Assessing The Current Climate in Arizona

[DemsMyBoys]

The current climate is not where it should be---and i think you will agree with that---but---we saw what the players could do the second half of the year---the question is can they match similar intensity and toughness the first half of this year? Can they sustain it for the whole season?

I am eternally optimistic.

Which, lol, will probably result in my Cardinals Fan Club membership getting pulled someday.

 

[cardncubfan]

I am eternally optimistic.

Which, lol, will probably result in my Cardinals Fan Club membership getting pulled someday.

I'm with you Dems. Always the optimist.

 

[mrbyte]

Great read AGAIN Mitch.
and I agree with nearly everything
just one comment about Whiz and the QB situation.

Kolb was effectively a rookie last year he had no off season and very little camp so he was a rookie in all but name in Whiz's system. Skelton looked pretty poor last year but he beniffited from a turned around defense and better Oline play two things Kolb didnt have.
My point is this: Kolb should have been named starter and given a full season (this season) to develope. if we had drafted a QB to start he would have been given this. Insted Whiz undermines the confidence of Kolb by declaring a QB competition. Even with 3 years in the system Skelton looks less than convincing, and Kolb looks like a betrayed man to me. Kolb coming off a bad concusion needed a little building up not to be thrown into this media circus
Whiz just doesnt get QBs

even Warner when he was at the Giants and was brought on to sub a panicked Eli said after the game that he should never be brought on in relief of a healthy Eli again. That a QB developing and learning a offense doesnt need to be looking over his shoulder all the time.

 

[Zeno]

Great read AGAIN Mitch.
and I agree with nearly everything
just one comment about Whiz and the QB situation.

Kolb was effectively a rookie last year he had no off season and very little camp so he was a rookie in all but name in Whiz's system. Skelton looked pretty poor last year but he beniffited from a turned around defense and better Oline play two things Kolb didnt have.
My point is this: Kolb should have been named starter and given a full season (this season) to develope. if we had drafted a QB to start he would have been given this. Insted Whiz undermines the confidence of Kolb by declaring a QB competition. Even with 3 years in the system Skelton looks less than convincing, and Kolb looks like a betrayed man to me. Kolb coming off a bad concusion needed a little building up not to be thrown into this media circus
Whiz just doesnt get QBs
.

Problem with the Kolb was essentially a rookie argument is that last year true rookies were much more productive coming from offenses that were much less pro style in college. Kolb still has no feel for the pocket and didn't seem particularly adept at reading defenses, which is one thing a guy who has been in multiple training camps and had some NFL starts under his belt should do a better job of.

Skelton may not be the answer either but Kolb has shown me nothing to think he should be given the benefit of the doubt for anything.

 

[Duckjake]

Skelton looked pretty poor last year but he beniffited from a turned around defense and better Oline play two things Kolb didnt have.

Better Oline play? 18 sacks in the last 5 games vs 16 sacks in the first 5 games. Is that really getting better? Maybe as they were playing better defenses.

Speaking of that, let's bring up something no one ever mentions about Skelton. Every team he faced the last half of the season except for the Rams had a top 10 scoring defense!

SF (twice) 2nd, Cleveland 5th, Seattle 7th, Cincy 9th, and Philly 10th.

The Cards were 4-2 in those games.

Considering the strength of those defenses maybe Double Deuce did a better job than people want to acknowledge.

 

[Mitch]

You're referring to one game and apparently not remembering what happened. Smith fumbled against the Eagles, it was returned for a TD and Singletary was furious with Smith not protecting the ball and ripped into him and then told David Carr to go out on the field for the next possession.

Except Carr didn't go into the game, Vernon Davis grabbed Smith and told him to go fight for his job, he did, and Singletary KEPT him in the game. He said after the game he ripped him because he wanted to see how Smith would react to the challenge. He was happy to see teammates rally behind Smith and say they didn't want him on the bench, and he was happy to see Smith come back at him. Maybe that was CYA talk but they lost that game to go to 0-5 and at that point Smith was 6 TD's 9 picks and that was only because he had 3 TD's in that Philly game. he'd been terrible and SF fans wanted him benched.

