Biggest draft bust in Seahawk history.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/sport ... .html?_r=0

It just goes to show players need to earn their money, not have it handed to them.

“I didn’t think anybody would be interested,” he said

...or that desperate.

“I think earlier in my career I was real selfish and self-centered,” he said. “I was more about me than the Seahawks.”

What a surprise.

We all knew that his heart wasn't it. Hell, he spent more time tweeting religious crap than he spent learning the playbook.

Damage control. He knows this is his last shot.

He sucks. The game is way too cerebral and fast for him at this level.

FlyingGreg wrote:The game is way too cerebral and fast for him at this level.

And weren't those his two biggest selling points coming out of college that had virtually everyone in the NFL drooling over him? I don't remember, but was there anyone who didn't believe he would dominate from day one?

Bust. Mega bust.

I could care less about him. I'm just glad the dark days with Ruskell/Curry/Mora are done with.

I'll never forget the last game he played for us. It was the game in NY against the Giants that we ended up winning on a Browner pick 6. He had a couple plays that will always stand out in my mind.

The first one was he was in man coverage on the Giants huge TE that looks like a tackle. The dude just blew past him as easily as I've ever seen for a 25+ yard gain. Absolutely pathetic effort.

The second one was a Eli Manning errant throw that was headed right into one of our DB's hands, when all of a sudden Aaron Curry leaps into the air and bats the ball away, totally oblivious.

I remember thinking after that game, I wouldn't be shocked if they just release him this week. Heard about the trade to Oakland a few days later.

I'll never forget the last game he played for us. It was the game in NY against the Giants in 2011 that we ended up winning on a Browner pick 6. He had a couple plays that will always stand out in my mind.

The first one was he was in man coverage on the Giants huge TE that looks like a tackle. The dude just blew past him as easily as I've ever seen for a 25+ yard gain. Absolutely pathetic effort.

The second one was a Eli Manning errant throw that was headed right into one of our DB's hands, when all of a sudden Aaron Curry leaps into the air and bats the ball away, totally oblivious.

I remember thinking after that game, I wouldn't be shocked if they just release him this week. Heard about the trade to Oakland a few days later.

I'll be pissed if he actually plays well for the Giants.

This actually surprises me a bit. Not that I thought Curry was incapable of slacking or anything... I just didn't think "effort" was his biggest flaw.

I thought it was more as Ballz put it... he was "totally oblivious." Zero instincts.

Honestly, that article should have ended with 'You mad Seattle?'

Probably would have thrown my mouse. Hearing people say **** like "I just didn't really work at it" when they are getting paid $60 million a year to do just that drives me bat**** crazy.


Edit: *'d the profanity.

RolandDeschain wrote:I'll be pissed if he actually plays well for the Giants.

I'm guessing you'll be able to rest easy.

Sarlacc83 wrote:

RolandDeschain wrote:I'll be pissed if he actually plays well for the Giants.

I'm guessing you'll be able to rest easy.

If his only problem was motivation, and now he's ego has taken enough hits that he's motivated, he could turn out to be a very good LB. I'm hoping that's not the case, because it'll piss me off more if it is, but...We'll see.

I'm glad the outrageous rookie contracts are a thing of the past. Never understood how a pup could come in and make so much more than a proven vet. You should be paid for performance not potential.

-The Glove- wrote:I'm glad the outrageous rookie contracts are a thing of the past. Never understood how a pup could come in and make so much more than a proven vet. You should be paid for performance not potential.

I think that players should be paid whatever the market is willing to give them with no restrictions.

That being said, however, if there was a guy that might get me to at least consider coming off that position, it would be Aaron Curry.

Ballz wrote:The first one was he was in man coverage on the Giants huge TE that looks like a tackle. The dude just blew past him as easily as I've ever seen for a 25+ yard gain. Absolutely pathetic effort.

I totally remember this play. That was the exact moment I forever gave up on Aaron Curry ever amounting to anything. It was a play action and he bit so hard on the play fake that you'd have thought it was made out of cheeseburgers...

I think Curry just mistakenly thought he was at the top of the mountain.

Back when he was in college, you would hear all this stuff about how hard he pushed himself, how much he worked, etc. I don't think that was fluff. But the problem is when you drive yourself like that eventually you mentally wear out. I used to call it "six sprints and a collapse".

The hard part about goals is that when you focus on them like that, drive yourself for years to get them, and then finally reach them - what next? There is an understandable inclination to stand on top of the mountain and just feel like you made it. He worked for years to get to the NFL and he finally made it.

