Danny ChaiYou remember when Marc Bulger started doing well this year some people started saying, hmm, maybe it’s not that Kurt Warner was so good at all, that it wasn’t the quarterback but the system. This made no sense to me. If it really is all about the system, how do you explain Warner doing poorly at the beginning of the season? Did something go wrong with the “system”? Then why did they do well again immediately when Bulger came in? The “system” changed immediately?
I dunno, to me, when Warner started doing bad and Bulger did well that was proof that the quarterback does matter. If it’s just about the system, you’d get similar results no matter who was in there, and that’s obviously not what happened.
Another football note – looks like Gruden was right. When he was here he got some flack for being too conservative, in particular for running so much when the had so many passing weapons. As soon as he left, the Raiders opened up the passing. But Gruden was right – you can’t ever be a one dimensional team, no matter how good you are on that dimension, because if a team takes that away from you you’re totally screwed. That was actually the same mistake Martz made last year, right? Insisting on just passing, ignoring his best weapon Faulk. You have to mix it up, just to keep defenses on their toes.
So the reason I hate Skip Bayless is because he seems to always take the contrary position just for the sake of it. I don’t care that he’s obnoxious and arrogant. It just bothers me because I think he’s wrong. The first article he wrote for the Merc was on how they shouldn’t have canceled sporting events after 9/11 because he wants to watch football. Idiot. And all year he’s been insisting how the Raiders got the better end of the Gruden deal and as recently as 3 weeks ago he was calling Gruden the most overrated coach in football.
Oops. I dunno, it’s clear that the last 2 games the Bucs came in with a superior game plan, superior coaching, on both offense and defense. Overrated huh? Idiot. That’s also where I disagree with Al Davis. His whole mantra is “just win” but his problem is he doesn’t realize that the NFL, especially now in the salary cap era, is dominated by coaching. He still thinks it’s purely a players’ game, that the coach is relatively insignificant. I think he’s wrong. I dunno, he got to the Super Bowl by having an insane payroll this year but he’s not gonna be able to get back without great coaching.
Random football thoughts.