Visit NFL from the sidelines on the new Observer-Reporter site: http://www.observer-reporter.com/section/BLOGS08

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Who's the best Steelers player I've covered

It's been 20 years since I first set foot in the Steelers' locker room, and I've seen plenty of great players.

But which one would I rank as the best?

Certainly Jerome Bettis deserves some consideration. The NFL's fifth-leading rusher when he retired, Bettis was the man who embodied the Steelers' toughness, even through some lean years in the late 1990s.

But he's not No. 1.

Greg Lloyd, Levon Kirkland, Kevin Greene, Joey Porter and James Harrison have all been outstanding contributors during that period as well. But Pittsburgh's defense has been geared toward linebackers making plays, so it's tough to single out just one of those great players as the best.

Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has helped the Steelers become a yearly contender for the Super Bowl since he was drafted in 2004 and deserves consideration. But I think I'm going to go in a different direction.

And though players such as Dermontti Dawson, Alan Faneca, Casey Hampton and Aaron Smith have been key cogs in some great teams, I'm not picking a lineman here.

That leaves me with three choices: Hines Ward, Troy Polamalu and Rod Woodson.

In this case, I'm going with Woodson.

Ward had a fantastic career with the Steelers and is the team leader in basically every receiving category, but he was never considered among the best in the league at his position. And don't give me that best blocking receiver in the league stuff. Yes, Ward was a ferocious blocker, but that did not place him among the top two or three players at his position in any given season as Polamalu and Woodson were.

Really, it's splitting hairs between Polamalu and Woodson in their prime, but I'll take the game-changing cornerback who was the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year in 1993 over the game-changing safety who was similarly honored in 2010.

In their primes, Polamalu and Woodson were among the top five or six players in the game regardless of position. They were players who could change a game by themselves and always had to be accounted for.

But to me, Woodson, at least when he was with the Steelers, was the bigger game changer at cornerback, where he could take away the opposing team's best receiver by himself, blitz better than any corner in history or take a punt back for a touchdown.

Who's your pick?

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ben...without him we would never have made(Denver) or won(Arizona) two more Superbowl's

Patrick said...

the year troy had in 2010 was ridiculous. He won or "saved" about 4-5 games by himself. It was really something to see.

That said, I was too young to see the early part of Woodson's career so I can't compare them honestly.

If I had to say who my favorite player was though, its got to be Bettis. He was just everything we love about the Steelers and carried teams. The 2005 season with him was special.

Runner-up is Ward and in 5 years it will be Ben hands down.

steelcan said...

The question is: "who is the BEST player you have seen", not your favorite. BTW, 2005 was probably the least he contributed to the Steelers. In fact, if Ben does'nt make that shoe string tackle in Indy, "The Bus" goes down as one of the biggest goats in NFL history.

Anonymous said...

Hot Rod .. The best in that time period .. But for me MEL BLOUNT .. OMG read his size weight etc. .. He's bigger than modern corners. The man was / is not human!

Patrick said...

favorite = best player I have ever seen for the Steelers

Anonymous said...

woodson. imo, he is one of the top 10 players in nfl history.

the players mentioned here have been good/great players, but they just aren't in the same category...except for polomalu.

i think if #43 hadn't been injured so much the last 4 years this would be a much tougher decisions. consider he has missed 22 of the past 64 regular season games and obviously played in many games with significant injuries.

John Kang said...

In a choice between Troy and Rod, I would go with Troy, with the caveat that back then, we didn't get to see every Steeler game on TV in my market like we do today. Yes, Woodson was a shutdown corner who took away the opponent's best receiver; but you can game plan around that. Troy is so unpredictable. He has turned games around with fingertip interceptions, strip-sacks at opportune times, faking blitz and dropping into coverage, faking coverage and blitzing, leaping over the line.

I can't emphasize "opportune" enough. Ask Joe Flacco, who has yielded enough highlight footage of Troy to make a HOF career. Strip-sack, return int for a TD in the AFCG, leaping over the line to stuff him on 4th and 1.

Beyond that, an interception of Philip Rivers in the AFCG. Interception of Matt Ryan in the waning minutes of the 4th quarter. Pick six of Palmer early in his career. Pick six of Palmer later in his career.

Not just a tremendous game presence, but a true game changer!

Dale Lolley said...

Take a look at Woodson's stats from the 92-94 seasons when he was in his "prime" as a corner.
16 interceptions, three returned for touchdowns
9 forced fumbles - for a corner?
278 total tackles - again, for a corner?
Also had 11 combined sacks in those three seasons.
Plus he returned punts and kickoffs.