The problem is that once you get to the top of whatever ladder you are climbing, you usually are faced with another ladder that is even harder to climb.

Either the competitive drive has to be internal (like a Jordan) or if it is fixated on a goal like that it is just easy to be exhausted. And once you put in years of work like that it is understandable to feel you have a right to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

I don't think the guy was a bad guy. And if you watched him in college it is clear he could be a great player, I think his heart just wasn't in it. He himself said his goal was to lift his family up from poverty - well he did that. So it is easy to understand, even if you don't agree, that after years of doing nothing but eating and breathing football...he decided to actually live the rest of his life. The problem is that doing that made him average, or worse, and so he lost his value as a football player.

Maybe he realizes what he misses about the game or maybe he misses the paychecks. I don't wish any ill on the guy, I hope he succeeds because we don't need him to fail for our team to be successful.

Dudes just a bum, I remember that NY game, Manning went at him on more than a few occasions. He actually had a full drive it seemed where he'd just throwing at Curry and Curry just looked like pure struggle.

This too was the tipping point for me where I said this dudes gotta go.

I guess he feels like he is coming clean, showing he has matured but I am not sure admitting publicly helps him much going forward. He could have just left it unsaid. Now there will always be a little doubt from teammates, coaches and Front office whether he will quit on you in the future?

His choice but I would have just come in and busted my butt to succeed. If I turned things around and someone wanted to know why maybe then I would explain the difference. He hasn't proven himself yet, so in my mind he is just making it tougher for himself. He is coming in slightly out of shape as it is. Just do the work, prove you have value and see what the future holds. My suggestion would be to do the Barbara Walters mea culpa down the road.

Just my 2 cents.

He's plucked an excuse out of the air. A headline to justify why he wasn't good enough.

Love how the Seattle media are Tweeting though about how this is an obvious fact. Errr, did you guys ever raise this point when he was on the team if it was so obvious? No. Because that would've required a difficult question being asked. Rather than everyone roll up for the press conference, sit there and record/write down bland quotes and live an easy life. Then go and write a blog post nobody wants to read summing up a press conference we all watched for ourselves on Seahawks.com.

Rant over.

English, I don't know how you survive, considering how personally you seem to take hypocrisy. (Which is everywhere, all the time.) Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your point, but I try not to let it get to me so much. Not good for the blood pressure.

RolandDeschain wrote:English, I don't know how you survive, considering how personally you seem to take hypocrisy. (Which is everywhere, all the time.) Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your point, but I try not to let it get to me so much. Not good for the blood pressure.

Stiff upper lip.

Sarlacc83 wrote:Stiff upper lip.

And a slack jaw.

Smelly McUgly wrote: I think that players should be paid whatever the market is willing to give them with no restrictions.

That being said, however, if there was a guy that might get me to at least consider coming off that position, it would be Aaron Curry.

The problem was... it was a false market. It still is for that matter... but at least it's more in line than under the old CBA.

Applying the old CBA to myself... I'm a mechanical engineer with 32+ years experience in the aerospace industry.

I can't imagine a 22 y/o kid coming out of college with the same degree and his starting salary trumps mine by 10x.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Back on topic... I'll predict that Curry won't make it past game 8 before getting cut, assuming that he even makes the Giants 53-man roster.

I'm with the Glove.

You get drafted very high, then come into the NFL and hold out for even more money. Then they pay you 50 million dollars, which is more than most of the veterans on the team are already making.

So where is the hunger? Where is the motivation? I am a small business owner. It's a rare person that is fueled by a desire to be successful, for personal achievement, after you've already been given everything you need. We're talking Russell Wilson rare, and he's making peanuts compared to what Curry was handed. Seriously, how many of you would go to work if you won the lottery ? How many of you business owners out there would keep grinding away if you were already wealthy beyond your dreams, we're talking about enough money to set you and generations of your family up?

I'll say this: I would keep working, but I wouldn't be putting 80-90 hrs a week into this thing, and not see my kids, if I was already wealthy. And if fishing, or vacations or family activities came up, it would be super easy to bail on work, which would lead to the degredation of my business. I don't see athletes as a whole lot different. You work to hone your craft, and if you don't really need to, how hard exactly would you push ?

