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Originally Posted by Shane
This season to me is to get the ship set on the right course, and though I think we have a good chance to get to the playoffs, that is a bonus. The injuries to me are not beyond what is normal for football. The good thing about injuries is that you get a chance to see what the backup can do.
Without the injury to Barrow, we wouldn't have had a chance to see that Antonio Pierce is going to likely be our stalwart at middle linebacker for years to come, the quarterback of the defense. We get a chance to see more of what Patrick Ramsey can do, and we all hope he is going to rise to the challenge. Now Lemar Marshall and Ron Warner have a chance.
So personally I am kind of interested and excited to see what the backups are going to do.
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Excellent post, Shane. I totally agree. I'm just looking for this team to be competitive this season, and at least be in the playoff hunt through December.
Though the injuries are disheartening, I'm looking forward to see if guys like Marshall and Warner step up the way Pierce has done. Gibbs and Williams have pointed to Pierce and said, "this is a guy that's making the most of his opportunity." Hopefully, the other backups have taken note of Pierce's professionalism and commitment to excellence, and they will step up and become playmakers in their own right. I don't expect either of them to perform at Pierce's level, but if they do, it will be a pleasant surprise, and a bonus to know that there is some quality depth at those positions.
I'm confident that Gibbs will train Ramsey to play smarter and make better decisions with the ball. In the short term, Gibbs will have to help him out with a playcalling strategy that avoids putting Ramsey in situations where he will be tempted to force the ball downfield, and place the emphasis on quicker reads and shorter passes. Once Ramsey gets into a rhythm with the short game, and learns to use it as a powerful weapon against the blitz, Gibbs can start to open up the offense a bit more. But Gibbs and Ramsey have to work together to force defenses to back off of the heavy blitzing approach, which is what every defense is going to do until Ramsey learns to exploit it.