Completely dynamic player before the knee injury.
And even after the injury, he transitioned into one of the top safeties in the league.

Dale Lolley said...

Check out this video of Woodson's highlights on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UfFsgDzaJc

My favorite is the pick against Steve Young and Jerry Rice at 1:36. He baited Young and closed at the last second to pick the pass off with one hand, tipping it to himself.

kyle said...

I will not choose between Woodson and Polamalu. I will say that it comes down to this: Woodson was a high level player to the point of being one of the best 0.1% of players in history for several years of his career, Polamalu, at his best - his absolute best, has made plays that only he has shown he can make but the rest of his time isn't as good as Woodson's average time.

What's more important, plays no other human being can make or a career that only a handful of human beings could match? I can't make that call.

Lance said...

Rod or Troy, that is a tough call. I don't know that I could pick one over the other. I still can not believe that team did not win a Super Bowl, close, but came up short. I think that is why I have to put Ben at the top of this conversation, as great as that "D" was in the 90s we you just have trouble getting there without an elite QB. All 3 would make my All-Steelers team, thats for sure.

Tim said...

Baited? Closed? What I saw was an open Jerry Rice running at 3/4 speed waiting for an underthrown ball. Without seeing the rest of the play it's hard to know if Rod was beaten or not (it's possible the safety bore responsibility over the top and was not in position), but it looks to me like he is, and in any case, I don't know where you get off saying he baited Young and closed on the ball. He made a great catch on a pass that was poorly thrown, and intended for a wide open receiver. That much is clear from the very little tape there is.

John Kang said...

Tim: I wasn't going to say anything until you posted, but yes. That play, from what is shown, is one of the least impressive highlights of that very awesome tribute.

And despite that very awesome tribute, I am still sticking with Troy because of how he makes splash plays at critical junctures of games.

Anonymous said...

agreed, that play is basically a badly underthrown pass. don't get me wrong, he made a nice catch.

but, i still think you have take durability into account and so i go with woodson.

Lance said...

The Troy and Rod comparison is sort of like the Mike Tyson argument to me. No one could beat Mike Tyson on his best day, maybe they couldn't even get to the third round...but overall he is not the greatest heavyweight of all time.

Troy makes plays noone could ever make and maybe never will, some of his single game performance are unbelievable, he has one games on his own, but is he the greates of all time...tough call...

Dale Lolley said...

You had to see the interception live. Woodson allowed Rice to get behind him - nobody got behind him - because he knew he could run him down.
When Young threw the ball, Woodson was 8 to 10 yards back, closed suddenly and tipped the ball to himself one-handed. I'll never forget the play. Fantastic against two hall of famers.

kyle said...

I'll give Dale the benefit of the doubt on this. There is no world where Jerry Rice outruns Rod Woodson. Woodson could backpedal faster than Rice could sprint.

Tim said...

Dear God in Heaven.

If I thought anyone would ever read this, I would freak the hell out. This has to be a new low point. Truly unreal. I should have been a sports writer.

kyle said...

Tim,

You should have been anything other than an internet commenter. Even by sports blog standards you are arrogant, condescending, ridiculously negative, and spend more time picking pointless nits than a chimp on speed. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

Tim said...

I'm an mostly positive, mostly optimistic, mostly polite, frequent contributor on another site. I freely admit I'm none of those things here. I check in once in awhile when I'm bored and move along. But come on, Kyle. You are smart enough to know the many reasons Dale's statements are just mind-blowing, coming from a professional. They'd be silly enough from a stranger at a bar.

I get that you're only seeing one side of me, the "yell at Dale side", so I don't blame you at all. But I feel like someone needs to be calling him out for this stuff. No one was doing it during his mysterious fact/logic-free Jon Scott posts, and no one did it for this. A job title shouldn't protect you from being ridiculously out of touch with your job.

kyle said...

This post is pretty typical "dregs of the offseason, let's talk about something...anything" so I don't see anything in the post as a problem. If you're referring specifically to the Woodson/Rice play, then again, I'm giving Dale the benefit of the doubt as I'm sure I watched that game but I was much younger and not covering the team as a reporter at the time. Also, as I mentioned, I find it next to impossible that that far down the field Rice could be behind Woodson for any reason other than Woodson let it happen intentionally.