I suspect that Aaron Curry's draft hype was most likely a media creation, much like Shariff Floyd this year. His tape was nowhere near top five pick quality, and the untapped potential argument always struck me as myth-making because there wasn't any evidence that made you think "oh, if he does this one thing better he'll take off." Nothing like that. He had a "missile" like quality against running backs that attacked laterally, and he had good "physical" talent (size, speed, etc), but otherwise he was ultra blase on tape. If you are going to pay a LB $60 million over 6 years you need to be sure he's Julian Peterson first, and on his college tape Curry looked much more like a Leroy Hill type.

Perhaps because of the cautionary tale that is Aaron Curry, it seems front offices have gotten better at figuring out which players are media creations and which aren't. Floyd looked like a lock for the top 3 based on draft hype but slid into the late 1st. Based on how I graded him, late 1st is what he deserved. Floyd has short arms and couldn't penetrate to save his life at Florida. He's good at everything else, he's not a bum, but as a pass rusher he's the opposite of great, and yet people in the media were saying he'd be a 10 sack a year 3-tech. Talk about clueless. People said the same thing about Curry, that he'd be a 10 sack a year player, and like Floyd, they predicted this despite strong evidence to the contrary. They pulled it straight out of their ass. Unfortunately for us, Tim Ruskell fell for it because he didn't know how to evaluate talent.

I felt the same way with Greg Oden. Every time I watched him at OSU he would get 10 points 10 rebounds playing full time. I understood the argument that you draft centers #1, but I never understood why it had to be Oden. He was a hype job gone out of control. I'm glad I'm not a Blazers fan. Watching my teams take mindless hype jobs like Oden and Curry within the span of a couple years would have been too much to take.

RolandDeschain wrote:English, I don't know how you survive

It must be something in the tea....

Rob has to live with an edge. If he didn't, he'd slip into a coma covering soccer all the time.

That reminds me, I read today that the DC United MLS team just scored their first point in 65 days. I'm not joking.

onanygivensunday wrote:

Smelly McUgly wrote: I think that players should be paid whatever the market is willing to give them with no restrictions.

That being said, however, if there was a guy that might get me to at least consider coming off that position, it would be Aaron Curry.

The problem was... it was a false market. It still is for that matter... but at least it's more in line than under the old CBA.

Applying the old CBA to myself... I'm a mechanical engineer with 32+ years experience in the aerospace industry.

I can't imagine a 22 y/o kid coming out of college with the same degree and his starting salary trumps mine by 10x.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Back on topic... I'll predict that Curry won't make it past game 8 before getting cut, assuming that he even makes the Giants 53-man roster.

The market is the market. Markets are fluid, not "false."

Let's put it this way: Had Andrew Luck not been forced into a completely planned market with a salary cap and a draft system, he would have been worth whatever the Colts (or whatever team) wanted to pay him. What someone is worth is fluid.

Analogizing between our jobs and the NFL usually heads toward the false analogy realm, but let's put it this way. I am a college instructor. If someone that just came out of college showed a possible ability to get students to learn and retain information at 200% my ability (or anyone else's), then yeah, that person should get more money than me. If a school values that potential enough to give that instructor tenure right off the bat, then that is the school's decision based on its goals and the availability of the people in the market to help them reach those goals.

Back on topic, though: We can definitely agree that Curry sucks.

SM - What I keep tripping over is... a free market does not exist for college players once they are drafted. That's why I called it a false (not free) market.

Otoh, it does for UFAs... and I agree that any UFA should get whatever the market will bear.

biggest hawks bust ever...wanaa argue? go.











yeah, I thought so.

kearly wrote:Rob has to live with an edge. If he didn't, he'd slip into a coma covering soccer all the time

Now THAT's funny.

Soccer sucks! Other than taxation without representation and the whole King thing, I'm pretty sure the biggest reason we broke away from Mother England back in the day was realizing we didn't want to have soccer as our national sport.

FYI, tongue firmly planted in cheek, so all you hyper soccer geeks calm down and get a sense of humor...

onanygivensunday wrote:SM - What I keep tripping over is... a free market does not exist for college players once they are drafted. That's why I called it a false (not free) market.

Otoh, it does for UFAs... and I agree that any UFA should get whatever the market will bear.

It is still a market. It's just a heavily-planned one rather than a free one. I thought that it was planned enough even before the rookie cap restrictions.

UFAs are not in a free market. They are restricted by the cap as much as the teams that court them are restricted by the cap. In a free market, Darrelle Revis would be making more than what he makes now.

What's this 'soccer' you all speak of?

We play football over here.

With your feet and a ball.

theENGLISHseahawk wrote:What's this 'soccer' you all speak of?

