People forget though he played nowhere like that in 2011.
He played like he was shellshocked. His head was gone (on the field, defensive wise). Besides everything else, most people don't realize this or are imo under-weighting this. His head isn't in the game anymore, he takes all his crazy antics onto the field inside his head and it has destroyed his ability to play, and apparently exercise. He doesn't just react, because his reactions are idiotic. So he has to think, and he is incapable of doing that off the field, let alone on it.
In the beginning I was licking my chops at hoping the Cards would get him someday. His play last year dropped off so far it was unbelievable (and I actually noticed it in 2010 and thought the 2010 accolades were more off his 2009 potential...not that he actually warranted the 2010 accolades).
How often have you seen a guy whose play on the field, nothing regarding injuries, went from All American to not even conference honorable mention?
I understand the whole, he's shown something, thus he should be worth a shot, but for a second even excluding everything else, his play last year simply doesn't warrant anything. He flat out sucked last year.
He was late on everything. Any time he wasn't late, he wasn't late because he jumped offsides. He was backpeddling instead of attacking. His head didn't seem to be in the game at all. Not one bit. His instincts were going the wrong way almost 100 percent of the time.
I can understand bad seasons, but what he had was one of the worst seasons a college lb can have, sans personal fouls and everything else.
Those awards were won before the word was out and everybody just groupthinked him into the accolades, before he mind screwed himself, and when he had at least a college football body. Now he has a body that any other person has. That doesn't work in the NFL. He doesn't have football instincts anymore. His head has destroyed them.
I totally understand where you are coming from, I just totally think everything has crumbled since that point (actually 1/2 a season before that), and instead of something to salvage, I see him still sinking and probably far farther than what he already has. The proverbial bleeding hasn't stopped, the wound has been opened further.
I really think he's a prime candidate for death in some form as his nightmare if not drafted and doesn't make a team as a UDFA, which is now entirely possible and probable, has only begun. I don't want this. I wish him the best of luck, though I know wishing doesn't change anything, and the guy we see before us is a guy whose life is self-destructing, and people whose lives self destruct are generally the ones that you find lying in the gutter, or lands him in jail, or just lives a miserable existence as a hardcore drug user. His psyche, which he continues to show how fragile it is, is about to be destroyed, and I pity the man. No degree, no brain, and the NFL at the most will give him one no leniency chance. He just doesn't strike me as a guy who can accept a fall all the way to asking 'would you like fries with that'...if he could even do that.