Having said that, Dale does assume that Woodson was baiting Young. I don't know that. Maybe he let Rice behind him because he thought he was a decoy. There are a lot of possible reasons. Woodson made an outstanding play on the ball, which was Dale's point. So I don't get the big deal.

I'm glad to read you're on a more even keel on another site. Responding late-night usually makes me snarkier. I'm sorry about that. Which site do you frequent, if you don't mind me asking? I'm on Behind The Steel Curtain pretty regularly.

Tim said...

Guys get beat. It happens. Speed isn't the end-all, be-all of coverage. Not even deep coverage. If it was, wouldn't Demarcus van Dyke be starting for us? Wouldn't Ike Taylor (4.18) be even more reliable than Rod Woodson? If you get faked out, you're done. It happens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-g4N4ICuoQ (skip to 1:00, and then to 2:16)

In any case, back to SF, Woodson may have let him go due to assignment, and the safety blew the coverage. I don't know. But the very idea that he let him go even though he was responsible - because he knew he could pick up the yardage - is nothing more than fantasy from a writer without an eye in the first place, romanticizing about one of the first games he ever covered. He blew it back in 1993 by misunderstanding the play the first time he saw it (not the last time that happened), and over the last 20 years it grew in his mind into what he doesn't realize is an impossible legend. It's not something that happens in football.

Let's talk about speed. Jerry Rice - despite his college 40 time - was a very fast receiver. People talk about his work ethic like he didn't have natural athletic ability. He did. He wasn't as fast as Rod, but in 1993 he was still a burner and a deep threat. Anyone can argue that he ran a 4.6 before the 1985 draft, but taking the standpoint that that was his real speed will make you about as right and as smart as the teams that didn't draft him that year. Turn on the tap and he was a 4.4 guy whose speed a lot of people have forgotten about because he played for so long and slowed down so much by the end. Check out his highlights on youtube. Lots of short stuff taken to the house, lots of going over the top. Outrunning guys either way. Not an easy man to catch, even for the fastest player in the league. Rod was faster, in the 4.3 or maybe even 4.25 range. Now imagine them racing in a 40 yard dash. Rod wins by 0.15 seconds (hell, I'll even give you 0.4 seconds in case Jerry has the flu or something), but how much is that in terms of distance? How far behind is Jerry when Rod gets to the finish line? A yard? Two? EIGHT TO TEN??? Now consider that he didn't even have 4+ seconds to catch up. He had maybe two. This is scientifically laughable. However far behind he was (I'm guessing more like 4-5 yards, but who knows), he caught up because Jerry was running slowly, waiting for an underthrown pass. In the clip I posted above, Rod is about 5 yards behind Sterling Sharpe (a 4.44 guy), and doesn't gain a single yard on Sharpe despite chasing as fast as he can for at least a good 30 yards. And he was a year younger at the time, right in his prime. Then he gets beaten by Robert Brooks by a good 3 yards, and that was only 15 yards downfield!

You mean to tell me there's no way Jerry Rice, in his prime, arguably the best football player ever and inarguably the best player at his position and the best Woodson ever faced, could have beaten Woodson, when I just showed you Rod getting smoked by a couple of Packers while he was in his prime? You mean to tell me that after he let him go (possible), he somehow ran faster than any human ever has in history to catch up to him? And knew he could do it and risked a touchdown during a game they were losing, even though he didn't stand a chance to catch up to Brooks and Sharpe?

Tim said...

(continued)

The alternative is that for whatever reason (NOT baiting), Rice got behind Rod, Steve underthrew him in what was not only far from "a perfect strike" as Dale claimed, but a full on bad throw, Rice slowed down (you can SEE him running less than full speed on the tape, in case circumstantial evidence against the impossible isn't enough) and Woodson caught up to a slowing Rice and made a great catch on a poor throw. Happens every week. The only thing you'll really have to stretch yourself to believe is that Dale here is wrong. And is that a stretch? He's wrong about stuff all the time.

He got beat sometimes. "Even" by Jerry Rice. The idea that no one could get behind Rod Woodson is right up there with the idea that Joe Montana never threw an interception. Don't get me wrong, Rod is in the conversation for greatest CB of all time. But elevating him to superhuman impossible mythical status doesn't do him any favors. It only helps guys like Dale win arguments. Arguments that are immediately worthless because they might as well contain dragons. Why embellish the truth when the truth is as good as Rod Woodson? And if you're going to try, you could at least keep it in this realm.

