Cap space if we let Gross and Peppers walk

I guess I just don't believe just becuase he says that, that there's not something to it. People smooth things over to the press all the time. He states that nothing is going to change under Fox. I don't expect Fox to change for a player, but if I had to bet it would be that Peppers simply doesn't want to play for him. To me, all the evidence points to an issue he has playing under Fox.

 

They supposedly offered a contract that would have made Peppers the highest paid defensive player in the league and his agent supposedly didn't even counter when turning it down. Who wouldn't understand what that meant?

 

I believed that dumping him into coverage a couple times a game isn't ideal. I also - many times - stated that strategically it makes a lot of sense if they're expecting to double block him.

If he believed that dropping into coverage was a problem he wouldn't be talking about the 3-4, would he?

He stated otherwise yesterday.

 

oh, no doubt.
And there's not a defense out there where he won't be expected to play the run. There's not a defense out there where he won't have to face a 2nd man a significant amount of time.

 

I'm not sure we had much bargaining power beforehand. Had they kept completely silent it would rouse suspicion with no deal done. But as far as a trade, yeah, I think it had to hurt because teams will be tempted to wait and see what happens. Why trade a pick/player when you might get him free and clear later? Now if someone is really hot to get him, they may trade just to keep him off the open market, but other then that scenario, we may get burned bad.

I'm not so sure about speculation he wants to follow Jenkins. They were indeed buddies early in Pep's career, but I got a sense that there was some distance between them in Jenkins final season here. They used to sit beside each other a good deal of the time and suddenly they NEVER sat side by side nor did I see them chatting. Might be reading too much into purely coincidental sideline behavior but I DID notice a change in their sideline behavior toward each other.

 

Peppers probably believes that he can cover, and I imagine that he probably can. The objection to him dropping in our scheme wasn't so much that he was in space covering someone, but that it was a waste of his ability to rush the passer, especially when we don't have other guys who can do that consistently. It was a "trick" of sorts, rather than a normal duty. In a 3-4 where you have another very good pass rusher on the other side, that's a different story.

Good lord. I'm actually trying to do you a favor by convincing you to stop embarrassing yourself. You have never been more mocked than during the Seifert debacle, and I have no interest in seeing you be that kind of laughingstock again. Peppers made it very, very clear that he does not like John Fox's defensive system.

“Basically, I have personal standards and personal goals. That’s more of a thing, I feel like my abilities, I feel like they could be maximized and I could be even more productive than I’ve been in the past. I’m close to maxing out in the system that I’m in now.”

“Basically what I’d say to these people is, you have to take the emotional part of it out, and look at it, put your ownself in the situation. If you were being held back in your job, and you fulfilled your contract and all the obligations you had contractually, and did everything you had to do, and worked seven years, and it was time for that contract to expire and you wanted to do something different, then I know you did all of that, and fulfilled what you were supposed to do, and basically you decided not to stay.”


The more you try to insist that Peppers doesn't have a problem with the system, the more ridiculous you look. Just stop it, because this is getting embarrassing. It's abundantly clear that he's leaving because he doesn't want to play in Fox's system any more. It's not because he doesn't like the uniforms or because other teams have better looking cheerleaders. He doesn't like the system and doesn't believe it allows him to live up to his potential. Maybe he's wrong and that isn't actually true, but it's obviously the way he feels.

 

Yes, when I said I'd want him dropping less, I did generally also believe it's a strategic issue and there's a good reason for it.

If he feels "being held back" is having to play the run, he's probably going to be disappointed with any team. If he feels that we didn't do enough to keep him off doubleteams, he's probably going to be disappointed with almost any situation.

I have no concern for what you want to make it. I'm stating his words, which included:

and

and

 

Held back is what it is. Pretty clear.

Very insulting to Fox.

And all the Me Me Me in his statements keeps me from wishing he'd change his mind.

 

Nowhere at any point has he even hinted about not wanting to play the run. Good lord. This is just embarrassing, magnus. I really would have thought you'd have learned something from that whole Seifert era. For those of you who haven't been around that long, magnus humiliated himself at Charlotte.com and the Lair by blindly defending every single thing that Seifert did and refusing to allow any criticism of his regime. Magnus basically became a laughingstock and it took him about two years to admit that he had made a mistake in being unreasonably biased. This hasn't yet reached that level, but it's heading down a road I didn't expect him to take again.

As I pointed out to you, Peppers is saying there that his problem isn't with Fox as a coach, but his system. He has repeatedly expressed his belief that he cannot live up to his potential in this system. You've criticized Peppers for saying that, but then you turn right around and pretend that he didn't say it at all. This is absurd. What the fuck do you think he's saying he's "held back" by? Mick Mixon?

Stop embarrassing yourself, magnus. Look around. No one else agrees with you that Peppers likes Fox's defense. I mean, good grief, why do you think he's so intent on leaving? He's been clear about what he means, and you shouldn't let your tendency to blindly support the head coach lead you into making a fool of yourself.

 

You're correct. Of course, I've talked about it, and so have you. If he doesn't have a concern with dropping into coverage, he probably feels like he could rush the passer better in a role where he wouldn't. You can feign outrage but this was a point of yours as well.

And, I seriously doubt that 3-4, 4-3, wherever, that Peppers is going to get a pass on playing the run for the nine figure contract he's about to get.

It didn't take two years. Before the end of the season, I felt change was necessary. But awesome for you to continually pull this out, gripping to it so desperately as if anyone cares you've been carrying this angst around so long. Seven years, you're carrying this around trying to tell people I'm less of a person to try to score some points in an argument.

He's said positive things about his coach and his system. He said it wasn't about Fox and it wasn't about the system.