Singletary didn't bench him. he continued to start Smith until he got fired with one game left in the season. Troy Smith started a few games (3 or 4 IIRC) when Smith hurt his shoulder but otherwise Smith started. When he took over as 49ers coach he very clearly named the position open, that's why Smith took a paycut but not becuase of Singletary because the GM wasn't sure he was a starter anymore. Shaun Hill beat out Smith but then didn't play well and Singletary made Smith the starter. Yep he benched the guy he chose as the starter and named Smith the starter(in 09) and then again in 10 Smith was the starter and he got the job back when the shoulder healed and it was obvious Troy Smith wasn't the QB.

I think harbaugh did an amazing job with Alex but it was because he devised an offense that hides what Alex doesn't do well.

The acrimony between Singletary and Smith was consistently palpable.

You make a great point about Harbaugh hiding what Smith does not do well---but what Harbaugh doesn't hide is his belief that Smith is the QB he wants---in fact, just yesterday Harbaugh said that Smith has "an expert command of the offense."

in comparison, what do we hear from CKW about his QBs?

A lot of hemming and hawing and yeah buts.

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

The acrimony between Singletary and Smith was consistently palpable.

You make a great point about Harbaugh hiding what Smith does not do well---but what Harbaugh doesn't hide is his belief that Smith is the QB he wants---in fact, just yesterday Harbaugh said that Smith has "an expert command of the offense."

in comparison, what do we hear from CKW about his QBs?

A lot of hemming and hawing and yeah buts.

Harbaugh seems to be morphing into a hype/rah-rah guy. Didn't he say something to the effect of Crabtree having the best hands in the NFL? Also, having "an expert command of the offense" doesn't mean he's sold on his playmaking ability. I watch what he does(try to bring in Manning, draft a QB early in round 2), not what he says(Smith is the guy). If he lets the offense open up under Smith, then I'll believe what he says.

If you listen to Harbaugh, they should be a passing dynamo. He has the best handed WR, complete trust in his QB, and Randy Moss running sub 4 second 40's. When it counts, I'll suspect their offense will look eerily similar to last year's version, pound Frank Gore and 3 yard outs to the WR's.

 

[Mitch]

Harbaugh seems to be morphing into a hype/rah-rah guy. Didn't he say something to the effect of Crabtree having the best hands in the NFL? Also, having "an expert command of the offense" doesn't mean he's sold on his playmaking ability. I watch what he does(try to bring in Manning, draft a QB early in round 2), not what he says(Smith is the guy). If he lets the offense open up under Smith, then I'll believe what he says.

If you listen to Harbaugh, they should be a passing dynamo. He has the best handed WR, complete trust in his QB, and Randy Moss running sub 4 second 40's. When it counts, I'll suspect their offense will look eerily similar to last year's version, pound Frank Gore and 3 yard outs to the WR's.

Very good points---it will be interesting to see how good their offense will be based on all of Harbaugh's personnel superlatives.

I still think he will have a specialty package for Kaepernick as well.

The thing about Gore though, CBus, is whether Harbaugh will become infatuated with his speed backs---there are a lot of moving parts personnel-wise in that offense.

Possible too many moving parts.

 

[JeffGollin]

Harbaugh seems to be morphing into a hype/rah-rah guy.

I agree. He does come across as a bit Pollyannish; but Mitch makes a valid point when he infers that you may get more out of some QB's when you prop them up than you'd do giving them Singletary's brand of tough love.

Each dude is different - & has different buttons that need to be pushed. Smith may need coddling, and Harbaugh (at least so far) seems to be getting the max out of him.

Sometimes coaches who are all about Kool-Aid and aren't always realistic risk losing credibility with both players and fans should things not go very well all the time. Harbaugh may be one of those coaches. Or maybe he's just being rah-rah with certain players.

 

[mrbyte]

Better Oline play? 18 sacks in the last 5 games vs 16 sacks in the first 5 games. Is that really getting better? Maybe as they were playing better defenses.