I'm on thesteelersfans.com. It's really good, actually. Never been to Behind the Steel Curtain.

kyle said...

I'll skip over most of the hemming and hawing about Rice's speed because in the end you draw the right conclusion: Woodson was definitely faster.

Also, he didn't "catch up" to Rice. He got close enough to stretch and tip the ball with his hand.

Assuming Rice was slowing because the ball was under-thrown and assuming the ball was definitely under-thrown are assumptions as well.

What we have in that very short clip is Woodson closing a little distance and making a fabulous play on the ball. We also have a receiver who at no point in his illustrious career was anywhere near the top 10 in speed at his position.

It is not impossible or even highly unlikely that Woodson gave him a cushion intentionally. Dale is assuming he did. You really don't like that assumption. You then go on to fabricate reasons why Dale is mistaken in his reasonable, if not definitive, assumption.

I wasn't saying Woodson never got beat. I used hyperbole to suggest that given what I know of the two players it isn't very likely that Woodson got terribly beat down field by Rice. Is it possible? Sure. Is your interpretation possible? Yep. If you had a sports blog and you made that interpretation of the play would I leave a comment about how stupid and wrong and unprofessional you are? Nope.

Tim said...

You're right that we're both making assumptions, but Dale's assumptions are impossible. Forget about why Jerry was behind Rod. Just focus on the physical parts. Rod was within a yard of Jerry by the time the ball got there, which means (according to Dale) he gained 7-9 yards on him in a matter of what, 2-3 seconds. And not because Jerry slowed down, but because Rod simply outran Jerry to gain that yardage and intercept the "perfect strike." NOT POSSIBLE. The ball being severely underthrown and Jerry slowing his speed to account for it (which, again, you can tell is what happened from Rice's body language) is the only way Rod gains more than a step in that time frame. Don't give me "Rod could do it because he's faster." I got news for you, I'm not that fast, but I could beat Rod Woodson in a 40 yard dash if I had a 10 yard head start. Rod being 0.2 seconds faster in a 40 does nothing in a situation like this, which I thought you'd understand from watching him not gain a single step on Sterling Sharpe over a hard chase of 30+ yards (Rod was also considerably faster than Sharpe in the 40).

Gaining more than a yard or two over that amount of time simply isn't possible if Jerry keeps his speed up. Rod "baited" him only if he knew ahead of time Young was going to badly underthrow Rice. At which point I think you can stop calling it baiting and start calling it exceptional luck.

This is a debate about what's possible and what's not, which I didn't think I'd have to do again. It reminds me about debating with Dale who was on the field for a certain touchdown. I told him I was looking right at the guy and he told me there must be something wrong with my eyesight or TV or something, because I was definitely wrong and it was THIS guy on the field, not THAT guy. We had to agree to disagree. About who a player was! This is just as black and white, and you're coming in and saying, "Hey now guys, it could be either way. We'll never know who that player was on the field."

kyle said...

No. I'm not saying that. I'm saying in a 2 second clip of a play that I'm not ready to be as definitive as you are. Before I come on someone's blog to tell them they're wrong and asking "where you get off saying..." I like to know absolutely that I'm right. You don't know absolutely that you're right. You think absolutely that you're right. None of what Dale suggested is impossible. Interpreting body language is hardly solid evidence. Knowing if the ball was underthrown is a guess.

If you want to talk about what's more likely, that's fine. You're talking about what is impossible with not much evidence other than conjecture.

Basically what I'm saying is, if you're going to be a jerk to somebody on their blog you better be 100% right (even then you probably shouldn't be a jerk). You have no way of proving that you are. If you had said "I don't know, Dale, I see that play like this" I wouldn't have cared but when you come by with an attitude and nothing to back it up but guesswork I have a problem with it.

Tim said...

I was clear about what was my opinion versus what I knew for sure. Some of what I said was a guess based on what I feel is most likely.

Dale's opinion is that Rod Woodson and Jerry Rice were both running full speed, and Woodson gained 7-9 yards (hell, let's say 6-8, or even 5-7) on Rice in the amount of time it takes a ball to travel 40 yards (2 seconds or so).

^^^Impossible^^^

Just think about that. It's about 20 yards of running, both going full speed, and Woodson picks up 5-8 yards on Jerry? What's that make him, like 40% faster? Does he run a 2.5 40 yard dash? He wouldn't pick up that distance if they were running 80 yards. Saying Rod is faster therefore this is possible is like saying Lebron James can dunk on a 20 foot rim, so long as he was dunking on someone shorter than him.

