The Story of the 2009 Season: The Rev's Version

But then I’ll think of these statistics from last year.

Jake Delhomme: 178 out of 321 for 8 Touchdowns, 18 interceptions, and 59.4 passer rating his 11 games he started.

Matt Moore: 51 out of 83 completions for 7 touchdowns, 0 interceptions and a 115 passer rating his last 3 games.

Why Jeff? WHY?

Because many of our losses came down to too many turn overs. And while it can be Davidson’s fault for not moving the offense… It’s NOT his fault when a guy fumbles or throws the ball to the other team.

If they get rid of him in the off season, then that will obviously be very telling. If not, then it might be a sign we are blaming the wrong person.

Why can’t they get that? 3hrs 1 day a week forget I exist or join in….simple… I now have a gf that joins in…although she pulls for the other team most of the time

The defense could have scored two touchdowns and we still would not have had a shot.

Whenever Fox is behind late he’s relied on Jake to bomb Smith and Moose down field. Going back to the 4th quarter shootout with Brady in the Superbowl… More recently in 2008 in games like Green Bay and New Orleans, it was Jake taking shots down field late that won the games.

However in 2009 when the exact same thing happens, but it doesn’t work, it’s all Davidson’s fault? I DON’T think Davidson is a good OC, but I cannot blame him solely for something that I’ve seen be a staple of this team for the past 6 years.

But I think he was listing the games where we threw the ball an unreasonable amount of times considering who was throwing the ball at that point in his career.

Con los Años Viejos! But our trip got delayed a few weeks :(

….Jets

The lack of a half decent running back behind him.

My point was just that there are many Fox-like characteristics on this offense. And because of that I’m not sure I want to throw all the blame on Davidson.

The way many players have come out in support of Fox lately… I’d say there’s no way he’s lost the team.

their true colours showed when they werent playing awful teams

That Jake aint what he use to be! I remember him always getting antsy when under a lot of pressure. But now, whether the 2007 surgery, a mental meltdown, or just age… his accuracy is off, which is turning that antsy-ness into poorly thrown balls.

I really hope Jake and Fox will be honest with each other about this in the off season.

Let me run through these players right fast, quite a few of them I disagree with.

Rodney Peete didn’t deserve to start anywhere. How this guy lasted so long in the NFL is an absolute mystery to me. Everywhere he’s gone he’s been a failure. He’ll have good games every now and then, but he was incredible inconsistent. No idea why teams kept taking a chance on him. You can’t really blame that on John Fox though. He lasted 2 quarters into the first game of the John Fox era before he gave him the boot for Jake Delhomme, leading us to the Super Bowl.

Dan Morgan, he deserved to be kept. Made the Pro-Bowl in spite of missing 4 games in 04. The thing with him is that you kept imagining how good he could be if he could keep healthy and play for a full 16 games. And he was young too! Even today, he’s only in his early 30’s. He could play if he wanted to. He’s just incredibly prone to injuries. So, where do you draw the line and say “Sorry Dan Morgan. You’re a great player, but we can’t keep you if you get hurt every year.” That’s a hard decision to make, especially when Dan Morgan wants to play and he has the sympathy of the whole organization.

Mike Minter? He was indispensable in the 03 run to the Super Bowl. He more than deserved his spot. Do remember, before we retired we had no one to serve as a replacement behind him. So we traded for our own Chris Harris, and that worked out pretty wonderfully, but you have to admit that was a last second plan that happened to work out. If Mike wanted to play for 2-3 more years, I wouldn’t mind. Just as long as Chris Harris was still available to come to us :D

Mike Rucker I’ll mostly agree with. If anything, he should have at least been put into a DE rotation to give the guys under him some experience. His play had a large dropoff after Kris Jenkins left and he started to get older. For his credit though, he had a pretty good last season. Three passes defended, two fumble recoveries, and 35 tackles. Truly not a bad season for the closing curtain.

Moose? He’s tough to judge. For the entire year, he’s dealt with a QB that has been absolutely pathetic, so his statistics have suffered. He’s a possession type receiver that can still cut well enough to put some distance between his CB, and he’s intelligent enough to get open in zone defenses. For him, I believe that he can be effective as a 3rd receiver. The Panthers need to make a move in the offseason to find a 2nd receiver, but Moose can still be effective against 3rd string corners.

Hoover’s still a good blocker. Other than a couple of miss assignments this year that have led to big consequences, he’s still a major tool of our running game, the hard worker doing the dirty work behind the scenes. He’s getting progressively slower though, so we need to start looking for a replacement. Sutton looked pretty good filling in for him, and Tony Fiametta could serve as a duel threat receiver and fullback if he puts his mind to it. We need to prepare for his eventual retirement.

Kemo just needs to get healthy and in shape. He was out of shape when he came to training camp last year. We need all the DT’s we can get a hold on next year. However, Kemo should be in a rotation. Anything lower than that would be John Fox loving on his veterans.

You may be spot on Diggs. After Anderson and Conner both impressed during the Pre-Season, they earned at least a rotation. For John Fox to make Diggs an every down player does support his loyalty to veterans. I’d rather see a rotation of Diggs and Anderson, with Dan Conner being trained at all 3 linebacker positions to take over if one of them goes down.

Minter didn’t have anyone behind him, and Rucker still hasn’t been replaced. They’ve tried to replace Moose with Carter, Colbert and Jarrett… It’s a good thing he’s still been around. Hoover’s been playing great, Diggs probably won’t be around long. And Kemos only around because he’s really really fat.

These players have been around out of necessity. But why isn’t Jake on this list?

You can’t just cut every player and take a cap hit… it’s not possible, the money doesn’t work.

- He gave up on DeShaun Foster and turned the keys over to DeAngelo
- He gave up on Dan Morgan rather than them offering him one last deal
- He made Godfrey the starting FS over Nate Salley
- He let Jeff Hangartner go and started Ryan Kalil at center
- He drafted Tony Fiametta, a clear indicate he knows Hoover is on his last legs.
- He drafted both Keary Colbert and Dwayne Jarrett to fill Moose’s shoes, and both are busts.

I’ll tell you this. Our team, with our run game alone would be downright scary with a good return game that could give us a few short fields per game to work with.