Jesse James

That's the definition of making excuses. Just shut up, catch the next one, and no one will care what happened last week. Keep dropping balls and no one is going to care if everyone he's ever loved died of Ebola while providing free medical care for quadruple amputee orphan newborns in Somalia while fighting off al-Qaeda and pirates.

 

Someone mentioned it, or it wouldn't be a story.

 

HE didn't make that excuse. It's called investigative journalism. It's rare, but it still happens.

 

No, but I'm running under the assumption that the reporter isn't psychic.

 

The lack of empathy with some is simply amazing. If he continues to drop balls in a the next few weeks then I'll start calling him Limas Sweed. Until then, we're talking about practice games and we should be willing to give this rookie a little slack.

 

Really? You think some reporter was keeping tabs on his friends? Or got the information from Tomlin or the front office? Get serious.

And btw, no one forced him to address it with the media.

 

Because having a friend die is so super secret that it requires psychic abilities?

 

wtf does "empathy" have to do with anything? Feel bad for him if you like, but it has nothing to do with what happened on the field, nor would it excuse the drops if it had. Having your dead friend on your mind doesn't cause you to turn up field before you complete the catch, trying to make a big play so you can impress the coaches does. If he ran the wrong route, or was late off the snap, or forgot to put his pants on for the game ... those would be signs of distraction.

The ball didn't hit him in the face because his mind drifted ... he started to turn to run before he secured the ball. That's simply bad football.

 

Gerry Dulac is one of those friends? If not, then how does he know that it's tough to hear and get over?

"I need to do a better job of securing the football before turning up field."

That's all that needed saying, because that's all there is to say.

 

Sometimes we forget that football players are humans too capable of human emotions that YES can affect your focus in football games. My best friend committed suicide when I was in college. Guess what, I did horrible in the exam I took the following day. Not from a lack of studying and dedication but because I wasn't focused on the task at hand. Some people are better at compartmentalizing their emotions and some are not.

I guess my point is, you have have to give people a break sometimes. If he continues to drop footballs in the coming weeks then by all means blast away.

 

I... bu... wha...

 

If it was affecting him in the game, then it's not like his friend got better after the match, mac.

As you say, though, we don't know what the effect was. So let's see how he is in a few games (rather than a few days).

 

Bizarrely, the order of these emoticons also summarise how I used to react to Bruce Arian's play calling on first, second, third and fourth down.

 

Wow. Bravo. This level of hypocrisy and short-sightedness rarely comes from someone who can spell.

I love how, according to you, the public information of someone dying is impossible for a professional reporter to find out on his own. (As if there aren't 100 ways he could have found that out without it coming from James.) According to you, it would either take James telling the reporter directly or "psychic abilities" for him to figure it out. So, while you don't know for sure what happened, it definitely involved whining and making excuses.

Yet, at the same time, you apparently know exactly what was and was not going through Jesse James' mind at one particular moment on the football field. So, you have psychic abilities?? You know what specific mistakes mean he was distracted thinking about a friend, and what specific mistakes mean he was distracted and thinking about a linebacker - in other words, on the dropped TD he was apparently fully focused within the game but not focused on the hyper-specific task at hand, securing the ball and stepping backwards, given the down, distance, location on field, and number of blitzers. This means he has no excuse, his personal tragedy played no role, and we can only chalk this up to inability to play football.

Also, the idea that a dropped pass has nothing to do with distraction is just bad football knowledge. You say running a wrong route is a mental mistake but dropping a pass is a physical mistake. Catching a ball can be as mental as kicking a field goal. I'm surprised you didn't figure that out when you were 9 like the rest of us.

You have no clue what did and did not affect James. Neither do I, but I know about an additional strong possibility now, that I didn't know at the time of the game. Obviously he started turning upfield too soon. Everybody knows that. But it's possible he just wasn't himself, wasn't in the right headspace to concentrate correctly. That happens to people sometimes.

 

Wow!

 

well it really depends on the man
if he is going to let things bother him and affect his life in a negative way then I say he is less of a man

throw all the bottles and thumbs down you want Gwen

just remember what Farve did in his game after things

 

Holy crap! You went all the way to less of a man on this one.......SMH!

 

wut I do

 

way to rebound young man. much better game for jesse.

 

Jesse bounced back a lot better. Got a hard to catch ball for a 1st down. He also made a great tackle on special teams.

 

Not to worry ... I can butcher words with the best of them.