Vonta Leach a Saint?

[Rastak]

Good lord! You just spent 20 paragraphs analysing the style, motives and logic of another poster. Couldn't you just call him a dick head and be done with it?

LOL....

[Fosco33]

Here's M3's take on Vonta being a Saint...

(Vonta now is with the Saints. Do teams pump players with information?) Absolutely. He'll go visit with the defensive coordinator, everybody does it. I don't even know if there's a rule against it. It's part of the business. I never found that I won a football game because of a player that we acquired from the team before. Vonta knows the intricacies of our offense, but quite frankly there's a number of other individuals that know a lot about our offense too. I spent five years there, so those are all things that factor into the game plan. Times change, your offense changes. Faces and conceptually within what you're trying to do changes almost year to year, so I don't feel like we're at a competitive disadvantage from a schematic standpoint with Vonta there.

(The potential for being caught short at fullback?) The way I look at it, and we've spoken about this before in here, you never want to be one player away from being out of a primary concept or a primary play you have in your game plan. With that in mind, between the fullback and tight end positions, we're carrying four players, so that gives us the ability to stay with that philosophy.

[vince]

WARNING - You probably won't be interested in this post, so you may want to just skip it...

It usually takes me a very long time on any forum to begin to recognize individuals in whom I take specific interest. I don't know why, maybe it's a quality that would make me a poor teacher, but I don't tend to tune in at first to who says something, but rather I focus on what is being said. Over time, however, I start to take particular note of some individuals - not that I'm not equally interested in what everyone else has to say, but just that for some reason, certain contributors make me tune in a little more closely, to hear (or read, rather) what they have to say. This can be for any number of reasons - a certain type of humour, an annoying habit, particularly well argued points, types of insights, etc... anything, really, that just catches my eye.

In this forum there are a number of such posters already, though I'm not around very long. One of these is you, Vince. I think you present your points solidly; your arguments are well reasoned; and you have a solid command of writing skills. In this case, however, I want to take you up on a couple of things.

Terry,

I'm sorry that I've had my real life's plate full that last few days, and haven't had time to peruse the forum, but I wanted to thank you for your critique and respond to your post... It is received as I believe it was intended - respectfully and openly.

First off, in terms of having interest in certain poster's posts, thank you for that, and I would say that I also read with interest your posts. Although we often disagree (which is a good thing), our styles seem to be somewhat similar. I still chuckle occasionally over your classic "none taken." post that you may recall a few weeks back...

The reality is that you wanted to shred someone and you didn't know how to do it and not to do it at the same time. I'm not objecting or judging your intents - if you want to have a go at someone, hell, go ahead, but this sort of pretend elegance lead-in doesn't do you justice.

You are somewhat correct, (and very observant), in your assessment here. I wanted to slam a specific poster, but was concerned about the thread denigrating into personal attacks about various analyses of different players, coaches, GM's etc. My intent was to keep the debate on ideas and not have it denigrate into personal attacks...

Anyway, regarding your comments about group think, egos, etc. I appreciate your perspective here. However, I want to address some of the points you made.

You're not arguing that the preceding poster was incorrect - you are arguing that by definition, he must be incorrect.

I wasn't arguing that he was necessarily incorrect at all - just that his perspective comes from a position of ignorance, yet he was unwilling or unable to see that... Two ignorant people could argue different sides of an argument and one of them would be right. What I'm saying is that NONE OF US have as much information as the GM's, scouts and coaches, and it's ignorant and arrogant of us to think we know better than them. We don't.

I could have all the information in the world about something - and be completely wrong in my conclusions about it... I could have no information about something, and get lucky in my conclusions about it. I'm still ignorant.

For one thing, if every coach were such an expert, they would all be like Vince Lombardi. Clearly this is not so.

Obviously, every coach is not like the immortal one. However, your argument doesn't apply to my logic. Football is a zero sum game. For every winner (+1) there's a loser (-1). While every coach can have more information and make better decisions for their team (in theory) than the fans..., and hence be "experts" in the art and science of football - relative to laymen - not every coach can be the best there is at any time. It's impossible. For every winner, there's a loser.

Even though the Packers may lose more games than they win, the coach (continuing with your representation of the word) may very well still be (probably IS) the preeminent expert on all personnel decisions he makes.

Another thing is that the real world is replete with examples where the layman has an idea or an insight not 'thought of' by the expert. ... all the presentations by the fans must be given their due respect, albeit that they may fall short of X coach's thinking on the same matter 98% of the time.

