Matt Hasselbeck

[Neo]

Originally Posted by next2nothing

No reason to not throw him in? He took over for shitty Delhomme and Wallace last year and showed he could start for this team. He didn't play lights out but he wasn't terrible last year either. You HAVE to play him. Especially on such a young team that is trying to find it's identity and has a new offensive scheme that came along with a new coach. You can't bury the kid behind an aged veteran and expect to evaluate him.

Add all this onto an unproven WR corps and an OL that suffered early injuries to key guys and was forced to use lesser quality lineman. Do you really think Hasselbeck would be lighting up defenses with our offense like he is with the Titans?

This season is all about evaluation. You don't bring in an aged, veteran QB to a team that has to find out what it has before it can move forward.

Oh and I believe Colt was ready. A new coach, unproven WR's and a new scheme that is dependent on timing more than anything to succeed = the struggle at QB you see now. I'm not saying Colt is our answer at QB but you can't find that out unless you let him play.

I agree that you should play him. I disagree how soon they played him. If they would have got the right veteran guy to begin with, Colt would be still on the bench where he should be, learning. We could have got at LEAST two productive years out of Hasselbeck while McCoy learns the system.

[Enigmatic Evil]

Well none of us could have predicted the high ankle sprains that plagued us last season. If we had a healthy Jake Delhomme all last season, who knows what could have happened this year. Maybe Mangini doesn't get fired. Maybe Colt's still being 'groomed' in the educational system that Holmgren originally intended. This baptism-by-fire approach was only because Colt HAD to play and Colt's still learning the game.

If it was possible that we could have brought in Hasselbeck last season to be this team's QB I would have been ecstatic! Way more excited than I ever could have hope to be for Jake The Mistake. I even wrote that blog post trying to defend him (I feel like I'll need to do one for Colt soon) but Hasselbeck would have been an improvement bar none over Delhomme.

Overall its coulda, shoulda, woulda's. Would I like to have him? Hell yes. But right now, the Titans have him and it's paying off for them. I'll be surprised if they don't push for the playoffs in that division the way they're playing now.

[Alo]

Originally Posted by Neo

I agree that you should play him. I disagree how soon they played him. If they would have got the right veteran guy to begin with, Colt would be still on the bench where he should be, learning. We could have got at LEAST two productive years out of Hasselbeck while McCoy learns the system.

As already noted, Hasselbeck wasn't a free agent last year. Had he been available then, I bet Holmgren would have brought him in: the Walrus said on his Seattle-based radio show in '09 that Hasselbeck had a couple good years left in him.

But once Colt showed a lot of promise last year, it made no sense to bring Hass in. It would have wrecked team chemistry, given how Colt already had assumed a leadership role. And Holms is all about building up a QB's confidence: whoever started between those two would constantly be looking over his shoulder.

[nickers]

A QB doesnt learn anything sitting on the bench.

[Sez.EJ]

Originally Posted by Neo

Saw somewhere in a thread someone talking about Hasselbeck and how good he was playing and it got me to wondering, WHY DIDN'T WE MAKE A PLAY TO BRING HIM IN? Holmgren was Seattle's head coach, he has ties with Hasselbeck, he went to a Superbowl with Hasselbeck, somebody tell me why Hasselbeck isn't wearing Orange and Brown right now? Would have been a perfect fit for the system, and would have given Colt more time to learn.

The only reason I could think is that he thinks that he can win a Superbowl with the Tits. I think they are good, but not Superbowl material. So somebody tell me why he isn't in Cleveland? Hasselbeck may not have come here on his own, so why didn't Holmgren try to trade for him before he was a free-agent? Can we chalk this up a blunder for Holmgren, not trying to bring in a vet to help develope his rookie QB?:

I think with the big wins over the patriots and saints last year.. they felt they had seen enough of Colt to go forward with him as the starter. hasselback has been injured in each of the past 3 years and missed considerable time.. Let's see if his back holds up this year.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Alo

As already noted, Hasselbeck wasn't a free agent last year. Had he been available then, I bet Holmgren would have brought him in: the Walrus said on his Seattle-based radio show in '09 that Hasselbeck had a couple good years left in him.

But once Colt showed a lot of promise last year, it made no sense to bring Hass in. It would have wrecked team chemistry, given how Colt already had assumed a leadership role. And Holms is all about building up a QB's confidence: whoever started between those two would constantly be looking over his shoulder.

Good acknowledgement of promise shown in the first offense the QB learned for his first 8 NFL starts. His next 4 starts in Shurmur's offense have been sporadic and streaky as I expected this early on for offense #2. Our QB is 12 starts old today for all the critics out there that think Troy Aikmen is full of crap that it takes 3 years for comfort behind Center. We're not getting a Herschel Walker trade to speed up the surrounding environment; but I'll take 2 first round picks in 2012. That's better than 2008 lacking day 1 at the draft and losing all but 4 draft picks for 2009 when the REST of the division continues to do really well on draft day.

Regarding Hasselback, the way you get a Kevin Kolb/equivalent is to trade for him the way Arizona did. We could have given Seattle Eric Wright, Lawrence Vickers and Shaun Rogers for a QB they didn't even care about starting there in 2010. Free agent QBs are guys like Donovan McNabb, Derek Anderson, and Barnabus Collins.

Hasselback would have been a better veteran to learn from than Seneca Wallace or Jake Delhomme. Wallace looks miserable and disconnected while Delhomme looked nothing like the QB that led carolina to a SB with a league leading rusher like Stephan Davis at the time.

