Peppers makes a clear statement

sorry. i forgot i wasn't supposed to make an emotional investment in this team. thanks for setting me straight chip.

 

any time

 

Anyone see Sorensen's idiotic column today? Good grief, I wonder if there is an NFL team that has worse beat writers.

 

Just read it. Said that Gross was 'as good' at his job as Peppers was at his.

Not quite.

 

That's what I said. All last year the topic was "What's wrong with Peppers". Now Yasinskas comes out and says that a player said it was in his mind and he wasn't buying into Fox's system. Why didn't this come out last year when it was the hot topic? If it was off the record, why is it ok to say now? Makes me believe the BS they write even less.

 

I'm sure that LarryD regretted inviting me to be a part of the Observer's fantasy football league all those many years ago, but being around those guys (not Sorensen or Fowler though) opened up my eyes about how clueless they are, even moreso than just reading the sports page. Back then I naively assumed that covering sports for a living meant that you knew more than the average person.

In any case, I can't disagree with the idea that losing Peppers means we should probably spend to keep Gross. I'm not happy about it, but you're not going to replace Peppers, so it could certainly be worth doing as much as possible with the offense while you attempt to get by on defense.

 

Sorenson's column was poorly thought out.

 

Worth noting that Pep's two most dominant games this year were against Oakland and Detroit. Still very good production outside of these two games. Just not $17,000,000-type production.

I will miss his level run defense more than anything.

 

Having a sack in ten different games is pretty outstanding. And as I noted in a separate thread, the only players who had more sacks than Peppers this season were 3-4 OLBs or pass rush specialists who didn't play on run downs (Abraham). Maybe he isn't yet the best 4-3 defensive end in the league, but he's certainly in the top five.

In any case, I was looking over the free agent list for possible pass rush specialists we could pair with a run defender and I just didn't see anything at all I could even talk myself into liking. At this point maybe you just leave Brayton at LDE full-time and let Johnson man RDE with Taylor spelling him on occasion in obvious passing situations.

 

By the way, I was looking at Julius' NFL.com profile and just noticed that today is his birthday.