Bad Taste:

Yesterday's game left a really bad taste in my mouth. For those of you who weren't there, Ricky injured his ankle and it really hurt his ability to cover. Yellow began throwing to whoever he covered because of his inability to cover past 10 yards. I didn't know this was going on because Ricky and I seemed to always be lined up on opposite sides of the field even if we were both playing secondary but I wish I had known - maybe I could have prevented what happened next.

After Ricky beaten on a fairly long TD pass, it was suggested in less than supportive terms that he should go home. I think most of us were in shock. I certainly was but Ricky went over to take his cleats off and when I asked about it, I got the impression that there had been previous conversations during the game about the ankle and mistakenly thought that Ricky had been thinking he might be done.

As the day went on, I became less and less comfortable with what happened and how I handled it so I called Ricky yesterday to get the rest of the story and to tell him that I was not happy about what happened. While I now understand that his ankle was really causing him problems and was keeping him from being able to cover well, I don’t think he should have left – or more importantly been asked to leave. We’ve had people get hurt and try to play through even though they were not the same player. We’ve had people show up and really just suck and not told them to leave. As a team, we should have tried making some changes to see where he could be effective. We could have put him as Safety or on the line. Josh could have covered the slowest receiver or we could have just rushed 4. Speed is important but even just another body up on the line would have made a big difference in containment – Street had 50 yards rushing on 4 carries for 4 first downs.

This summer I trimmed the Evite list and tried to tighten up our standards to get a stronger roster of guys who would play regularly and could play well with us. I didn’t just keep the guys who were long timers, I also looked at guys who joined us really late last year but were regular contributors once they did. Daniel, Gary, Charles, Hege, and Ricky were all in that category. Ricky only started playing in the 2nd to last week last year but if you take those two games and the season opener this year, he had 5 sacks and 2 defensed passes. He plays in other flag games as well and as our QBs get used to looking for him and as he gets more used to our routes, he’ll become a bigger part of the offenses.

I understand the competitiveness we have in this game and it’s normally a good thing. This time it stepped over. We could have made changes and if they didn’t work, then talked about whether Ricky should sit out. He may well have decided on his own after trying line or safety that it just wouldn't work and sat.

Remember, injury or not, somebody is going to have a bad game every week or someone is going to be the “worst” player in a given week, whether he’s normally great or normally not but we should be working as a team to adjust to the challenges or the game. In the opener, Red was hopelessly outclassed on the line. 4 of the “regular” linemen were on Yellow and the other team had like 2. Red couldn’t protect the quarterback and had trouble getting pressure on Nick but we kept working at it, trying to turn our weaknesses into some strengths and eventually began moving the ball with more called running plays and plays to the outside. It wasn’t pretty and Red still lost but we took the challenge.

During my call with Ricky I repeatedly told him that he’s the type of player who I want to be out with us. He has a nice mix of speed, size, strength, skills and attitude that makes him an asset. Ricky also played basketball with us probably 8+ times during the summer and those of us in that game got to know him. He’s a good guy, a good athlete and someone I like as a person. I’m glad that I called him back yesterday and am ashamed that I didn’t make sure I understood what was going on and step in yesterday. I should have gone over to talk to him before he left to see what the story was and tried to resolve the problem or at least let him know how I valued him as a member of this group so that if he decided to leave, he would do so on his terms and not someone else's and not spend the day having to stew over what happened.

I try to run this game by consensus to a large degree because I view it as “our game”, not “my game” but that desire for consensus manifested itself as a weakness yesterday and I didn’t show the leadership that I should. Ricky, you have my apology for that and everyone else, I hope that in future if you have concerns about a player or situation, you’ll bring those concerns to me and that I’ll step up and resolve it better than I did this week.