As we witnessed first hand, Hasselbeck sets up his TE favoritism via the running game playaction perk provided by the dangerous speed of Chris Johnson. Defenses cheat Safeties into the box and guys like WR turned TE Ryan Cook and Craig Stevens are running past LBers more concerned with CJ. Munchak said on the radio that Craig Stevens is the best dual purpose TE in the league. He said he's as impressive as many OTs at blocking while he sports incredibly good hands (this ain't Robert Casino Royale). Anyway, Munchak added the Pittsburgh Steelers will be very blessed by the absence of Craig Stevens this Sunday so they will use Daniel Graham in his place. Of course right?

The GOOD news is McCoy knows Ben Watson has the best wheels and hands on the offense. The bad news is our opponents know this as well plus Watson has played through a nagging hip injury. As Riff likes to remind everyone, Alex Smith has been our TE that does the dual purpose blocking to set the edge and assist RT in damage control when he's not catching passes. He's our Steve Heiden while Ben Watson doesn't have me ever thinking I miss Evil Kneival Jr here.

[Brown Warrior]

I think we have to be reasonable with how much promise was actually shown, Tom. His QBR was low and he had 2/6, I believe... and wasn't very good down the stretch. In those two stunning wins, he wasn't asked to do a lot and did best under those circumstances.

That said, eyeball-wise? I thought he looked really good during that stretch. Not so much when he came back after the ankle.

[Flugel]

Originally Posted by Brown Warrior

I think we have to be reasonable with how much promise was actually shown, Tom. His QBR was low and he had 2/6, I believe... and wasn't very good down the stretch. In those two stunning wins, he wasn't asked to do a lot and did best under those circumstances.

That said, eyeball-wise? I thought he looked really good during that stretch. Not so much when he came back after the ankle.

That was actually a cut and paste from Alo acknowledging he looked promising last year and I agreed. He's 12 starts old even though you want it known what he looked like vrs Superbowl bound Pittsburgh and playoff bound Baltimore off the high ankle sprain.

Worth noting: when the defense recently kept it close to beat Miami on the game's final drive - McCoy led the offense to a TD pass in about 2 minutes. Let's pretend for 1 second, we have Pitt's SB defense from a few years ago supporting our young QB. Staying with me here, keeping most opponents under 10 points (like you pedastaled Alex Smith for when SF kept Cincy to 8 points) - it's REALLY a wonderful perk that franchises traditionally winning 5 games a year can never offer their countless temporary QBs. On top of being elite at limiting the opponent's scores, Pitt's defense was also scoring quite a few points to provide their QB with the best margin of error in the league. You can pretend that doesn't mean squat all you want; but if you gave Mark Sanchez our defense from each of the last 2 years - you're still looking at a fanbase not seeing the QB WIN the game. BTW, did you see just how wonderful Sanchez looked last Sunday Night vrs Baltimore? He was terrified. Do you think he would want that twice a year WITHOUT Santonio Holmes, Plex Burress, and Derrick Mason? You know he wouldn't.

Furthermore, I wonder where all of the 4 defenses in last year's conference championship games ranked like the NY Jets, Pitt, GB and Chicago. Pretty nice places to play QB for; because let's just say I've never seen Cutler visit one post season with defenses LESS than what Chicago had last year. Aaron Rodgers is the only one of the bunch that doesn't need his defense to be terrific to win even though his defense scored TDs in just about every post season game.

In any event, at the onset of 2010 during our preseason game with the Pack - Mike McCarthy told commentators Aaron Rodgers got sacked way too much in 2009; so the #1 priority all season was to get the ball out of his 6th year QB's hands quicker. Something to learn THAT late in his career? While they were talking about it, a replay of the playoff loss where Arizona's defense pryed the ball out of Rodger's hands and returned it for the game winning score showed me a Rodgers that didn't look like the SAME guy 1 year wiser in 2010. This year, he's heating up even sooner so you can't tell me experience and established chemistries are just excuses or that means Troy Aikmen is full of shit about what it takes to learn the position. Sorry, but I don't think the guy is full of shit at all. I do think a conclusion within 12 starts is very premature. Aaron Rodgers didn't start until his 4th year in the SAME system of continuity.

As for Pitt, they started out 3-1 without Ben Rape'n in 2010. The first Superbowl they lost their best defender Polly played on a pogo stick; and it changed their entire defensive game plan. Meanwhile a GB Safety started the scoring with an INT for a TD and didn't Clay Matthew cause a significant fumble? Yaaaa, that's stuff our defense rarely gave our QBs. On a rare exception to the rule vrs a team like New Orleans - we won 30-17. Ben Rape'n has had this luxury his entire career to the extent of nobody ever sees the ginormous margin of error he is alotted every damn week all game long.

Speaking of Matt Hasselback being 3-1, any idea where the TN's defense ranks overall? #1. Here's my eyeball test, being 2-2 as a starter here is significantly better than being 2-6 in a bottom line business. When our defense plays ball, the QB wins. When the defense gets rathoused, it reminds us we need another draft. Troy Aikmen was 1-15 in his first 16 starts so why would a 3rd round prospect be expected to ace it all much quicker? Let's not sound like those goofy Cowboys fans that wanted Aikmen gone before start #13 or we're gonna assassinate our competance without an opponent's help.