We play football over here.

With your feet and a ball.

That's just diabolical

theENGLISHseahawk wrote:What's this 'soccer' you all speak of?

We play football over here.

With your feet and a ball.

I would say that you less "play football" and more "mince around aimlessly for ninety minutes, flopping to the ground for no discernible reason every once in awhile."

But otherwise, everything else you said made perfect sense.

Futbol!

theENGLISHseahawk wrote:What's this 'soccer' you all speak of?

You should know. You guys came up with that word in the first place.

EDIT: If anyone is genuinely curious, here's the origin of the word "soccer" and some other good stuff.
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php ... rd-soccer/

razgriz737 wrote:

theENGLISHseahawk wrote:What's this 'soccer' you all speak of?

You should know. You guys came up with that word in the first place.

Its actually a word used to describe men who have sex with lots of women in their country. Someone who plays football. Thus we made up the term Soccer.

Au contraire...

While there's no doubt the game at the highest level has changed with the influx of money/worldwide popularity and is now played by complete and utter fannies (check google for our meaning of the word)... at the smallest unprofessional grass roots level it's completely brutal.

I'm lucky to have only endured two broken teeth (elbow to the face) and three serious ankle injuries including a double fracture. I once saw a friend red carded for retaliation to being punched in the face.

I like to tell this story about my brief one day stint playing in Canada. I joined a team and went along to the first practise where we played a game at the end. I did find it a little strange that I was the only one using the F-word frequently at the top of my voice, but the other players seemed to like my English edge. Then I went for a 50-50 ball with an oriental goalkeeper. He got their first, I couldn't put on the breaks and over he went. He writhed around in pain (including screams) while I initially laughed at the humorous outcome, only to realise that he was going to milk this to the maximum and pretend he was badly injured. I mean... at worst this was paramount to being gently nudged onto a bed of grass.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I received a stern email telling me the goalkeeper complained to the coach he'd injured his kidney's and I wasn't going to be asked back to play again. This despite scoring the winning goal -- an absolutely worldy -- in a 1-0 victory in the aforementioned practise game.

So beware the English football player... we're coming for your kidney's.

I think the fact that Curry was way over drafted and overpaid is only part of the story. He could have become a servicable starting linebacker if he had the commitment. I believe at least that. If he had become a Leroy Hill type, his career would have been a disappointment, but not an outright bust.

Curry sucks

Couldn't handle the money

50 million, set for life, everything else just became more important then football.

After seeing what this team has become...I'm guessing he wishes he had tried a bit harder while in Seattle. He totally missed the championship boat.

He could have used some Adderall. Just saying.

Kind of sad really, here's a Ferrari sitn' up on blocks

Evil_Shenanigans wrote:He could have used some Adderall. Just saying.

He needs something a lot stronger than that

Smelly McUgly wrote:

-The Glove- wrote:I'm glad the outrageous rookie contracts are a thing of the past. Never understood how a pup could come in and make so much more than a proven vet. You should be paid for performance not potential.

I think that players should be paid whatever the market is willing to give them with no restrictions.

Couldn't disagree more. That was the problem with the old rookie wages, these guys were holding teams hostage. The team had the pressure to get the players in camp, everyone held out, a lot of guys would sign during pre-season and rookie years were wasted.

I think a lot of reason young QB's are doing better is that holdouts are a thing of the past.

I think players should be paid what the market is willing in free agency, as a rookie? No. There is no market, either the team and player agrees or they don't.

If I were in Pete and John's shoes, I would put copies of this article in every rookie's welcome packet and playbook during the off-season. Right in the front. I would highlight in yellow, Curry's comments about the motivational changes he experienced after getting paid upon entering the league. I would also post some of Curry's comments in strategic places around the facility that the young guys will see often during OTA and off-season workouts as a cautionary tale. The message - "Hey guys, we care about you. Guard your hearts and minds. Don't be this guy."

Hindsight being what it is, it's easy to say Curry is too slow mentally, was never going to get it, shouldn't have been picked, etc. However, at draft time that year, he was considered by 'most' experts around the league, and I'm exluding the Kipers of the group, just the inside-the-beltway NFL scouts and GM's, as a "can't miss", "safest pick in the draft", "no brainer" kind of player. Several talking-heads asked, "could he be the next Lawrence Taylor?"

If management can influence a Christine Michael or any other rookie of the uniquely rare opportunity they have, and how quickly it can be taken away from them, we all win, management, the team, the fans.