Year 2 was and is the problem!!

[Ibar_Harry]

I have stated many times that injuries in year 2 were the undoing of this ball club and you are now seeing those affects. To begin with the injuries desimated a vertern defense and they never fully recovered from that. That has resulted in the holes so many of you are talking about on defense and the problems it is creating with the draft. They had hoped to be able to win a number of years with a strong vetern defense and an adequate offense. That is Caper's Comfort zone. We also had injuries to Carr that year and we had O-line injury problems. I believe they had planned to slowly revamp the defense over time devoting the draft to the offensive side of the ball. In this case the injuries in year 2 made them look away from O-linemen and towards defense. The DROB pick I believe was based on the fact that Glenn was suddenly an injury problem and he was the key back on defense. He was going to have to be replaced perhaps sooner than they thought. Walker, Sharper, Payne and others were having problems and that dictated the Babin pick where so many draft picks were given up. I believe their 5 year plan went up in smoke with those injuries. Instead of coming out and saying folks we got real problems because of the injuries and we are going to have to rethink this, they panicked and the end result is what you see today. Capers inflexibility to deal with those injuries and go to the strength of his ball club resulted in his demise. If he would have continued to build his remaining strength, which was basically a young healthy offense, he could have patched his defense over time while still winning some games. He had to win games with his offense, not his defense. But mentally he simply couldn't do that because he has a mental block with respect to the offensive side of the game.

Look at Indy and what they have done. They built a tremondous offense and have finally put together the defense. They won a lot of games and made the playoffs based on their offensive ability. They didn't make it all the way, but they made a good run at it. This year they have it all. Again you have to make the most of what you are, not what you are not.

[infantrycak]

Originally Posted by Ibar_Harry

Walker, Sharper, Payne and others were having problems and that dictated the Babin pick where so many draft picks were given up.

Well that makes perfect sense Ibar--the RDE, NT and ILB are having problems (you do realize Sharper played in every game in both 2003 and 2004?) so they are forced to give up the farm to draft an OLB prospect. Somehow that logic just doesn't work out IMO.

[ATX]

Not to mention we drafted our future DT/DE in last year's draft with the Travis Johnson pick. That was our 4th college draft, Payne and Walker were hurt during our second year. So what did we do after the second season, we drafted Robinson a CB then Babin an OLB.

WE focused mainly on offense the 1st couple of years in the draft, then Fangio complained and so we drafted defense.

[eriadoc]

Originally Posted by SESupergenius

WE focused mainly on offense the 1st couple of years in the draft, then Fangio complained and so we drafted defense.

Maybe our O-line coach should have complained.

[Vinny]

Originally Posted by eriadoc

Maybe our O-line coach should have complained.

We have had several....perhaps they did.

[eriadoc]

Originally Posted by Vinny

We have had several....perhaps they did.

LOL, that's pretty funny

If you can't fix it, can the coach!