Calling out The Primate

[RiverDog]

My hat's off to monkey. He was the first poster in this forum that was a huge Russell Wilson advocate well before we drafted him, and if I recall correctly, he's been a huge Carson Wentz supporter pre-draft even though Wentz came from a little known FCS school. It's still a little early to call Wentz a success, but he sure looks like the real deal after 3 games.

You think that Browns fans are talking about their passing on Wentz?

Anyhow, great calls, monkey!

[Vegaseahawk]

I remember someone finding that thread & bumping it up on the old PI forum after we drafted Russ. Monkey called it allright.

[HumanCockroach]

Pretty sure that wasn't Monkey but politicalfootball ( could be wrong on that but pretty sure it wasn't Monkey touting Wilson in college).

[RiverDog]

Pretty sure that wasn't Monkey but politicalfootball ( could be wrong on that but pretty sure it wasn't Monkey touting Wilson in college).

I'm pretty sure that it was, and will bet you a beer. We need monkey to weigh in and settle the argument.

[Agent 86]

I can almost 100% guarantee you it was not Monkey that was the main drum beater when it came to Wilson. I have been racking my brain all day trying to remember who it was, but still haven't come up with the name.

I do remember someone bumping the thread up on the old PI site about halfway through the Super Bowl season, and whoever it was deserved the credit. They were so overboard on their stance that Wilson was the QB that the Hawks needed to pick I believe there was a lot of ridicule thrown his way. It was one of the main posters over at the PI, and the name is at the tip of my tongue.

If I remember who it was, I will chime in. In the meantime, I think you owe HCR a beer Riv.

[Hawktawk]

pain train?

[Oly]

Maybe someone other than monkey was the loudest name, but monkey was one of the loud ones. Me, being a statistician, basically said that the stats were against him and he and I went back and forth a bit. So I know he was beating that drum.

[Agent 86]

pain train?

Yeah, I think that was it. Pain Train.

Not saying Monkey wasn't on board with it, but Pain Train was calling for the drafting of RW3 in February of 2012 right after the season ended that year.

[HumanCockroach]

Could have been.... Just remember someone posting all off season for drafting Wilson. Doesn't mean Monkey wasn't on board early. I just know he wasn't the first member touting him ( hell it might have even pre dated the end of the season.)

Maybe Distant? The name is right there and I can't pull it out of my CTE type brain...

[FolkCrusader]

Not taking anything away from Monkey, but I knew many people that loved Russell. I think the difference being is that many thought he was a Seneca Wallace that could throw, not a Drew Brees that could run.

I really like what I see from Wentz so far as well, but I think many of these rookie QBs well be better evaluated from weeks 6-16 than week 1-5. At this point they are difficult to game plane for and Defenses generally improve week over week (absent losses due to injury.)

[obiken]

I saw Wentz, I never saw Wilson this fast, I knew he would be good, only MONKEY saw that we had Fran Tarkington on Steroids!!

[Hawktawk]

I never heard of Wentz before the draft chatter but when I saw him on film he reminded me of a taller white Russ. The way he moves around with eyes downfield, the way he can spin the ball from diffeent angles, throw all the passes. The maturity.

I think hes the real deal.

I never heard of Wilson before the draft either but it took me exactly one quarter of his first preseason game to be on board with him starting. I give pC all the credit in the world for having the balls to promote him ahead of a 20 million dollar free agent or who knows what might have happened?

[RiverDog]

I had forgotten about Pain Train, but I still think it was Monkey. We'll see if he steps up and accepts his kudos as I'm sure he can set me/us straight.

[Jjones84]

Hats off to any of you who saw RW coming.

[NorthHawk]

I didn't expect him to be as good as quickly as he was, but it wasn't about the height concern like many others thought.
I just thought the learning curve would have been more difficult than it was for him.
As it turned out Pete recently said he shouldn't have held the reins back as much as he did with Wilson as Russ was able to process more than he thought.

[Hawk Sista]

Hats off to Monkey on Wentz...let's hope that Goff amounts to Ryan Leaf and Wentz is a stud. It was Pain Train indeed who was all over Wilson. He was on that like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat.

[RiverDog]

Hats off to Monkey on Wentz...let's hope that Goff amounts to Ryan Leaf and Wentz is a stud. It was Pain Train indeed who was all over Wilson. He was on that like a pack of dogs on a three legged cat.

I'll concede about Pain Train being the first on the Wilson bandwagon. The more I think of it, the more I believe that I'm wrong.

[burrrton]

let's hope that Goff amounts to Ryan Leaf and Wentz is a stud.

I hope they're *both* the second coming of Ryan Leaf, and the same goes for any other QB not wearing my team's uniform...

[HumanCockroach]

Could have sworn we just saw the second coming of Leaf...

The guys name was..... Hmmmm....

Johnny something..

[Seahawks4Ever]

I am sure that Cryan Leaf has been rooting for Manziel to be an even bigger fail than he was, in the NFL, at least. Some how I doubt Johnny Foosball could as big a fail Leaf is OFF of the field.

[RiverDog]

I am sure that Cryan Leaf has been rooting for Manziel to be an even bigger fail than he was, in the NFL, at least. Some how I doubt Johnny Foosball could as big a fail Leaf is OFF of the field.

