I don't understand this, we decide that Clemmens is going to get the start on Sunday. What I don't get is why are we going to start him against a team that until yesterday looked like a top 5 defense. Forget that the Skins have 1000 1st round picks starting in their secondary. I don't understand why they didn't start him 2 weeks ago against a team that has a terrible defense in Cinci to allow him to gain confidence. Next week when he looks bad against Washington it'll be "this is what you guys wanted and we still lost". Forget that Washington is going to extremely angry considering they were embarrased and had the score run up against them but against a QB making only his 2nd start. It's like playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets.
You may have answered your own question. Why not start Clemens in a bad situation, rather than against a poor defense? Then at least the CS can say "See, this is why we stuck with Chad for so long!" Is it any coincidence that even though Chad was obviously healthy enough to play, Clemens got the start against Baltimore, of all teams? Mangini thinks he has the wool pulled over everyone's eyes. He knows damn well it's going to take time to build a winner, and he's tried as hard as possible to mask the problems. Unfortunately, all he's done is alienate himself from the media, the fans, and worst of all, it seems his own players.
The Choice to not Start Clemens a few weeks ago is not a smart one! It feels as if Clemens is being set up to fail from jump. Either way I would rather have him throw for 300 yards with three picks and 2 T/D then have to watch Noodle arm another five minutes!
The way the D played it wouldn't have mattered who played against the Bengals, it was going to be a loss. Maybe a home game is a better set up for Clemens, regardless off the opposition.
Pennington has not been healthy enough to start, since he got hurt. My thinking is rather than switching, and letting the players or the media, etc....second guess the move, and leave Clemens open for the unfair measurement of "What if..." He continued to play Chad, when by any normal measure, any other player would have been benched for a half, or a quarter or at least a series... But this way there can never be any doubt about the move. And...if no one thought we were making the playoffs this year with or without Pennington, what harm has really been caused, except moving up, rather than down the draft board.
I think Mangini was tied up in last year too much with Chad and stuck with him way too long. I'm pissed it took this long for Kellen to start, but the move has been made now. Washington's a good defense, but they're beatable. His first ever start was against Baltimore, a pretty damn good defense, on the road. I fail to see how this is a blunder. The blunder was the last few weeks when Chad didn't start. Kellen starting now is not a blunder, more like it's been a long time coming. You can't look back and call this a blunder because of the lack of change in the past. Mangini made the right decision putting in Clemens. Is it a couple weeks too late? Yes. But the right decision has been made, no matter how unhappy I am or you are about how long it took.
The point was not that Clemens would have beaten Cincy... The point was that Clemens could have established some confidence against a bad defense had he been started in that game, or even yesterday against Buffalo... Now he gets his 2nd career start, after a rocky first 3 Qs in his first career start vs the Ravens, and a month and a half layoff, against a very, very good secondary.... I'm gonna be rooting for him hard, and I'm going to be looking for positives.... But I would not be surprised with 3+ INTs
The answer to this is simple. Mangini hasn't based any of his decisions on what the media will say or write about or whether or not a defense is better or worse than average in order that Clemens can either look good or have to struggle. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want him to. He's apparently based his decisions on what he thinks is best for the team. Whether or not you happen to agree with that is your choice and your opinion and you're certainly entitiled to it, but I never expected Mangini to make replacement decisions based upon how things will appear to either the press or the fans and that's the way it ought to be when you think about it.
What if he had struggled against the Bengals for the same reason, that he hadn't played in a while? That is a possibility, thats why the whole QB switch thing is a tough call, the toughest of any position, bar none.
That was exactly my point, we may have lost the Cinci game but our QB for the future would have gained some confidence in that game and he would have started yesterday with confidence. Maybe some to the point that we actually would have won the game. Like I said starting him next week against an angry and ashamed Skins team is like playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets.
Either Clemens can play in the NFL or not. It's time to find out. And we can't be handpicking what Defenses he plays against just to falsely inflate his confidence.
If his confidence is going to be ruined by playing against a good team, than we may as well cut him now and draft a QB in the first round, because he isn't the answer. I would have played him earlier, but it would have nothing to do with who we were playing that week.
Why not? It's better to make his first two starts as an NFL player against Baltimore and the Redskins under the circumstances Rich mentioned? It's not like this start is due to injury. It was due to ineptitude of our former starter. Injury forces circumstances to not necessarily be in the new guy's favor. This was not the case here. The kid should have played against Buffalo. If not as a starter, at least after halftime.
He should have played against Cinci, did Mangina feel that we still had a shot at the playoffs? Mangina better just hope that we don't finish 15 games behind New England.
The reason could have been Clemens himself. They just may have felt he was not ready. And now they may feel that he is going to be as ready as he is going to be. So it's time. I don't think they wanted to put him in a situation to be the starter when he was not ready.
If that were the case, why would he have started against the Ravens? I mean, of all teams to put your young QB up against, Baltimore's got to rank up there as one of the worst. I still think it was about the staff believing Chad "gave them the best chance to win", which only speaks to cluelessness. I really want to support Mangini, and he's got another year from me so far, but things better start settling down quickly, or he's going to warrant a ticket out of town.
The next 3 weeks are all games against teams with very good defenses so it really doesn't matter at this point when he starts. He will still have to play against 7 tough teams in the last 8 games.
But if they didn't want him to play, and we assume that Chad was, in fact, as hurt as they said he was, why not start Tui? I don't know. I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, I just think there's more to it than the CS thinking Kellen was just not ready yet.
well just more food for thought, Clemens has had his helmet on during the games which sounds like to me the coaching staff wanted Clemens to know what play was being called and for him to watch Pennington manage the offense.
