"Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan." Anybody want to claim Brandon Underwood?
"Success has a thousand fathers, failure is an orphan." Anybody want to claim Brandon Underwood?
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
He certainly has the size/speed and ball skills to be outrageously good. He really has no ceiling. That said I think he might be limited by his intelligence and if you'd heard the guy speak you would probably agree. My guess is that he becomes about as good of a corner as Devon Hester is a WR.
70% of the Earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Al Harris.
If my memory serves me, Brandon was the first one I heard gushing over shields. Also he was always saying we don't need a f.a. Running back due to having Starks on the roster....good call Bran
That happened sometime in October.Originally Posted by 3irty1
Lester Hayes was not a brain surgeon and he figured it out. Give him time, one position and one defense and I think he will be good to go.
I wish Stickum was still allowed.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
If you go by wonderlic scores then CB's are statistically the dumbest players in the NFL anyways. I hope you're right. Shields is already as good as he ever needs to be anyways.
70% of the Earth is covered by water. The rest is covered by Al Harris.
Colin Cowherd is the weathervane of conventional wisdom (I may have said this before). He claims to appreciate smarts, but he really worships money. He is a mimic. I heard he is getting some kind of TV show. Someone will need to check how far along we are to the apocalypse.
He also thinks the Baseball Hall of Fame shouldn't be about nerds and numbers, but then agrees with guests who think the only measuring sticks are 300 wins, 4,000 strikeouts, 500 homers or 1200 RBIs. In other words, he prefers large numbers and is fearful of decimal points.
Not. A. Fan.
Bud Adams told me the franchise he admired the most was the Kansas City Chiefs. Then he asked for more hookers and blow.
I think Colin Cowherd is the ESPN employee that annoys me the most... and that's really saying something.
</delurk>
Can't wait until Joe gets the search function working.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen
I am on the wait and see bench with Shields. I've seen a lot of guys run through this town as a flash in the pan.
There's no denying that the talent is there and his potential is pretty scary. The guy's closing speed is off the charts, which makes him perfect for zone coverage. What really surprises me is that when he's in man to man coverage, and teams have thrown his way, he more often than not finds a way to get a hand on the ball and blow up the pass. I didn't see him as a man guy in the beginning of the season but he's slowly proving me wrong.
If he can continue to improve over the course of the next few years, when he gets his chance to start, he'll take the league by storm. If he rests on his laurels or starts making some poor personal decisions, that's the end of him. I think he has a good chance of becoming great though, because of the all star cast around him. When you've got talent, it's hard not to succeed in those circumstances.
Sam Shields is absolutely the real deal. After the season he has had he would start for the majority of teams in the NFL. If you're not sold yet you will be soon enough, doubt not.
I'm not at all convinced that Underwood or Lee could have held their own. Playing cornerback in the NFL is a hard job where weakness will be exposed (see the Vikings secondary). The fact that he never had a brutal game, and in fact was rarely beaten over an entire season is proof that he is a good cornerback. Furthermore, Joe Whitt has always spoken reasonably highly of him and Whitt is not a bullshitter.
He is always open is his assessment of his players to the media. From the start he has said the Shields was the most talented cornerback in the draft, he just had no idea what he was doing. Add on a marijuana arrest and he goes undrafted.
Whitt has also said that this year Shields can be a good corner, but he has a chance to be a great corner. I'm not sure what his ceiling is, but I think he can be a Pro Bowl corner.
He has speed, fluidity, and is assignment sure. I would rate him above Tyronne Williams, who I think also wore 37, because he has superior ball skills. You're not just going to jump up over him and take the ball without a fight as Maclin found out last Sunday. His study habits seem strong and he is steady.
Just to take my Sam Shields love letter totally over the top I want to point out one other thing. Our defense changed dramatically after Al Harris went down last year. If we have two solid DBs on the outside then Woodson can be a jack of all trades destroyer of offensive gameplans. I still believe that the biggest problem with Harris getting injured was not getting more Jarret Bush on the field it was having to turn Woodson into a more typical cover corner.
With Shields playing at a high level we've been able to get back to operation wreak havoc. Because of this I would say that the play of Sam Shields makes it possible for us to make a Super Bowl run.
I hope they get a chance to play in GB to find out what they can do before we release/trade either one of them...
I would say I am president of the wait and see club in general, but one thing that makes me get excited about SS is that he has been tested. A guy can get sacks when a team isn't ready for him, or a defense is designed to give him a free run (Bishop first play). An LB can make tackles for a stretch by guessing well. A RB can get yards with superior blocking for half a season, but a DB in isolation gets tested over and over again. A rookie undrafted FA gets picked on. SS put a stop to that early, and every time a team tested him he passed it. You can't luck into that, you can't fake it. He is the real deal.
I don't hold Grudges. It's counterproductive.
Nice post. Agree 100%.
Shields worst play of the season could have been when he turned his back and guess on the Maclin TD in game 1. I don't think I saw him do that ever again...
SS eventually starts. Woodson is getting to the stage of becoming a safety.
he and williams have pretty much been "shutdown." we're set for a loooong time. (knocking on wood)
At this point, the theological implications of a bad game by Shields are staggering.
The last decade or two has not been all that good for CB's. It has been a long time since a 4.3 flat/sub 4.3 prospect at DB "got it". You know a guy that would still be a very good DB given 4.5 speed instead of what they are blessed with. There were a couple in the late 80's early 90's (Sanders/Green). Since then the guys that could play have been 4.4 guys or so, with none really pressing below the 4.35 line. None have been like Shields, who has a noticeable gear beyond the 4.4 guys (legit 4.35 guys generally don't appear to have an extra gear relative to the 4.4 guys).
Shields still has a long way to go overall before he is in the great discussion, but he picked up inside leverage sideline play freaky fast. Which has made him extremely useful. A lot of teams have a sideline burner that runs deep as their big play passing threat, that isn't actually that good of a WR, their game being to out run coverage (see Knox, Johnny). Shields is really good at shutting down these guys. Although the way he gets the job done is different, his use is actually quite similar to Al Harris'.
Shields does have a learning "disability" but our coaches know how he learns and have figured out how to teach him. Not that it relates to the Packers, but I was listening to Kirwan the other day, he was talking about different types of learners and how coaches have to get through to them. Said they figured out (in NY 'bout a decade ago) that they had a couple tactile learners, who just couldn't get it with normal teaching, that struggled learning the play book. However they got magnet boards and magnets to represent the players, all of a sudden their learning issues went away when the players could feel the formations and concepts as opposed to seeing or hearing.
Chris Johnson had that crazy speed, but just didn't get it for the few years he was here. Is he still starting in Oakland?
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Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
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