My focus in the post was the 98% you reference above. I do want to respect all people's perspectives, not matter how ignorant. And just to be clear, I am using the term "ignorant" - not derogatorily, but by its strict definition meaning, "uninformed." No matter how intelligent someone is, they're "ignorant" on any number of issues.

IMHO, the phrase "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is one of the most mis-used aphorisms in existence. It's usually used by the expert (or their loyal adherents) to refer to the layman - actually, it is more properly applied to the 'expert'. Obviously the layman doesn't know anything - that's never the problem. The problem is always among the knowledgable, who know themselves to be 'smart' in contrast to their fellows, but so easily forget that even they know very, very little. This phrase is most often misused by the 'experts' themselves.

Your point is noted, but what is more dangerous is people who are uninformed, but don't recognize it. People who don't know what they don't know are, IMHO, more dangerous than the experts. BIG mistakes happen to these people, and they have no idea how they got there, or how to get out of them. I don't believe that applies to the coach here...

The entire logical consequence of your argument is that such forums are ridiculous in their very existence, that we should not be sitting around puffing up our opinionated chests about sports or politics or anything else except one another - which is similar to the areas of expertise that exists in most families: they're all experts on one another.

Terry, this is why I wanted to follow up my post with a pseudo-retraction, because I completely understand this point. However, no matter how entertaining or otherwise beneficial these boards are - and I would not argue to get rid of them, I still stand by the assertation that we are usually positioning arguments from a position of relative ignorance. We'll often be right, but we're still (relatively) ignorant... I'm OK with that, but some people don't seem to understand or accept that fact.

Remember your reference to EGO? Expert or NOT, everyone's got one.

[MJZiggy]

I love threads like this one.

[Harlan Huckleby]

And just to be clear, I am using the term "ignorant" - not derogatorily, but by its strict definition meaning, "uninformed."

Ha ha ha ha! Vince, I dare you to call your boss "ignorant".

Vince & Terry have made a love connection.

[falco]

And just to be clear, I am using the term "ignorant" - not derogatorily, but by its strict definition meaning, "uninformed."

Ha ha ha ha! Vince, I dare you to call your boss "ignorant".

Vince & Terry have made a love connection.

To be fair Harlan, its not nearly as entertaining as you and Scott's.

[Rastak]

Your point is noted, but what is more dangerous is people who are uninformed, but don't recognize it. People who don't know what they don't know are, IMHO, more dangerous than the experts. BIG mistakes happen to these people, and they have no idea how they got there, or how to get out of them.

I like those that completely lie to themselves and talk themselves into believing stuff. Tex is a classic example. He's ignorant but actually believes half the crazy stuff he says. It might be a good case study for the local pysco department.

[Scott Campbell]

I'm reminded why Todd Christianson is no longer in broadcasting.

[Fosco33]

Here's M3's take on Vonta being a Saint...

(Vonta now is with the Saints. Do teams pump players with information?) Absolutely. He'll go visit with the defensive coordinator, everybody does it. I don't even know if there's a rule against it. It's part of the business. I never found that I won a football game because of a player that we acquired from the team before. Vonta knows the intricacies of our offense, but quite frankly there's a number of other individuals that know a lot about our offense too. I spent five years there, so those are all things that factor into the game plan. Times change, your offense changes. Faces and conceptually within what you're trying to do changes almost year to year, so I don't feel like we're at a competitive disadvantage from a schematic standpoint with Vonta there.

(The potential for being caught short at fullback?) The way I look at it, and we've spoken about this before in here, you never want to be one player away from being out of a primary concept or a primary play you have in your game plan. With that in mind, between the fullback and tight end positions, we're carrying four players, so that gives us the ability to stay with that philosophy.

Well, it appears that Martin's injury is bad enough that he didn't practice today - so now they have Humphrey getting reps at FB.... ehh

M3's Conference Notes 9/20:

(If you don't have David Martin, how big of a blow is that considering his FB work?)
We're fortunate having four tight ends. Tory Humphrey got an amount of work today, so we feel very comfortable with the depth we have at that position.

(Has David Martin done what you needed in the passing game?)
We went into this past game with the tight ends as our primary option in our passing game as far as the primary receiver. That doesn't always mean they get the football, but they had I think 14 opportunities this past week. I thought his production was very good in the passing game this past week. Really, in the Chicago game, we never got going period as an offense so we really didn't get to the things that we would have liked to then. There is a reason we have five tight ends in our building, so they are a big part of what we do.

(What's Martin's injury?)
Knee, I think he'll be okay. He did not practice today, though.