Manziel's is out of the league after Year 3, has a known substance abuse problem (his own father called him a "druggie"), and he's already had a run-in with the law. Leaf wasn't out of the league until Year 5 and his legal/substance abuse problems didn't start, or at least didn't become known, until 11 years after the draft. Manziel's way ahead of Leaf's pace.

[HumanCockroach]

To be fair, social media had/has a huge hand in revealing those actions and mistakes. Not an excuse, just pointing out that if it was as prevelant during Leaf's career I am fairly confident we would have heard of his problems earlier and more frequently.

[NorthHawk]

Yeah, there are less places to hide these days.

[RiverDog]

To be fair, social media had/has a huge hand in revealing those actions and mistakes. Not an excuse, just pointing out that if it was as prevelant during Leaf's career I am fairly confident we would have heard of his problems earlier and more frequently.

Good point. But it's not like Leaf lived his life in a vacuum back then, either.

In order for Leaf to have equaled Manziel in off field issues, he would have had to checked himself into de-tox, got himself arrested for DV (very much a crime in the 90's), had his father come out and call him a druggie or something to that effect, have his agent quit on him, and have his own lawyer indicate that he couldn't pass a pee test. And that's not even counting the off field issues he had at A&M. That's a tall order.

Just a personal note about Ryan Leaf. I have a friend who's son was a baseball player at WSU during the period of time Leaf was there, and he told me that Leaf was a first class jerk and that his teammates didn't like him. At the time (prior to Leaf's being drafted), I thought that he was full of baloney, but he sure turned out to be right on the mark.

[monkey]

I'm pretty sure that it was, and will bet you a beer. We need monkey to weigh in and settle the argument.

There can be no bet because you're both sort of right.
There was someone who was beating the drum for Wilson in college, I cannot remember who that was, but it wasn't me. I don't watch a lot of college ball...I watch the NDSU Bison because I live in the area, and I watch Navy, because GO NAVY! When I get to, I will watch and cheer for the UW Huskies as well.

I was however, one of the very first to jump on the Russell Wilson bandwagon and say that not only should we start him as a rookie, but that he would be the franchise QB we'd all been waiting for. That guy (who I cannot remember), wanted us to draft him, I wanted us to START him, immediately.
I never got on board the D Jack train (I couldn't understand how he was ever a starter in Minnesota, he was awful).
I was equally never on board with Matt Flynn. He never bought in to what Pete was selling. Not a team first guy, and look at how his career turned out as a result.
I started saying that we needed to start Wilson instead of Flynn after watching him live in training camp his rookie year. He was SO different from any player I'd ever seen, the way he carried himself, the way he practiced, his WILL. Go this day, I have NEVER seen a rookie like Russell Wilson, and I doubt I ever will again. Just a few practices, and I could see, I KNEW he was the real deal.
So after seeing the first few days of week one of training camp, I started hollering that he needed to be given a legitimate shot at the starting role. It was the fact that Pete gave him that shot, truly and fairly, that finally completely sold me on Pete as the coach, I still had some questions to that point, like, was his everyone has a fair shot thing real, or just a gimmick?

As for Wentz, he's going to have his growing pains, he'll have some bumps in the road no doubt, but I think he's going to have a very solid NFL career barring injury of course. He has all the same kinds of tools that the media praises Andrew Luck and Ben Roethlisberger for, the size, the arm strength, the BRAINS (he's an incredibly sharp guy), which gives him the ability to quickly diagnose things at game speed.
The media narrative was completely off, both about Wentz and about Goff (which I have said all along and is proving out now). First, the media was completely wrong about the strength of the NDSU Bison's level of competition. The Bison routinely beat BCS teams since they started their incredible run. More importantly, they underestimated the kind of determination and resolve it takes for a team to win five straight championships, regardless of the "level of competition" thing, which again, was badly overblown.
The idea that Goff was "more pro ready" than Wentz, was laughable. Goff played his entire college career from the shotgun position, rarely even huddled. Wentz played his entire collegiate career, on a team that more closely resembles a pro team than a few pro teams (Cleveland I am looking at you!). His entire career was under center, making all the line calls, calling audibles, making decisions and improvising often, (the coaches encouraged him to because of his smarts). Once again, the media got it completely wrong.
I don't think Goff will ever pan out. I think six years from now, he's more likely to be out of the league entirely, than a starter. He certainly wasn't more pro ready than Wentz!
I do think Wentz will pan out though. Six years from now I see him as the franchise QB of the Eagles.

Personally I was, (and still am a little bit) ticked off that Wentz is starting his rookie season. I just don't want to see another crappy team ruin what is a very promising budding career, but I am starting to settle down over that a bit, because the Eagles have a decent offensive line, and their new head coach is a former QB, and is showing me that he really knows what he's doing. I wasn't sure what to make of him as a head coach, but he's quickly winning me over actually.
Maybe the Eagles won't screw him up throwing him into the fire too soon, after all.

EDIT: I read the rest of this thread and saw that people remembered it was Pain Train. Good recall, I'd forgotten that!

[HumanCockroach]

Good enough RD?

[RiverDog]

Good enough RD?

Yep. I owe you one!