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Ogden bashing

Miamian

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I'm bound to receive a litany of recriminations over this, but I have to let this out before I burst: I DON'T THINK THAT OGDEN IS THAT BAD!

He had a couple of pretty good returns last year. According to this link on the official NFL site he ranks seventh among punt returners leaguewide. I know that he lost a couple of fumbles also, but very returners are completely sure-handed. There are no statistics kept for fumbles that I could find.

Sometimes I get the feeling that he's a scapegoat.
 
I agree and STRONGLY disagree at the same time. This is a perfect case where stats can lie. He DID do a pretty good job on returns once he decided to actually run. That is not the problem everyone has with him though. The problem is there were FAR TOO MANY boneheaded decisions when it came to his returns. There were countless fair catches when there were no defenders in the vacinity. That automatically puts the offense in the whole by having to make longer drives. There were also several times where he let what should have been a fair-caught ball at about the 20-25 yard line drop and roll to the one for the defender to down the ball there. (I think he did this TWICE in the second jets game.) Both possesions were automatic 3 and outs...

So, I don't care what he did with his legs... the fact is he hurt us FAR more than he helped us, and it was an inexcusable move by the coaches to continue to let him field punts game after game while he continued to maake dumb moves like that. It seemed like there was at least one BIG mistake by him in the return department every game... and in a team that depends on the field position battle... that is horrible!

Edit: Oh yeah, and there is one more thing I forgot... our team consistently has the best special teams schemes in the league. And, our blocking patterns make it easy for anyone to have a return avg. towards the top of the league. The problem is there were several opputunities, where things could have been much bigger, yet they turned into nothing with him.
 
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That's a valid point, but I think that his decision making got better as the year went on.

The other thing is that there are about 11 others among those 25 who fair caught more often Ogden.
 
he scares me to death as a punt returner, but the few times he came in as a wr he did pretty good.
 
The only reason why he was in the top 10 was because he only ran when the defenders were really really far away.
 
Originally posted by iceblizzard69
The only reason why he was in the top 10 was because he only ran when the defenders were really really far away.

LOL ...TRUE TRUE.............
 
Originally posted by iceblizzard69
The only reason why he was in the top 10 was because he only ran when the defenders were really really far away.
agreed - his success was strictly the ST's success; he added nothing.
 
I don't share such a pessimistic view of his decision making. I can really only recall a few times where he made an obvious mistake in the past two years and I, like most of you, have also seen every Phin game.

I think its just that when it happens and its obvious, it really p!sses you off and makes you remember it. He was not an exciting returner, but he was a pretty good one. He didn't have fumble problems in 2000, just 2001 for some reason but he had THREE fumbles. Thats three more than a punt returner should have. I could see maybe one BOBBLE that the other team recovered but that never happened he just caught the ball, ran, then put it on the ground THREE TIMES.
 
Jeff Ogden is scary as hell, thats his problem! Punt returning is no different from being a flier on Kickoffs! Mindset has to be kamakozee(?) It takes a special type of heart to return punts! Skills aside, the boy lacks heart, but naw, I cant say that, cause like you said, he does much better at WR, I dont know what to think about Ogden, but I do know one thing, I would much rather see someone else returning punts this year!
 
He just plain scares me. Every time I see him drop back ready to attempt to catch a punt, I look around at all the other dolphin fans and see almost everyone of them is asking God for a favor.
 
Originally posted by PHINFAN4LIFE
Jeff Ogden is scary as hell, thats his problem! Punt returning is no different from being a flier on Kickoffs! Mindset has to be kamakozee(?) It takes a special type of heart to return punts! Skills aside, the boy lacks heart, but naw, I cant say that, cause like you said, he does much better at WR, I dont know what to think about Ogden, but I do know one thing, I would much rather see someone else returning punts this year!
I couldn't disagree more. Having a kamikaze mindset is an advantage on the coverage team, because you're not carrying the ball. There's a difference between being aggressive and foolhardy.
 
Originally posted by ckparrothead
I don't share such a pessimistic view of his decision making. I can really only recall a few times where he made an obvious mistake in the past two years and I, like most of you, have also seen every Phin game.

I think its just that when it happens and its obvious, it really p!sses you off and makes you remember it. He was not an exciting returner, but he was a pretty good one. He didn't have fumble problems in 2000, just 2001 for some reason but he had THREE fumbles. Thats three more than a punt returner should have. I could see maybe one BOBBLE that the other team recovered but that never happened he just caught the ball, ran, then put it on the ground THREE TIMES.

Yeah, but how may times did Ogden call for a fair catch when he had nobody within 15-20 yards of him?? Many times. How mnay times did he catch and try to run with the ball when he was swarmed with 2-4 players covering him before he even caught the ball?? Many times. We should have pushed to get Terrence Wilkins. Instead we signed a fullback.
 
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