The scary thing was McNair was the best offensive player the Titans had anyway.Soxcat said:
When McNair was on the fence about returning after the sternum surgery, I bet Fisher & Co stressed the offense would be designed around keeping him healthy just to get him to stay after the team purged the roster.
McNair was never very accurate. Often times it was due to injury but hitting a receiver in stride was rare for a long time. He improved his MVP season but never was as consistent as what you would think Chow would need for a short, timing offense. It just wasn't a good fit, IMO.
I don't buy into this. I think McNair was never one with the best work habits and would never be accused of being a student of the game but I did see him work with the rookie WRs a few times after training camp sessions. Where I think the problems arose was when McNair wasn't practicing during the season at all due to his injuries. And the rookie WRs were hurt as well.
"Brat vet"? I don't think McNair ever pouted. When he had receivers clearly not running the right route or making reads, he never pointed a finger. He had defenders in his face with a three-step drop and he never complained the OL was pathetic at times last season.
When he missed practice, it was due to his own injuries. As to his poor play, he was still the best offensive player on the field for the Titans last season which shows how much the Titans offense relied on McNair year after year.
I clearly think he lost a step but I'm not going to place total blame on McNair when he had limited talent/experience around him, no running game and a defense who couldn't keep him in the offensive game plan.
Just about every player -- past, present and future -- talks about how McNair made their game better because they wanted to play hard for a guy who put it on the line each game. I think McNair could have done a better job when the team needed him to step up and lead during the week but I think you've gone to the extreme here in blaming him for a lot which was beyond his control.
airhead was the biggest waster of timeouts... he screwed up the rams game cuz he wasted a timeout early in the 2nd half...
I agree TJ. We're seeing alot of "blame the guy who has left" going on with the Chow/McNair remarks. Truth is Fisher is the HC, Chow is the OC and McNair was the QB. The hierarchy of responsibility is obvious.
Come on posters- don't make Steve the whippin' boy. We've got better and healthier offensive personnel this year. Let's just see what Fisher and Chow can do with them.
Come on posters- don't make Steve the whippin' boy. We've got better and healthier offensive personnel this year. Let's just see what Fisher and Chow can do with them.
Tj...
Everything I wanted to say...but you said it better....and shorter!!!
Gut
TitanJeff said:
Everything I wanted to say...but you said it better....and shorter!!!
Gut
Mac isn't the whipping boy, Schwartz is. Where was this article 4 years ago about Schwartz? I'm still waiting for the axe, because he has been the demise of the Titans and will ultimately be the chair that was pulled out from under Jeff Fisher. I hate skirt-wearing Defensive Coordinators, and I cannot stand watching the Titans play Defense anymore. It's like watching my girlfriend getting bent over right in front of me.:sad2:
TitanJeff said:
Jeff - Have you heard any comments that they're going to try to get into a more downfield passing game this year? I think Billy is a poor dink/dunk type passer too - but a good downfield passer. Can you scrap a ton of the playbook an rebuild it around Billy?
Volek better learn to dump it sometimes. He gets hurt holding onto the ball waiting for the WRs to get downfield.
I don't know if they'll try to be any more a downfield passing team than they were last year. I think we have to consider that the combination of teams pulling back their safeties to protect big leads and no Titans WR able to stretch the field played more into the reason the Titans didn't hit as many deep balls last season. McNair was forced to check down.smili said:
As one who spent much of last week defending those criticizing Mac, I've got to change my tune here. Those last few were way too hard on him. He may not have practiced much, but the team genuinely wanted to play for him, and he was a great leader in that sense. I'd never compare him to Manning or a "spoiled brat". I think we'll be better off with him gone so we can move forward, but I won't criticize him that much.
I would say it is debatable to say Mac was or wasn't the best offensive player we had last year. No way we utilized the talent we had. IMO we will find out the WRs we drafted were a great bunch and will all have solid NFL careers. Troupe is one of the better TEs as is Kinney. Look up their stats and you will see they are better than any other tandem of TEs in the NFL. The RBs were not as bad as the stats appeared. The brunt of the blame should go to the OL and not the skill players around Mac IMO. Mostly I thought Mac didn't take advantage of what he had to work with, threw in the towel and essentially gave up. The FO knew the situation and had already made their mind up they didn't want Mac back.
Who was better than McNair? Most teams are only as good on offense as their QB play.Soxcat said:
It's a chicken or egg debate. Did the Titans not utilize their talent due to their not being enough of it to begin with? Did Kinney have a great season because he is a top TE or that teams played deep with 14-point leads and allowed him to catch all the short stuff he wanted?