But hey, maybe he really was that fast, and simply half-assed it every single other play of his career. And also elected not to win about 50 gold medals in the Olympics and achieve worldwide immortality as the fastest human of all time.

kyle said...

Nowhere in here does Dale suggest that they were both running as fast as they could.

I'll go ahead and stop here since I've contributed to another comment thread hijacking.

Tim said...

Is this a hijack? Seems on topic to me. The topic Dale set in one of his comments. He used this play as an example of one of the greatest things Rod did in his whole career. Considering I think it was nothing more than a great catch and a lot of luck, probably after being beaten, I think that's ridiculous. The way he described the play was even more ridiculous, as well as impossible. I don't think there's any rule that all comments must be 100% about the original post. This is partly about that and all about one of the blogger's comments.

He absolutely suggested they were both running as fast as they could. He did so by saying it was a perfect pass (a perfect pass hits a receiver in stride, and does not make the receiver slow down and wait like Rice was) and that Woodson baited Young (it's not baiting if you luck out that the receiver is underthrown and has to wait around for the ball while you gain 7-9 yards on him). Unless, I suppose, he's suggesting that Jerry Rice just ran his routes at a slow speed for fun or something.

You sound like you're open to the idea that Rice wasn't running full speed. So if Jerry was running less than full speed (which is what I've said, because that would explain Rod gaining any amount of ground more than a foot or two), that would mean that the ball was underthrown (also what I've said), and since Rod barely got a hand on it as it was, that would mean that he would never have had a chance if Steve had thrown an accurate pass. So how does being out of position, whether he was beaten or not, make it a good play? It doesn't. Just a nice catch on a fortunately bad throw to a wide open receiver. Dale might as well claim Franco Harris was brilliant for positioning himself where he did so he could get that deflection on the Immaculate Reception (you know, when he just kinda jogged out of the backfield and hung out). He really set up that defense perfectly. They never saw it comin'!

kyle said...

It's a hijack because it's two people going back and forth on something they aren't likely to resolve. Patrick and I ruined a few conversations this way and I'm in no hurry to do it again (although I'm responding again blah).

I'd look again. Dale has two comments for this post. Neither time does he call it a "perfect pass" or "perfect strike" or really qualify the pass at all other than to say it was a pass.

I watched the play again and I'm having trouble stating anything about it other than Rod made a great play on the ball. You can't see Rod close as Dale has said he did (though Dale was at the game I believe he's said). You can't see Jerry slowing down as you have said. You see the throw, the ball in the air, and then about half a second of Rod tipping the ball to himself. You think Dale is crazy for saying he saw things in the play live that you don't think is supported by the half second you see in the clip. I think that's a bit much. And again, it's really more your tone that I object to than anything. You feel you have been wronged in the past by some argument with Dale, that's fine, don't bother getting pissy anytime you stop by because of it though. If a guy gave me shit about something on his blog I would probably just stop going to that blog. I wouldn't take opportunities to disagree with him about things that I have no way of proving or disproving.

Tim said...

He called it "a perfect strike" in his article printed two days after the game in 1993.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=6w2ZCmoKEM0C&dat=19930907&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

Go to page 19.

"Jerry Rice, San Francisco's All-Pro wide receiver, broke free down the left sideline. The 49ers' All-Pro quarterback, Steve Young, spotted him breaking free and fired a perfect strike. But Rod Woodson, the Steelers' All-Pro cornerback, seemingly came out of nowhere to make a diving, twisting interception."

Seems to me, baiting him from 10 yards back and then re-gaining those 10 yards against Rice who must have been running full speed to catch the perfect strike should have made this article. That's the most impressive part! Actually, that's the part I believe he's romanticized over the last 20 years. That explains why the craziness is there now, but wasn't there when he saw it the first time. Even easier to believe when you consider that this was Dale's first game.

The perfect strike part isn't a memory issue, it's simply a less than accurate eye at work.

Again, there are parts unprovable, like whether Rod let Jerry go on purpose (at least, not provable without talking to Rod), and there are things provable, like Rod Woodson could not close a distance like that on Jerry Rice over 20 yards (unless Jerry took his foot off the gas for those two seconds). He couldn't. This isn't us arguing over a fraction of a second. This is us arguing about if Rod Woodson was practically twice as fast as Jerry Rice. He wasn't. Over a 20 yard race, they'd finish within a yard of each other. We can debate that, but Rod does not win by 2 yards, or 4, 6, 8, or 10. That. Is. Crazy. I can't disprove Dale's theory the same way I can't disprove that Rod can't dunk a basketball on a 20 foot rim. I can say it's impossible all I want, but I can't prove it. You're looking at the tape and saying, "Well we can't see how high the rim was, so maybe it was 20 feet, we'll never know. Dale was there so maybe he's right."


