Eli wrote:
We can.
There are "smart" receivers, guys who know defenses, who find openings, who know how plays develop, when to block, when to be a decoy. The utility of those guys usually far exceeds their physical abilities.
And there are guys who are highly skilled who just go out and play and do well on sheer ability. I certainly wouldn't call Harvin a smart player. He's very talented, but he's never demonstrated anything that could be called football smarts. The smart receivers in this league do pretty well with the most mediocre of QBs. Look at Larry Fitzgerald. Harvin, meanwhile, pouts and slams doors when his QB misses throws or the OC doesn't call his number.
Rant warning!
I would have to say that knowing how to use your natural abilities to the point where you are being talked about as a possible MVP canidate says that you have some football smarts.... period. There are a plethora of fast strong guys in the NFL but it takes a bit of mental acumen to understand how to maximize angles when running and tackling. Harvin is naturally smart in that way....whether or not he is coachable as a receiver is another question entirely. One best answered by another staff, perhaps, because this one lacks any credibilty in my book.
Comparing Harvin to Fitzgerald is hardly an indictment of Harvin's brain power.
I did not say that Harvin was a smart receiver...I said he was a smart football player. When the ball is in his hands he knows exactly how to use his abilities to the point that this team used him in every capacity they possibly could and quite possibly past the point where it was physically healthy for him. The same can be said for they way they've used AD. Another guy I wouldn't exactly label a real smart person but a smart football player... regardless of what he lacks as far as fully playing his position.
But maybe it would be more fair to say he has great instincts rather than smarts.... it wasn't the point I was trying to make in the first place, which was the terrible instincts on display by this organization and the decades of pure suck at the QB position... the now decade long situation at O-line and the newest negligence at LB.
Were Eli and Elway whiny babies when they refused to even report to the respective teams that drafted them...or were they just using their good instincts and they expressed it differently? They didn't want to play for the Colts and Chargers because the teams were run like crap.
If I was a top 3 QB in college right now selected by the Vikings and Spielman and Fraizer were still running the show I'd pray that I'd have the support of an Archie Manning or the elder Elway-type saying, "Don't sign son".
This franchise hasn't don't much at all beyond average in the past 20 years save for 3 seasons. The first of which required the greatest rookie season ever by a wideout who literally changed the way secondaries defended. The 2nd required a miracle season from the leagues all time staistical leader in just about every category at QB. And the 3rd required one of the greatest seasons ever at the RB position....although a 10-6 one and done finish isn't really much in the larger scheme of things.
I don't exactly recall, at this, point how I wound up in the position of defending Percy Harvin's smarts, but it's blatantly obvious to me that, for whatever reason, he was very unhappy with this organization to the point where he wanted out. I can think of no one who is happy with this organization in any capacity.....and the problem is/was not Percy Harvin! He was the barometer for the actual situation, whatever it is. He was by no means the first (he expressed it differently)...and if nothing changes systemically, he won't be the last.
Good luck signing Everson Griffin....or any FA who wants to win more than wanting money.....guys with heart.
And to Jim's point about where Harvin could have ended up:
it's a valid point and evidently it was worth the risk to him. He could have wound up in New England too. He got fed up with something.
One of the side effects of denying ones heart for the sake of a low risk conservative modus operandi is the joy of mediocrity wrapped in the unflapable acceptance of small failures at critical moments.
Spielman is taking ridiculous poorly thought out risks: cutting Winfield without consulting anyone, even Winfield himself. Reaching for Ponder and just handing him the job. Trusting a backup QB (webb) who doesn't grok the offense Signing a busted QB in mid-freefall, midseason, with full knowledge that the guy needs meds for his neuro-chemistry in order to keep focus.
Meanwhile, Fraizer repeating his mantra of patient catatonic conservation.
I feel more like Harvin with each week.
I know it's not easy to have a winner, I really do...I just am amazed at how deftly they demonstrate it.
((sigh))
Have you heard him talk? Or how about this?
