I'm pretty annoyed by all the Archuleta bashing that has been done by Redskins fans for the past year. Here are the vital stats:
After playing his college ball at Arizona St., where he played LB and DB, he was drafted with the 20th pick in 2001 by the St. Louis Rams (1+ years after their Super Bowl and brilliant Trung Canidate pick with the last selection of the 2000 1st Round. I wonder who else was brilliant enough to give Trung a shot....). For reference, the Redskins snatched Rod Gardner off the board with the 16th pick and the Ravens were forced to settle with little-known TE Todd Heap with the 31st. Some guy named Reggie Wayne went 30th. But I digress...
Archuleta was a servicable SS in St. Louis for 5 years. His games played and tackle numbers are as follows:
2001 - 13, 56 tackles
2002 - 16, 116 tackles
2003 - 13, 79 tackles
2004 - 16, 88 tackles
2005 - 14, 70 tackles
2006 - 16, 60 tackles (Redskins)
Yes, your Washington Redskins of Landover looked at those average SS stats, and decided he was a superstar, and paid him more than any other safety (See previous post about awful franchises driving salaries sky-high at the detriment of veterans). So much so he became a feature jersey for fans to purchase. What else were they going to wear? Brunell? Sean Taylor's prison jumpsuit?
So his numbers did go down last year with the Redskins, but he also rarely played late in the season. What's more, tackles are doled out by the team. It is well known that defensive coaches often give more credited tackles to their favorite players. Gregg Williams decided he hated Adam Archuleta early on last year. Was it because he actually hated Archuleta? No, it was because he realized his LBs sucked, Archuleta was going to get exposed as a strong-tackling, average pass-defending SS (which is to say, a SS), and Archuleta got paid so much money that he needed a scape goat when things inevitably went bad. What was the alternative? Actually point out that Sean Taylor couldn't cover a Pop Warner kid?
Bram Weinstein, of Snyder's organ Triple X ESPN Radio, sat through tape of a Redskins game in which Archuleta was credited with, if I remember correctly, 2 tackles. Bram counted 8 total. Archuleta got shafted in D.C. See Westbrook, Brian; Arrington, LaVar; Davis, Stephen; Green, Darryl.
So what of this Bears signing? He's actually getting paid what he deserves. He's going back to a coach that knows how to use him. The Bears spent a 7th rounder just to make sure THEY got him when he re-entered free agency after the Redskins cut him. This isn't rocket science folks. The Skins didn't pull off the deal of the century here. They vastly overpaid for the same talent Archuleta showed in St. Louis. Now the Bears get him at his true value, and he'll be great platooning with the very good but injury-prone Mike Brown. It might look like the Bears bailed the Skins out, but I have a feeling the Bears were looking out for their own run at repeating as NFC Champs.
And Jeremy's right. You won't see any Bears #40 Archuleta jerseys on E-bay or anywhere else next year. I doubt Gale Sayers will permit the Bears to un-retire it.
March 21, 2007
Adam Archuleta
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7 comments:
D'oh!!!
I just got pawned on the Gale Sayers thing. As for your other contentions, I respectfully disagree, as his stats were front-loaded and by the last month of the season he was making those tackles on special teams only. Not exactly where you'd imagine your high-priced defender playing.
I appreciate the effort, except these are his game-by-game tackle totals:
Game 1 - 9
Game 2 - 11
Game 3 - 2
Game 4 - 3
Game 5 - 10
Game 6 - 8
Game 7 - 6
BENCHED WITH 49 TACKLES IN 7 GAMES, 112 TACKLE PACE
Game 8 - 3
Game 9 - 1
Game 10 - 1
Game 11 - 0
Game 12 - 0
Game 13 - 1
Game 14 - 1
Game 15 - 1
Game 16 - 1
That adds to 60, the number I cited from NFL.com. Looks like he'd have had a career year if they'd had let him play.
And he had 1 INT and 0 FF in his last season in St. Louis (3 INTs career, 3 FF). The Redskins really can't say they didn't get exactly what they expected.
And weren't they front-loaded because he was playing at the front of the season and not at the end of the season? How does that weaken the argument that the Skins got exactly what they expected?
He's a SS, and he did what strong safeties do. He made the run-stop when the LBs whiffed, as Skins LBs are prone to do. Strong safeties cannot be beat deep. If he's your last line of pass defense, you called the wrong pass defense. The Skins essentially had two strong safeties last year, and they replaced their true strong safety, Archuleta, with a FS, Troy Vincent.
Gregg Williams: Certified genius.
Well when you start giving quotes to The Washington Post anonymously that throw your Defensive Coordinator and Head Coach under the bus, I'd say that's what we lawyers call "assumption of the risk" of having your stats and playing time tanked.
The Tom Friend article (available to ESPN Insiders at: http://proxy.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=2672668) appeared on Nov. 26, 2006. That is the day of the Carolina game (Game 11), after Archuleta had already been on the bench for 3 weeks.
And I just re-read the Friend article. It's right on. The source says Williams had safeties doing run coverage out of the Cover 2. That sure sounds like a good way to make your FS and SS look bad getting burned deep.
What you guys are forgetting is that the 'skins already HAVE a Strong Safety...they just have him playing on the wrong side of the field.
That's actually what I was hinting at when I said:
The Skins essentially had two strong safeties last year, and they replaced their true strong safety, Archuleta, with a FS, Troy Vincent.
The two strong safeties were Archuleta and Sean Taylor. Rather than move Taylor to SS and have Vincent play FS, or any other real FS play FS, they played Troy Vincent out of position too.
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