Speaking of that, let's bring up something no one ever mentions about Skelton. Every team he faced the last half of the season except for the Rams had a top 10 scoring defense!

SF (twice) 2nd, Cleveland 5th, Seattle 7th, Cincy 9th, and Philly 10th.

The Cards were 4-2 in those games.

Considering the strength of those defenses maybe Double Deuce did a better job than people want to acknowledge.

if truth be known I'm not a Kolb fan or a Skelton fan. my point was that Kolb was brand knew to the system and hasn't had (IMO) a fair crack of the whip

I mentioned the better O line play simply because most if not all pundits say the O line play was better second half of the season.

Because we won with Skelton it is very easy to forget or rather not remember is inaccuracy and poor play until the 4th quarter when he seemed to wake up but most of his passes were/are high and off target he could miss a receiver no matter how open he was.

but as I said my point was I think Kolb has had a rough deal from Whiz.

 

[kerouac9]

if truth be known I'm not a Kolb fan or a Skelton fan. my point was that Kolb was brand knew to the system and hasn't had (IMO) a fair crack of the whip

I mentioned the better O line play simply because most if not all pundits say the O line play was better second half of the season.

Because we won with Skelton it is very easy to forget or rather not remember is inaccuracy and poor play until the 4th quarter when he seemed to wake up but most of his passes were/are high and off target he could miss a receiver no matter how open he was.

but as I said my point was I think Kolb has had a rough deal from Whiz.

What's the explanation, in your mind, of why Kolb kept getting worse and worse as the season wore on, as he should be getting more and more comfortable with his teammates, the system, etc.?

 

[crisper57]

What's the explanation, in your mind, of why Kolb kept getting worse and worse as the season wore on, as he should be getting more and more comfortable with his teammates, the system, etc.?

Did he get worse? He got injured, sat out, then came back. Then he lit it up pretty good in the Dallas game before injuries derailed him for the rest of the year. I don't think he had the opportunity to get better or worse. He wasn't on the field long enough to do either.

Now if you ask why he seems to still be uncomfortable after a full year with this team, that is a bigger concern for me.

 

[mrbyte]

What's the explanation, in your mind, of why Kolb kept getting worse and worse as the season wore on, as he should be getting more and more comfortable with his teammates, the system, etc.?

not sure I have one, your right he did seem to get worse, we dont know what if anything was happening maybe as they added more and more of the play book in he became swamped? I dunno.
but we will never know if Kolbs poor play would have resulted in the same wins that Skeltons poor play did, because he was injured.

again though my point isnt that Kolb is better than Skelton its that Whiz (I think) has destroyed Kolbs confidence, and he hasnt had a real chance here yet.

Skelton has been in the system three years and he doesn't look a whole lot better than a guy who hasnt had a full season yet off season or regular....

 

[Russ Smith]

The acrimony between Singletary and Smith was consistently palpable.

You make a great point about Harbaugh hiding what Smith does not do well---but what Harbaugh doesn't hide is his belief that Smith is the QB he wants---in fact, just yesterday Harbaugh said that Smith has "an expert command of the offense."

in comparison, what do we hear from CKW about his QBs?

A lot of hemming and hawing and yeah buts.

Singletary yelled at everyone. That's what people loved about him when he got the job, he yelled at Vernon Davis and kicked him off the field. he yelled at his OL he yelled at his defense.

Todd Haley and warner had shouting matches and we nearly won the Super Bowl that year.

Singletary committed to Alex Smith, then he later decided he's not good enough that's why he used that preposterous offense he was using he didn't trust Smith not to turn the ball over. We're not agreeing on cause and effect you're saying Smith stunk because Singletary had no confidence in him I'm saying he had no confidence in him because Smith stunk.

harbaugh is very much a confidence guy I agree. But there's a reason he was going after Manning and a reason he drafted Kaepernick, he didn't believe smith was going to be as good as he was last year and he wasn't convinced he'd do it again.

Once he didn't get Manning of course he's going to talk up Alex and deny he had aggressively pursued Manning. He pretty much had to. You can't walk into the locker room and say well I don't think Alex is very good but he's the best we got, go win.

