Well, I was watching some Vikings practice film the other day at Vikings.com and I could swear I heard Frazier in the background yelling "Show me... sand floor!", so maybe all will be well.S197 wrote:I suppose this fundamental is where you and I differ. I subscribe to the Mr. Miyagi school of thought, "No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do."
I compared coaching to teaching so I might as well further the analogy. I see the coach/player relationship in football like the dynamic between a music or art teacher and student. People who truly excel as musicians or artists usually have some natural aptitude for those endeavors but they also become good through practice, hard work and a strong desire to improve and hone their skills. A teacher in those fields can teach techniques and pass on plenty of information, they can do a great job but there will still be some students who do much more with that imparted knowledge than others, some who will have a more natural ability to incorporate what they're taught, who will study harder, practice longer and so on. There will also be some who just don't get it, who don't have the patience for it, who want to rely too much on natural ability and consequently, don't do the little things it takes to get them to the next level. Some will simply peak or plateau, temporarily or permanently reaching the limits of their own abilities. Some might continue to grow but once they get to a certain point, that growth will come much more slowly.I hear what you're saying though, and I agree there is an interplay between the two that needs to work synergistically in order for there to be success.
I think the coach/athlete dynamic works the same way. There may not be such a thing a a bad student, only a bad teacher, but there are differences in students. That's why even the very best RB coach in the world can't turn just anyone into an Adrian Peterson. It takes good coaching and Adrian Peterson to do that.
To be honest, I don't think he's all that good either. I think the frustration stems from many fans (and media) questioning why guys like Rhodes, Patterson, and Cassel were not placed on the field earlier or given an increased amount of reps. I think in some cases, things can be looked at as fans using 20/20 hindsight but I don't think that's the case in these particular situations. If you go back to the early game threads or the "fix the offense/defense" threads, many people were saying these key personnel changes needed to happen. Perhaps they weren't ready at those particular times in the season, but then we're delving deep into the realm of speculation where anyone's guess is as good as anothers
We're pretty much there anyway.
I get the impression that most people (understandably) take the view that the best players who truly give the team the best chance to win each game should always be the players on the field. There's merit to that and coaches reinforce the idea all the time, even if though we all know they don't always practice what they preach. I think it's worth considering why choices are made and I'd be surprised if most of the choices Frazier has made with his personnel didn't go beyond the factors like loyalty, stubbornness or a blind inability to assess the talent on his roster. I think he's clearly considering factors like what he believes will serve the team and player best in the long term, what an individual needs to develop, a player's knowledge of the scheme and his responsibilities within it, building chemistry, etc. That doesn't mean he's always making the right choices but a lot of people just seem to default to "he's inept", "he's an idiot", etc. without considering other possibilities.I certainly don't think he's above criticism.I think the hindsight case can be used for a guy like Cole because other than the two interceptions in preseason the prior year, I don't recall him doing much. In fact, I recall a lot of fans saying how badly he looked in preseason and that Mauti should start ahead of him. So I agree with you here in that in some cases some of the venom spewed towards Frazier is unwarranted or at least over the top, but not all.
That's understandable. I tend to think it's difficult to assess the coaching when the players are too problematic so I suppose it works both ways. I do understand why you focus on what you think can change. I've actually tried to do that too.Definitely. I suppose from my point of view, it's always been a matter of where to start in terms of cleaning up this mess. Spielman by most accounts seems to be safe so the next guy on the totem pole is Frazier, which is why I direct most of my criticism towards him. There's certainly an amount of blame that needs to be doled out to the players, but I think that it's incredibly difficult to assess that when the management is dysfunctional. That is admittedly a very concentrated and perhaps unbalanced way of looking at things, but we can't overhaul the entire roster in a single season. We can overhaul the coaching so I suppose, at least for me, that's why I put forth the effort towards what I think can and will change.
