it on camera. How can anyone analyze a player that way? Any NFL scout who tried to analyze a DB that way, only off the TV tapes, would be laughed out of the league! DBs are the most difficult position to evaluate off of TV tapes because they are hardly on camera unless they make a mistake or an interception.
2) They often involve a great deal of speculation about Russell’s actual assignment on the play. For example, when you see him come shooting on camera late at a player who is already tackled, how do you know he didn’t come off his actual assignment, to help out some one else and that’s why he was late?
Since the Seahawk braintrust (three different Seahawk braintrusts btw) suffer not at all from either of these failings, and since the analysis we are talking about here is actually pretty simple when you aren’t suffering from 1) and 2), I think it makes more sense to think that Russell is mediocre, definitely not great, almost certainly not horrible, or they would replace him in the off season.
If what you are saying was right...
No coaches anywhere could be second guessed by us who watch with no experience.
I'm also not saying the strawman that they can't make mistakes
or even that they can’t be wrong about Russell. What I’m saying is that you have to give some weight to the fact that true experts who also have all ten times more crucial data than you do have reached a different conclusion. So maybe there is something in that data that if we knew, we would have a different idea too.
This is all based on a pretty faulty assumption that because he played the coaching staff approved of him
The only conclusion you can measure is whether he was on the field. Not whether the coaches were ok with him being on the field, whether they loved his veteranosity, or whether they thought he was assignment correct. Not that I think you have to understand what a coach is thinking to understand the value of a player, but even from that perspective you can only definitively say they thought Russell was better than Adams and Wallace.
I was going to say this, but I never know where the links were
and I knew you’d be on the ball BrianL.
Griternacity
hysterical.
"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin
Thing is...
2006 was a lifetime ago. In 2006 the woods were filled with Milton Friedman acolytes telling us all that collateralized debt obligations would help ensure that the good times would never, ever end. Times change.
This is fun discussion, but we can overthink this too. We are pretty sure what Ruskell’s priors are in terms of college talent:
- Talent-to-production ratio – Ruskell values speed, but isn’t overly seduced by 40 times; he likes production from big conferences
- Character – basically he wants someone who has a history of solid decision-making; I think we go on about this a bit too much
I can’t see Ruskell putting a board together where Crabtree ends up somewhere lower than #4, particularly when the other high-value position this year is tackle. He has said that he’s not fond of taking either WRs or O-lineman high. Who else is he really going to be in the market for at that spot? (Assuming Crabtree is still on the board then.) He may look to trade, but I think it’ll be very hard to move out of the 4th spot.
As for the quote, since Ruskell uttered those words the empirical evidence has simply overwhelmed whatever he thought he meant. Any validity in the point he was making, even at just that moment, has long since been rendered irrelevant. Ruskell couldn’t sell his wife on the notion that his approach to constructing a WR corps around the two costly acquisitions and a bunch of late picks was better than Arizona’s high draft pick approach—and that’s even conceding that Brian Johnson is an outright bust and that Arizona’s had mildly better fortune with injuries.
All Ruskell did by favoring the pro-player personnel route over the draft was shift his uncertainty from performance to injury. Burleson and Branch have rarely been 100%, losing valuable development time and game time that has diminished their value. I recall a pre-season chat Doug had with Will Carrol where Carrol called out Ruskell’s handling of the WR situation. Damn it was prescient. Ruskell blew it in both planning and execution much worse than the Hutchinson deal. At least there it was something that was shady enough to go before the arbitrator. He just swung and missed on the WRs.
So even if the quote speaks to Ruskell’s current views on which positions carry value, I think he’s more an empiricist than an ideologue. He simply cannot make the case in 2009 that he was right in 2006. He wasn’t. He’s not. The WR position is in shambles; a situation largely of his making. If Crabtree is on the board at #4 need and talent will be in almost perfect alignment. Should Ruskell do something else it better make us significantly better because Crabtree isn’t going to be a performance bust. He could blow out a knee—or the ankle issues may reoccur—but he’s an NFL player.
