bryan
Scout Team
Tony lost his starting backfield, one was an nfl mvp runner up, the other orchestrated the wildcat to an efficiency no one else in the league even came close to.
What Pennington did last year has little to do with COY for 2009. Fact is Penny was 0-3 as the starter in 2009 and Henne had over a year to sit on the bench and get ready.
Ronnie is great at running the Wildcat....no doubt about that.....but as great as he was his yards/per carry is 4.4 in 2009. Ricky had the higher average when Ronnie got hurt and is sitting at 4.9 right now according to NFL.com stats. Pretty hard to argue we lost much on our rushing attack.
Hindsight is 20/20 and of course henne looks good, but pennington was tony's starting qb.
We drafted Henne to replace Pennington.....and Henne has played at a comparable level to where Pennington was playing.
Ferguson was our starting nose and a highly respected player in the locker room. Roth was coming off a breakout year. Will Allen was a starter and also respected throughout the league going into the season.
Ferg was splitting time with Solai through much of the year. I have seen no drop-of in our rushing defense. In fact, I think Solai has played just as well as Ferg was earlier in the year. Roth is so good he was released. I think losing Will Allen is right up there with Ronnie as the two big injuries for 2009.
tony lost a little over 1/5 of his starting lineup from an 11-5 division winning team and is playing the toughest schedule in the nfl.
We won the division last year by playing a relatively easy schedule, with very few injuries, and some key injuries to other teams in the AFC East didn't hurt.
Once again, we have not won those tough games on our schedule this year. That is why we are sitting one game over .500.
If he repeats as division champion how can he not get consideration? Do you think Payton and Caldwell could do the same if they lost their best players on offense?
I think the Colts have certainly had some injuries to deal with. Losing Bob Sanders, Marlin Jackson and Anthony Gonzalez off the top of my head. I know the Saints lost Jamal Brown and some others.
It's a shame he didn't beat two teams no one else has found a way to beat either.
The shame is not in losing to the Colts and Saints. It is how we lost. COY candidates do not blow 24-3 leads and dominate teams with 45 minutes of possession only to lose the games.