- Joined
- Feb 5, 2008
- Messages
- 11,484
- Reaction score
- 14,704
Completely agree Superself. Each of these is unacceptable.
Howard has done pretty well since he came into the league with the PI, since his style and the expectation of press man corners is that they will struggle with that. But last year he had problems. The good news was that the light sorta came on for him in the latter half of the season and he really started to play well. Many of those PI calls are judgement calls by the refs. When you're a good CB like Richard Sherman, they simply don't call it. If you notice Howard's play towards the end of the year, he was playing lights-out, and the refs let some of that go. He could have easily been called for more PI during that stretch, but the refs gave him the benefit of the doubt because his general level of play was quite good. I like to think that a combo of experience and less strict ref treatment bode well for Howard's PI numbers decreasing. It's little more than a hunch on my part, but that's what I'm expecting.
Godchaux, well this is a different thing. He was consistently single-teamed, and he still needed to gamble on snap-count (as did Suh) which leads to the opposing offense being able to get you offsides whenever they want … and that's not a good thing. Likewise, it's an indication that he's not particularly quick for a DL, and given he's not a huge fire hydrant type, he needs to be quick. Not sure how he is going to reduce those pre-snap penalties without simply letting the single OL dominate him. He's young and learning though, so there's hope.
Tunsil is a bit of an enigma. This guy has super-quick feet and doesn't need to get pre-snap penalties because he's scared of speed rushers. Physically, he's got it. This is a gap between potential--which is through the roof, and production--which is below average. I'm hoping he starts to work harder and having Josh Sitton next to him helps him concentrate more on his craft without worrying about helping inside. I always thought he would have benefitted from having Branden Albert for one more year to keep him on the right path as a professional, but Tunsil is going to have to find that inside himself now. I _hope_ he puts in the work instead of arrogantly assuming that he's naturally good enough without the work, and then getting scared during games when he faces ultra-quick DE's. Those penalties are drive killers. If Tunsil wants a shot at the Hall of Fame, he needs to fix those penalties ASAP. That's not the reputation you want to make a lasting impression.