"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin
I agree with all this
Pending the outcome of the defense with different coaching, I think it’s fair to say not only that Ruskell’s blundering with the WR corps has been his biggest failure so far, but that it cost the Seahawks the season last year. You just can’t run Holmgren’s offense without a competent WR corps and the deficiencies were obvious before the season even started. He banked the season on two out of four nobodies busting out big time. Two got hurt and the other two flopped about as badly as flopping can flop.
actually losing 6 recievers due to injury costing us the season
would be more accurate. and even that isn’t the true. it was our last ranked defense, which didn’t have all that many injuries, that cost us the season.
you’re blaming Ruskell for injuries to players who before coming here had little if any injury history? those nobodys should never have been playing. you take the Cardinals top four receivers away, how good do you think their nobody’s are? you take any teams top four receivers away, see how good the backups do, and it won’t be pretty for any team.
Two of those six were the two best and
were injured before the season started so yes, of course you have to blame the GM for banking on the subs instead of getting adequate replacements.
and were did you expect these adequate replacements to magically come from?
trade another 1st round draft pick?
by B.B.Finnegan on Feb 6, 2009 11:14 AM PST up reply actions
and what stud recievers were available when engram went down in the preseason?
remember there being any wco ready receivers? hell, there weren’t hardly any receivers period the entire free agency, just as there aren’t this year.
FA netted us Billy McMullen & Sammie Parker
That’s the type of talent you get to choose from once training camps have started – other teams’ fodder. Branch & Engram were injured, but expected back by mid-season.
So which is more realistic: A GM expecting that his remaining starter and a crew of inexperienced, but decent potential guys can hold down the fort for 4 weeks, or deciding to completely shake up the entire group, and cram more expensive contracts into a well stocked position, just for a 1/4 season band-aid?
This is just the luck of the draw in the NFL – sometimes injuries wipe a team out at one position. And usually when it happens, the team’s performance suffers accordingly. It’s mostly out of the GM’s hands at that point – there’s no ,magic well he can turn to for top-notch replacement talent.
For the occasional team that’s able to survive something like that, what typically happens is a previously unknown player seizes the opportunity and steps up. Ruskell had a assembled a group of guys that fit that profile, but unfortunately none of them were able to do it.
Yep.
For the billionth time, the injuries faced by this WR corps last year were completely unprecedented. No one could have forseen them.
If a GM has one starter
injured the previous season and one go down in preseason and you’re giving him a pass because he didn’t have time to forsee a problem? Well, you’re expecting way too little from your GM.
Our WR situation was shitty even before everyone got injured.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
by Fearless Frog on Feb 6, 2009 11:15 AM PST up reply actions
while i agree they weren't great
when a QB can pass for almost 4,000 yards with no run game or tight end and a questionable o-line, they weren’t exactly shitty.
by B.B.Finnegan on Feb 6, 2009 11:22 AM PST up reply actions
They were shitty enough
to prevent the Seahawks from advancing far in the playoffs, despite having a good defense and Probowl QB.
One game doesn't say much.
As I recall, it wasn’t really our receivers fault that we didn’t advance far in the playoffs, but the whole team getting crushed in general.
I didn’t see the Cardinals getting in the playoffs last year, and they had a good WRs. Things aren’t always a result of one isolated incident.
Agreed.
they also could not have foreseen all 5 of our o-line starters going down at some point, nor could they foresee Hasselbeck pretty much being injured for the entire season, nor could they foresee Seneca Wallace getting injured while Hasselbeck was injured. They also couldn’t foresee, 3 of our four probowl starters on defense having casts on their hands (which definitely contributed to our tackling and perhaps turnovers created, even if in a minor way).
This season was pretty much a nightmare.
The case...
He simply cannot make the case in 2009 that he was right in 2006. He wasn’t. He’s not. The WR position is in shambles; a situation largely of his making. If Crabtree is on the board at #4 need and talent will be in almost perfect alignment.
I agree. Well stated.
The injuries are not the only issue here...
it’s that Ruskell has been almost disdainful about restocking the WR position through the draft. The only receivers he has drafted have been way, way late on day 2 (Obo, Kent, and Taylor); big, toolsy, and not especially productive in college. Not surprisingly, we haven’t seen them magically become productive. There’s some potential, but not the kind of group that you want to carry the mail in case you have some foreseeable injuries to your older starters.
I don’t think we can afford that approach anymore.
"Those who fear disorder more than injustice inevitably produce more of both." -- Rev. William Coffin
I thought I'd never see the day
… Someone is defending Brian Russell.
"Part, fools!
Put up your swords. You know not what you do."
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