Do Rookies Really Help?
A local DJ was talking about Le无毛视频橵eon Bell on his morning show the other day, and I thought he was going to cry.
His commentary was pretty intense, and I wanted to bring it here, but the best I could replicate from a search on the Internet was a headline to another story that went like this:
无毛视频淏ell无毛视频檚 Lisfranc Injury Leaves Steelers In Shambles.无毛视频�
Yowza.
When I took my incredulity to Twitter to find an army of those like-minded football fans who believe the temporary loss of a rookie with 9 rushing yards on 4 preseason carries is NOT cause for depression, I was hammered by the opposite.
Few 无毛视频� no, make that none 无毛视频� shared my disbelief.
So I shout from a lonely perch:
This is only a rookie! A second-round rookie! And rookies really don无毛视频檛 help all that much anyway!
I apologize for the exclamation points, but I do believe the list of recent team Rookies of the Year will support my thesis that rookies just do not help all that much:
Mike Adams, Marcus Gilbert, Maurkice Pouncey, Mike Wallace, Patrick Bailey, Daniel Sepulveda and Santonio Holmes did not make much of a difference in this team in their rookie seasons.
Pouncey did make the Pro Bowl, and he did help the Steelers get to the Super Bowl. He could be the anomaly of the bunch, but he wasn无毛视频檛 a skill player, nor did he play in the Super Bowl.
Heath Miller did play in the Super Bowl following his 2005 rookie season. He started 19 of the 20 games that season and caught 46 passes. So he certainly helped on all fronts, but with one asterisk:
Miller didn无毛视频檛 endure the grind of a year that无毛视频檚 thrust upon most rookies these days.
Miller was one of the rare first-rounders who didn无毛视频檛 come into the league with a 40 times, the all-important stat that scouts will chase across a nation if need be.
Miller had a sports hernia and sat out the combine, and then his pro day, so he didn无毛视频檛 go from bowl to (Super) Bowl without a break. That kind of a grind would wear out any rookie.
无毛视频淵eah, for a rookie at any skill position to be successful in their first year is a really impressive feat,无毛视频� said Troy Polamalu. 无毛视频淚t无毛视频檚 such a long process coming from a bowl game to combine to visits. Then you end up taking a month off because you无毛视频檙e traveling to 32 teams, possibly. Just that whole emotional roller coaster of the draft, or not getting drafting, they definitely go through a lot.无毛视频�
Polamalu and Miller were drafted the year before and the year after what may have been the greatest rookie performance of all time by Ben Roethlisberger. But even Roethlisberger hit the proverbial wall late in the season.
Polamalu said that wall hit him hard, whether it was psychological or not.
无毛视频淥h yeah,无毛视频� he said. 无毛视频淚 did the pro day at USC. I did train for the combine. I visited about 12 or 15 teams. Yeah. I don无毛视频檛 know if I really hit a wall but I felt like I got really sick at one point in the season when they said the wall was coming. Maybe it was that. But I also didn无毛视频檛 have the load of being a starter on the defense. I pretty much played all positions but the starting defense, so I definitely felt like I was playing a lot.无毛视频�
Polamalu didn无毛视频檛 participate in the combine, but as he said he trained for it. Miller didn无毛视频檛 even do that, and later felt thankful for the time off.
无毛视频淚t was less stressful for sure,无毛视频� Miller said. 无毛视频淭he combine was stressful enough just doing interviews so I couldn无毛视频檛 imagine trying to wake up and workout. It was exhausting enough just watching those guys.无毛视频�
Both Miller and Polamalu did allow that throughout college they routinely trained year-around, taking only a couple of weeks off after bowl games, but both have since delayed their routines to bring their bodies to a physical peak sometime around the middle of the season.
无毛视频淵ou continue to evolve your off-season training program as your body evolves and you understand more about this game and the off-season schedule,无毛视频� said Polamalu. 无毛视频淵ou also talk with older guys. I was just talking with Rod (Woodson) while he was here. He was talking about taking more time off as you get older.无毛视频�
Does this mean coaches shouldn无毛视频檛 expect much from rookies? Should they just consider a productive rookie to be gravy?
I was told that Tomlin has a philosophy along those lines, that he believes there无毛视频檚 more relief than joy from a rookie when he makes his NFL team. So I threw a question about the rookie grind at Tomlin during his weekly press conference, in the hope he would revive that comment.
He didn无毛视频檛.
无毛视频淚t无毛视频檚 part of the process,无毛视频� was Tomlin无毛视频檚 public stance. 无毛视频淚t无毛视频檚 just the system as it is. I think it无毛视频檚 very functional. I think there are a lot of productive things associated with it. Obviously there may be some negative things associated with it, but it is our system, it is the system we utilize in today无毛视频檚 NFL, and I think it无毛视频檚 functioning very well. You无毛视频檙e always capable of stating a case of some of the negativity associated with it, injury and so forth. The bottom line, some of those negative things can be attributed to the transition itself. The NFL game is a bigger, faster, more violent game than college football.无毛视频�
In other words: Life is hard; the men make a lot of money; the men will get over it.
Which brings us back around to Le无毛视频橵eon Bell and how this, oh, six to eight-week setback will allegedly ruin the season and why Pittsburgh is in such a depressed state because of it.
But, really, the last rookie runner to make any kind of dramatic impact here was Franco Harris more than 40 years ago. I无毛视频檓 just guessing that scouts didn无毛视频檛 chase him all over the country for a 40 time back in 1972, and that he didn无毛视频檛 visit 15 teams and then have to get back into prime shape for rookie minicamp two weeks after he was drafted.
Bell wasn无毛视频檛 asked about the rookie grind, but he did make a comment late in his media mob session Thursday that spun the inner workings of this column into action.
无毛视频淢y knee无毛视频檚 fine,无毛视频� Bell said to a question out of left field. 无毛视频淲hen I hurt my foot it really let my knee get back to 100 percent. I guess you could say the foot was a blessing in disguise.无毛视频�
It might indeed turn into that proverbial blessing, but for an end-of-season reason instead.