I could totally let this stuff go. I just think reporters should be held accountable for reporting fantasy like it's fact. The fact is, he's NOT just some drunk at a bar, he's a paid reporter. He should know what he's doing. Someone should check. That's why I only pop in once in awhile. I keep my normal conversation elsewhere.

kyle said...

So your complaint is you think Dale's assessment of the play is off-base and that he shouldn't express such an assessment in the comment thread on a "what's everyone's opinion" post on his blog without it meeting the standards of journalistic rigor?

I've disagreed with Dale. In one of his mock drafts he had five receivers going in the first. I disagreed. I said I would eat my hat if that happened but I wasn't a dick about it. I didn't talk about things being "unbelievable" or questioning how somebody "gets paid for this." Maybe it's not entirely analogous since a mock draft is by definition a guess but my point is if you think Dale is terrible at his job then don't read his work. If you want to freak out over a reporter thinking a play was amazing when you don't think it was, that's not a good enough reason to be a dick.

Tim said...

Well, seems you still haven't grasped the problem. My freak out isn't about the fact that I disagree with him. Otherwise I'd freak out over everything, like mock drafts. Reporting things factually untrue is the main problem. In this case he may really believe it, but that just shows incompetence, and that's not much better. To make your analogy work, he'd have to report that there were 5 receivers taken in the first round, and then continue to insist upon it.

kyle said...

What you aren't grasping is that he isn't "reporting" anything. He said Woodson baited Young and then closed on Rice. The facts involved are this: Woodson was not close, then he was, then he intercepted the pass. Dale's guess/interpretation/opinion is that Woodson did this on purpose. Your guess/et al is that Woodson lucked out.

If a sports reporter says something in a comment on his own blogpost I'm not running to the newspaper with it. I think in the offseason dregs Dale is nice enough to shoot the bull with us. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on what he saw on the play because he saw the whole play, which I have not.

You keep harping on it being IMPOSSIBLE for Woodson to make up that distance if they are both running full speed. Guess what that proves. They both weren't running full speed. Neat. Now why weren't they running full speed? Nobody here can do anything but guess at that. You think it's because Rice had Woodson beat and then Young under-threw the ball. That's fine. I don't see enough in the clip to say that definitely happened. I don't see enough to support what Dale said either, like I mentioned, I gave him the benefit of the doubt on something I don't really care about because he saw the whole thing.

You win the internet. Can we let it go?

Tim said...

I don't know for sure why Rod was out of position. I can only make assumptions there. Here are facts:

-If Rice wasn't running full speed, which it sounds like we finally agree on, then the throw must have been short. There is no alternative, so it isn't a guess.

-If the throw was short, and Rod got to the ball with only an inch to spare, then Rod would've had no chance with an even slightly better throw. Just a few inches farther and he doesn't touch it. These aren't guesses, that's how it is.

-Assuming he was covering Rice that play, which I don't think any of us are doubting, he was out of position.

-After being out of position and unable to catch a full-speed Rice, he got back in position with two things: good hustle and a bad throw.

The things I've called facts, I just don't see how they can be disputed at all.

I know "recovering" by a CB is a skill, and Rod did display good recovery. But still, when you are behind your guy by as many as 10 yards, and the QB throws a pass that you can catch up to and intercept, that's not something to brag about at all, let alone grounds to call something baiting.

Tim said...

And yes, I'm happy to let it go now. I'm done. Thanks, this was fun.

kyle said...

One thing, receivers aren't usually running a dead sprint when the ball hits their hands regardless of how "perfect" a throw it is.

Also, right back atcha, slick.

Anonymous said...

http://www.mlbcheapnfljerseys.com/ is an professional china jerseys online shop,wholesale all kinds mlb jerseys,cheap nike elite jerseys,sports jerseys china,
wholesale mlb jerseys ,cheap nike nfl jerseys wholesale, basketball jerseys cheap, nba jerseys for sale. college ncaa jerseys
http://www.mlbcheapnfljerseys.com/Nike-NFL-Jerseys-c124/