I agree with you on Troupe. He started out the season looking to be ready to break out. Chow and the Titans should have found a way to get the ball in his hands more. But Troupe also did some really boneheaded things such as spike a live football and disappeared for stretches during games. Still, you have to get your playmakers the ball.
I also agree with you on the OL. I think it is a much bigger concern right now than Volek at QB. If I am the Titans, I drop Piller and move Bell inside and give the RT spot to Stewart. With the exception of Mawae, you'd have a core group who would gain experience this season and be much more improved in '07 when Young is ready to take the field.
Once the Titans knew they'd get a top QB in the draft, they understood the timing was right to make the change.
Excellent observation on the oline Jeff maybe Pillar and Olsen will be motivated having these young guys push them. If not I totally agree get the young guys in there and get ready for VY. If Pillar and Olsen dont play much better the younger guys wont be any drop off at all and at least they will be getting much needed experience as you said.
I wrote in another post that we should have moved up a few spots in the draft and drafted Gilles after he slipped into the late 3rd round. He would have been great value and would have made Pillar expendable. Instead we did very little to improve our OL but we do get to see how well Lowry and Nande do on STs going down on punts.
not bad...
Any argument is debatable, but I think we all agree the problem starts with the O-line. With a porous O-line, you can' really through downfield. You can't run either so that limits play-action effectiveness. Add in a bad defense giving up a ton of points and you have the recipe for a bad record.
As TJ said, teams with a lead are gonna force us to run or throw underneath...one of the main reasons our TE's caught so many balls.
If you think McNair threw in the towel, that's your perogative. I don't agree but that's neither here nor there.
I think everyone on the team got frustrated because we couldn't get a lot done on offense with a poor O-line wrecking our running game and disrupting the passing game. I think McNair was also not comfortable in the offense which is why sometimes he was late or couldn't find anyone open sometimes. Add in his lack of practice due to injury and you don't have a great recipe for your QB...best weapon or not.
There is blame to be found all around, but the defense is where the towel was REALLY thrown in. We surrendered 8 100 yard rushers?!?!?!? That wasn't even a nightmare you could imagine in our hey day on defense. What's worse is we couldn't tackle...and tackling is about one thing...heart. By the time you get to the pros, you know how to tackle....even the QB's, PK's and P's know how to tackle. One of the easiest ways to tell a good D from a bad one is the tackling.
And BTW, if the FO already knew McNair was gonna be out, why didn't they trade him before, during, or right after the draft? If they weren't gonna keep him...they could have easily forseen what would happen locking McNair out and getting less value for him considering they showed everyone there hand. Either they didn't know it at the time...or they played that as poorly as you can!
Gut
Soxcat said:
Any argument is debatable, but I think we all agree the problem starts with the O-line. With a porous O-line, you can' really through downfield. You can't run either so that limits play-action effectiveness. Add in a bad defense giving up a ton of points and you have the recipe for a bad record.
As TJ said, teams with a lead are gonna force us to run or throw underneath...one of the main reasons our TE's caught so many balls.
If you think McNair threw in the towel, that's your perogative. I don't agree but that's neither here nor there.
I think everyone on the team got frustrated because we couldn't get a lot done on offense with a poor O-line wrecking our running game and disrupting the passing game. I think McNair was also not comfortable in the offense which is why sometimes he was late or couldn't find anyone open sometimes. Add in his lack of practice due to injury and you don't have a great recipe for your QB...best weapon or not.
There is blame to be found all around, but the defense is where the towel was REALLY thrown in. We surrendered 8 100 yard rushers?!?!?!? That wasn't even a nightmare you could imagine in our hey day on defense. What's worse is we couldn't tackle...and tackling is about one thing...heart. By the time you get to the pros, you know how to tackle....even the QB's, PK's and P's know how to tackle. One of the easiest ways to tell a good D from a bad one is the tackling.
And BTW, if the FO already knew McNair was gonna be out, why didn't they trade him before, during, or right after the draft? If they weren't gonna keep him...they could have easily forseen what would happen locking McNair out and getting less value for him considering they showed everyone there hand. Either they didn't know it at the time...or they played that as poorly as you can!
Gut
Well...
I don't think the Titans (nor several teams) want Gilles as he's huge and relatively immobile. Most teams - Titans included - are going the other direction...wanting smaller and quicker OL.
But I agree that we had opportunities to get some OL help and Reese chose not to...again.
Gut
Soxcat said:
I don't think the Titans (nor several teams) want Gilles as he's huge and relatively immobile. Most teams - Titans included - are going the other direction...wanting smaller and quicker OL.
But I agree that we had opportunities to get some OL help and Reese chose not to...again.
Gut
- Status
- Not open for further replies.
