Elephant in the room ... is Earl ok?

[FlyingGreg]

He questioned his passion last year. I guess at this point it may be painfully, obviously a legit concern.

My exact concern. I just don't see the same blitzkrieging dude.

To be honest, Greg, you don't seem to be asking questions in this thread so much as making statements. If you want to make a statement - "Earl is not well" - do that. Don't make it a question and then get annoyed when people answer it that way (i.e. sometimes with a "no").

My take is, we gave up nothing in this game when it mattered, and given Blaine Gabbert can tear up an offense when he needs to, I'd say a lot of that success was on Earl. The FS, to me, is like the OL - not being seen is a good sign he's doing a job. Or like a MLB - too many tackles probably means that the DL isn't doing ITS job. Earl has a whiff or two per game. Always has. But giving up 12 points per game, 5 of those during garbage time, and with the DL's performance being rather spotty today - I can't get up in arms over Earl's performance.

I am not looking for assessments of how I asked about Earl or my other comments in this thread.

The title of the thread contains the question. Respondents should direct responses to that question and not derail it.

So, let's remove the first paragraph of your response. It is superfluous.

:2thumbs:

Back on point... on the merit of your actual response...that tends to be most people's opinion on Earl, that we don't hear his name and that is a good thing. Perhaps.

But, we used to hear his name all the time...flying all over the field and making plays.

 

[Rocket]

Wait for his next press conference - his head ain't right, he's preoccupied.

 

[xgeoff]

This is really interesting. i have also thought that Earl has not been playing well this year, but in general the Defense has played very well, and Earl is in a very critical position in the D. I mean, he covers the deep part of the field on just about every play. Now, Gabbert and Keenum don't have the arms to really challenge you down the field, but Tannehill does.

I guess what I am saying is that although I continue to see many missed tackles, I'm not sure that his coverage has been bad because I don't think we've really been exploited in that area in our games so far.

Anyhow I'm hopeful that he elevates his game back to where it's been in the past.

 

[SirTed]

When this thread first popped I was in complete agreement. Earl had slipped. Still a good player, but not the perfect free safety I had in my mind's eye.

But after watching highlights of 2013, I've changed my mind.

I'm wondering (hoping) if this is a case where we all have an eye on Earl now, and every bad angle, every quote, every tackle he doesn't wrap up is a sign of something. A sign of his decline, or a decline in his desire.

I found myself going down the rabbit hole today, and ended up watching a bunch of 2013 games. You know what? "Peak Earl" took a few bad angles, even in big moments. He hardly ever wrapped up (his size). Basically, if you were looking for certain mistakes from Earl, you would definitely find them. But at that time, nobody was looking.

This is NOT to say he was bad then, and now, but the opposite. I think he's still great. As others have said, he takes away so much with his speed, we often don't know the magic he's performing. If he had, somehow how some way gotten a pick or two in the first 3 games, but taken those same bad angles, would we even be talking about this? I doubt it.

But he hasn't gotten those picks, so what gives? Well, again, watching '13, damn, we were blowing people out in most cases. Turnovers are a lot easier to force when you're up 2 scores in the 2nd half, a position that we haven't found ourselves in too often lately (but we did get one when the situation came up last week).

So, this is me saying Earl is Earl, and if our offense can keep clicking like it did against SF, this whole idea of his "slipping" will just fade away.

 

[Overseasfan]

He isn't playing as well as he used to but it's not like he has cost us games either.