McGruff":wkz1td56 said:
Earl was and always will be a 100% on fire competitor.
But hes a worker bee. He puts in his time. He does his job. And then he goes home.
<snip of a bunch of other pretty accurate stuff>
But Earl is a lone ranger.
Earl put in his time and then some, he was a leader by his own example (for on-the-field stuff).
Pete and Pete's system places a far higher value on mentors, "additional coaches", guys like Kam, Bobby, KJ, Russell, Angry Doug, Cliff Avril, yes also Frank Clark, even rentals like Lawyer Milloy.
I know from my own experience as a youth coach, one special group, I was fortunate enough to have a core of excellent leaders-by-example, practice habits, competitive spirit, kind treatment of teammates (including kicking other team members' butts in practice activities, the kindest thing you can do for them) and when kids would come over from other teams each new season, they would look to my group of leaders for example and culture and pretty much adopt what they saw and experienced. I remember a couple of the "stars" from other (not-so-successful) teams that came over and had to learn to improve their practice work habits and give up on pouting as a strategy for getting what they wanted.
So Earl was a leader by example in preparation and effort, but not the partially BS visible figurehead stuff the media likes to focus on as "leadership". Then Earl became a malcontent and distraction, as did Sherm and to a certain extent Marshawn, and then Bennett.
I love Pete as a coach, he is a coach's coach to me, state of the art in so many things he does, a coaching mentor to others, and always a humble student of the game, and always working on the admin/management side being excellent as well, to support the coaching and player development. All the guys that Pete has reclaimed off the scrap heap to get productive play out of... This year, it looks like Paxton Lynch is an up-and-coming reclamation project. (Hope we don't get to truly find out)
Pete has been training a new set of leaders, even as "old" leaders like Dan Quinn, Gus Bradley, Kam, Frank Clark, and others move on. (Except Kam stuck around to coach and mentor). The media doesn't get how truly excellent Pete is at this stuff. "Win Forever" truly is Pete's philosophy, and he's put in place the things to make it happen, season after season. This season will be excellent too, with a talent level that seems to be approaching the 2013-2014 glory years, and is set up to get even better next year.
We're going to have some guys really break out this season, can't say exactly who right now, but our young OL will be a *force*, yes DK, maybe other WRs, and our D will find their chemistry too, our young secondary, young DL, and excellent LB corps. 10-6? 11-5? Maybe even better? Really the number of wins will come down to our defense's ability to make key stops, especially pass rush when it matters. Our offense will be battering other teams and will score enough to win just about every game, so if the D makes its stops, we'll win double-digit-plus games, win the division, and beat the Rams at least once.
