The loss in Hotlanta

[Nas]

The whole Nicks' conversation is what I'm talking about as far as how his diminished ability right now has hurt the offense. Nicks isn't going to come in riding a white horse to rescue this offense this season. It's just not going to happen. And again, I hate that I was right about this... but this team royally, absolutely positively fucked up in the most massive way by not sitting Nicks down for that last preseason game and even the season opener against Dallas. Here's a player that is as critical to your season as pretty much any single player on the defense. Hakeem Nicks, when he's right, is a dominant force that has to be accounted for on every play. And he's coming off a pretty serious injury. What you do there... you play it conservatively. You say... "you know what, Hakeem. The docs have cleared you for action but we want you for the long haul. You need to rehab for 2 more weeks. Come December and January you'll be glad we sat you down and really let you get back to full strength." If they rest Nicks until week 2, I just think his whole season is different. I think Hakeem is a 8-10 TD guy at this point with a thousand yards. But they were in such a hurry to get him back on the field... when it's a marathon, not a sprint.

 

When Eli is having trouble finding Cruz... it's because the defense is ok with single coverage on Nicks. When you're not seeing big after-the-catch plays by Nicks... that's because he's not right. And we aren't seeing that. That's a major problem.

 

So you have to write him off at this point. I'm not saying bench him. What I'm saying is Eli needs to get pretty creative right now or Rueben Randle needs to start dominating. Because I believe Randle can be a terrific receiver. But there doesn't seem to be the level of trust yet between Eli and Randle... or Randle and the coaches. So here we go. Somebody has to strike fear into the defense. Somebody has to earn Cruz some single coverage. And somebody has to start scorching some secondaries. As for me, I'm looking for that somebody to be Rueben Randle. Because again, Hakeem isn't going to be 100% this season. If we make the playoffs, that performance we got from him last year IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. It's got to be somebody else, Eli has to be perfect, masterful in spreading the ball around. I'm hoping that Randle can show he's a real playmaker. We need that from him starting now.

 

This has been our cry year after year... this team seems to have trouble letting players heal... they're always rushed into action... and I understand the old mentality of "tough it out" but you know what.. that's just dumb. I had an idiot 1st Sgt who would never let us wear ear plugs in training.. his excuse was "how you gonna hear the enemy if you have ear plugs on".. what the idiot should have known is ... we need to preserver our hearing for actual war time... this has shit to do with toughness... and everything to do with stupid old people.

[TaylorBanksCarsonVanPelt]

This has been our cry year after year... this team seems to have trouble letting players heal... they're always rushed into action... and I understand the old mentality of "tough it out" but you know what.. that's just dumb. I had an idiot 1st Sgt who would never let us wear ear plugs in training.. his excuse was "how you gonna hear the enemy if you have ear plugs on".. what the idiot should have known is ... we need to preserver our hearing for actual war time... this has shit to do with toughness... and everything to do with stupid old people.

 

I have to agree...Nicks should not have been playing until game 2 or 3 at the earliest. Now we reap the whirlwind...