I'm a huge Harbaugh fan I said before if we were going to replace Whiz he'd have been the guy. But if Harbaugh were here I don't know what offense he'd run, he'd be wasting Fitz in the one he runs now. My guess is he wouldn't have turned Kolb or Skelton into a great QB just by committing to one of them.

Smith played better because of the system. And when he got to the big game last year and they desperately needed him to make plays he did against the Saints, and then completely folded up in the next game and failed. that's why SF went after Peyton, they knew when they needed it, Smith couldn't come through.

 

[Duckjake]

Did he get worse? He got injured, sat out, then came back. Then he lit it up pretty good in the Dallas game before injuries derailed him for the rest of the year. I don't think he had the opportunity to get better or worse. He wasn't on the field long enough to do either.

Now if you ask why he seems to still be uncomfortable after a full year with this team, that is a bigger concern for me.

Yes he did get worse. Just look at the 3 game stretch Vikings through Ravens before he went out. He was 49-97-657 3TD and 4INT. 50.5% completion rate. 65.5 QB rating. After starting out at 130 QR vs Carolina and 92.5 vs Skins he dropped into the 60s for 4 of his next 5 games. After starting out with 4TDs and 1int in his first two games he had 1TD and 5ints in his next three.

Of course you could say he really didn't get worse he just never was good to begin with and got lucky playing Carolina's weak defense and never got any better.

 

[kerouac9]

Did he get worse? He got injured, sat out, then came back. Then he lit it up pretty good in the Dallas game before injuries derailed him for the rest of the year. I don't think he had the opportunity to get better or worse. He wasn't on the field long enough to do either.

Now if you ask why he seems to still be uncomfortable after a full year with this team, that is a bigger concern for me.

QB Rating by week (1-6): 130.0, 92.5, 69.6, 67.9, 46.9, 86.9 (lots of junk completions/TDs in a 32-20 blowout), 68.2
Completion % by week (1-6): 66.7, 56.7, 64.1, 58.8, 50.0, 52.9, 47.6

It's a sad statement about the "resurgence" of Kevin Kolb when 247 yards (167 yards in four quarters) qualifies as "lighting it up."

The offense went three-and-out in six of their first seven drives in that Dallas game.

"Lit it up," indeed.

 

[crisper57]

Yes he did get worse. Just look at the 3 game stretch Vikings through Ravens before he went out. He was 49-97-657 3TD and 4INT. 50.5% completion rate. 65.5 QB rating. After starting out at 130 QR vs Carolina and 92.5 vs Skins he dropped into the 60s for 4 of his next 5 games. After starting out with 4TDs and 1int in his first two games he had 1TD and 5ints in his next three.

Of course you could say he really didn't get worse he just never was good to begin with and got lucky playing Carolina's weak defense and never got any better.

That's what I was getting at.

 

[crisper57]

QB Rating by week (1-6): 130.0, 92.5, 69.6, 67.9, 46.9, 86.9 (lots of junk completions/TDs in a 32-20 blowout), 68.2
Completion % by week (1-6): 66.7, 56.7, 64.1, 58.8, 50.0, 52.9, 47.6

It's a sad statement about the "resurgence" of Kevin Kolb when 247 yards (167 yards in four quarters) qualifies as "lighting it up."

The offense went three-and-out in six of their first seven drives in that Dallas game.

"Lit it up," indeed.

This too.

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

Kolb played about the worst game I have ever seen a QB play in person against Pittsburgh. Then I got to see Skelton play even worse, live, in the 1st half against Cincy. Skelton at least rallied the troops in the 2nd half though, with a little help from Cedric Benson.

 

[Russ Smith]

Kolb played about the worst game I have ever seen a QB play in person against Pittsburgh. Then I got to see Skelton play even worse, live, in the 1st half against Cincy. Skelton at least rallied the troops in the 2nd half though, with a little help from Cedric Benson.

