Originally Posted by
HollywoodSteel
Maybe I’m an optimist (believe me, that will change during the actual games) but I have hope for the kid.
The light might not “turn on” all at once when it comes to football IQ, but that’s kind of normal for ANY young inside linebacker on our team. Timmons sat for a year, Shazier took awhile too...
The biggest hurdle the kid really has to face is the “want to” part. It’s the desire. The fire.
He was absolutely lacking that fire before now... and I’m sure that had a lot to do with off the field stuff. He also lacks the other stuff Dwins pointed out, but I believe those things can be learned... IF the player REALLY wants. He can only
Learn the technical football stuff at the NFL level if the fire is lit.
From what I’ve read and seen, I think that fire HAS been lit. I think he’s still gonna struggle the way ALL our rookie ILBs struggle. I’m not saying I’m sure that his fire is lit. I’m not SURE he can be mentally tough enough to work through this part... the part where he can’t just get by on his athleticism.
But if he WANTS IT bad enough he can be good. Maybe not right away...
But that brings me to a slightly different point: there was SO much talk about us not drafting the great Shazier replacement this year to fix our woes... even if we had traded up for the best inside linebacker in draft... would people really think that guy would be the difference between champions or non champions THIS YEAR.
Even if we redrafted Shazier HIMSELF as a rookie... he was nowhere NEAR the player he became in 2017. Our short term problem was unsolvable by the draft. I’m not saying we couldn’t have done something better, like make some incredible trade or whatever... but as far as 2018 goes, no rookie was totally gonna solve the problem.
Am I way off base?