WR's & Officiating

[bbsplitter]

So, reading though the usual after a loss, I've seen that a lot of people are quite unhappy with Sidney Rice. And most of the people coming to his defense are stating that he is "double covered" a lot. Thanks to a lovely over-pricing package from NFL Network, I decided to go back and look at our games so far. And what I've come up with in response to that defense of Rice is.... Not really. Just because a WR has a guy to his left and a guy to his right both in the general vicinity, that's not called double coverage, that's called zone D. Very rarely is he ever manned up with a safety shaded as well, or have a zone call that is specifically targeted to stop him.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to harp on him, or say he is a bad player. I think part of this is people are simply forgetting who he is as a player and WR. He's not Calvin Johnson, he doesn't have T.Y. Hilton speed, and I think our front office knew all of this when they signed him. Our team isn't really meant to have necessarily a #1 WR. RW is so good about spreading the ball around to everyone who is open, I'm not entirely sure a true #1 will ever manifest, even with Harvin back. Talent wise, obviously there is going to be a drop off from Harvin to Kearse, but I don't think we should be expecting Sidney rice to targeted an absurd number of times, or have a ton of production, heck, there were only a couple of times this game where Sidney was the true first read. He is simply a polished possession receiver, and our FO knew exactly what they were paying for when they gave him his money. That doesn't necessarily mean the talent around him hasn't evolved to the point we wont need him next year at that price level.... But there is no reason to be shocked with whats occurred so far concerning him...

Yeah, the officiating wasn't the greatest, but think of it this way. There are 22 people on the field every play. The refs are involved with every play. I don't know how many plays were ran this game, but if you take a rough estimate of 80, times it by 22 people to watch each play, and the refs have 1,760 chances to mess up. What was Russell wilsons completion percentage? 48%? The refs would have to mess up on 844 different calls to match the negative effect Russell Wilson had on the game. Yet was it only RW that lost the game? IMO I don't think so.

 

[CallMeADawg]

Golfclap for you doing math. Bravo.

Now, did you watch the same game I did? Blaming the wrong guy, muchacho. Rice did not PLAY THE BALL on that pass. He sat back like a princess and had it taken away by a guy that PLAYED THE BALL.

 

[bbsplitter]

Golfclap for you doing math. Bravo.

Now, did you watch the same game I did? Blaming the wrong guy, muchacho. Rice did not PLAY THE BALL on that pass. He sat back like a princess and had it taken away by a guy that PLAYED THE BALL.

Muchacho did you see that play where it was in a situation that MIGHT HAVE led to a touchdown and SOMEONE DID SOMETHING WRONG?!?!?!?! Get real dude. That play broke down when RW started scrambling around, and at that point its just the WR running around trying to get open. On that play Rice was clearly turned downfield and had NO ONE DIRECTLY OVER THE TOP, yet RW throws it like its a comeback route. What?.... But yeah lets just abandon logic and observational skills and blame rice.

 

[CallMeADawg]

He expected his receiver to come back and PLAY THE BALL and threw it as such. Had that been Baldwin - First Down.

 

[Lady Talon]

when plays break down and the QB is scrambling, yes, he should expect WRs to come back to the ball and at least try to bail him out. One reason Baldwin has RWs trust this year. Peyton Manning doesn't throw every pass beautiful, yet his receivers make plays. Luck's WRs bailed him out about as fantastically as pass interference calls did. They wanted to win and made circus catches on Lucks inaccurate throws to prove it.