Skelton's first SF game was the worst one I recall seeing him play. Great defens obviously but better against the run than pass. What made that ugly was the admission during the game by the announcers that SF coaches had told them they didn't have to scheme for Skelton, they just played their base defense and waited for him to make a mistake. He didn't really read the defense he locked on Fitz.

now his rematch with SF he was MUCH better, not so good early and then played terrific after that. I always sort of assumed those insults were in the back of his head that game I'll show you about not scheming for me .

He's shown progress, Kolb hasn't.

 

[Cbus cardsfan]

Skelton's first SF game was the worst one I recall seeing him play. Great defens obviously but better against the run than pass. What made that ugly was the admission during the game by the announcers that SF coaches had told them they didn't have to scheme for Skelton, they just played their base defense and waited for him to make a mistake. He didn't really read the defense he locked on Fitz.

now his rematch with SF he was MUCH better, not so good early and then played terrific after that. I always sort of assumed those insults were in the back of his head that game I'll show you about not scheming for me .

He's shown progress, Kolb hasn't.

I agree. Skelton even got better within the game he was playing. Kolb has definitely not shown much improvement, if at all. The offense just seems scattered when he's in. Not so much with Skelton. Much of that probably has to do with the OL having no idea where Kolb is going to be while Skelton hangs in there.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Mitch

The problem with Whisenhunt and Qbs is that outside of Warner, all he's had to work with is bums. You loved guys like St Pierre and Stephen Boyd, so your judgment on qbs is highly questionable.

 

[Darkside]

Mitch

The problem with Whisenhunt and Qbs is that outside of Warner, all he's had to work with is bums. You loved guys like St Pierre and Stephen Boyd, so your judgment on qbs is highly questionable.

Not to butt in but I will. Agree to some extent, but Whis brought in those bums. Every one of them. I wasn't a fan of Leinart by any stretch, but he brought in DA to replace him. Brought in the Hallinator. Kolb and Skelton (even though I like Skelton he's not really an answer right now, even if he shows promise). Rich Bartel for goodness sakes, that dude is just eating up space, what is he on our team for exactly? I mean that seriously. We couldn't find another project a little younger with some more upside? They haven't been able to develop a single one of these dudes, and the one who has developed the most in Skelton has done it primarily by himself (which is why they should designate some developmental time to him).

I'll defend Whis forever and ever, but to be objective everyone has to admit that in the QB area he has failed quite miserably. The one good QB we had in Warner fell into his lap and he was already SB developed! He had a lot to work with. LOL. The rest of them haven't improved an iota.

 

[Krangodnzr]

Not to butt in but I will. Agree to some extent, but Whis brought in those bums. Every one of them. I wasn't a fan of Leinart by any stretch, but he brought in DA to replace him. Brought in the Hallinator. Kolb and Skelton (even though I like Skelton he's not really an answer right now, even if he shows promise). Rich Bartel for goodness sakes, that dude is just eating up space, what is he on our team for exactly? I mean that seriously. We couldn't find another project a little younger with some more upside? They haven't been able to develop a single one of these dudes, and the one who has developed the most in Skelton has done it primarily by himself (which is why they should designate some developmental time to him).

I'll defend Whis forever and ever, but to be objective everyone has to admit that in the QB area he has failed quite miserably. The one good QB we had in Warner fell into his lap and he was already SB developed! He had a lot to work with. LOL. The rest of them haven't improved an iota.

I don't know. We heard several reports that Whisenhunt wanted Marc Bulger, several months after we signed Anderson. I think Whisenhunt doesn't have the personnel power others here believe. Rod Graves does, and he has a history of terrible personnel moves.

It's not a popular opinion but I think I'll be proven right in time.

The fact of the matter is that the Skelton lobby won't believe he's terrible and that we're screwed until we have a shot at a true franchise QB.

 

[Duckjake]

I don't know. We heard several reports that Whisenhunt wanted Marc Bulger, several months after we signed Anderson. I think Whisenhunt doesn't have the personnel power others here believe. Rod Graves does, and he has a history of terrible personnel moves.

It's not a popular opinion but I think I'll be proven right in time.

The fact of the matter is that the Skelton lobby won't believe he's terrible and that we're screwed until we have a shot at a true franchise QB.

Why should we when Double Deuce is not terrible?