Hurney

I remember the knock on Morgan coming out was that he was maxed out already. Maybe because of that he has to push himself beyond his own limits on a consistent basis in order to play at a high level. The end result of that is injuries. In any event it was not smart to keep a guy who is injury plagued while letting a guy who never misses a game (Spoon) walk. Both are about equally talented on the field. Morgan has made the probowl when Spoon as not because there are not as many good MLB as there are good WLB.

 

Just to use one of your examples, between 2002 and 2005 Ray Lewis missed 24 regular season football games. I guess he should have never been given the chance to have over 100 tackles in 14 games in 2006. Look, all I'm saying is that I understand the allure of thinking/hoping Morgan stays on the field because when he does he makes an impact. I have never suggested, at least I don't think I have, that he's in the same league as Urlacher or Lewis, but most are not. But I understand the option of giving him a shot to play this season.

 

seriously, you're comparing a brain injury to a knee or back injury? Let's get real here.

 

Agreed. So many former players have said, "Dan, dude. Hang it up. You'll never get any better in the noggin." One story that sticks out in my mind is the Merrill Hoge story where he was in Calif. with his wife in the Napa Valley region at a wine tasting or a dinner or something. He took one sip of wine and the next thing he remembered was looking up into a paramedic's face on the way to the hospital. He spoke to his doc and asked him what caused his blackout and the doc said the alcohol probably affected the damaged part of his brain from the concussions and cause the blackout. Hoge says that he will never be able to have a glass of wine or champagne again in his life because of the damage to his brain.

The back or leg injury will get better and you can recover from it 100% or damn near it , but a brain injury, forget it.

 

'Kay, I'll shut up now.

 

Whoever decided to resign Morgan the previous year has the biggest brain injury.

 

I'll play. You left '06 out where Lewis played 14 games to Dan's 1 quarter. And fail to note that '02 through '05 were Lewis' 7-10th seasons in the league.

So, let's compare Lewis' first five seasons to Morgan's:

Lewis: 76 of 80 regular season games played (95%)
Morgan: 56 of 80 regular season games played (70%)

Not going to bother with playoff games.

Okay, we see that Ray's first five years beat the hell out of Morgan's.

I believe it's fair to assume that in general, as guys get older things catch up to them and their bodies do not rebound as quick and maybe the mileage starts to impact them too. This is reflected in Ray Ray's stats for seasons 6-11:

72 of 96 games played (75%)

Lewis played 20% fewer games years 6-11, significant dropoff (yet still higher than Dan's through his first five seasons, btw).

If I make the huge assumption that Morgan even plays 11 years, a similar dropoff means roughly half of his games will be missed.

And I think that's being charitable towards Morgan.

Sucks to be in the position of wishing him replaced (and arguing for it), because I'm a fan of Morgan as a player, but I cannot in good conscience be his advocate in regards to the Panthers placing their hopes in him.

 

I'm not putting Morgan in the same league as Ray Lewis, just to be clear. I did not leave out '06, my point was simply that if you look at all the games missed in the 4 years prior to '06 then with the logic being used the Ravens should have let him go because he would surely never play a full season again and likely get injured every year. Well, he had a damn good year in '06 so it's a good thing the Ravens had faith that 4 years of missing games would end not continue. I understand Morgan's a huge risk, but I just don't think it's as wacky as everyone else that we extended him when we did.

 

Hamstring injury + Subsequent surgery = very good likelyhood of resuming a very productive career

Concussion x 6 = very good likelyhood of resuming life as a three year old.

 

I've had 7, I can relate to the comment a little. I think it has alot to do with my anger issues...but I ain't no 3 year old.