post game thoughts

[papabear]

Originally Posted by Bigtinylittle

I'm disappointed in Okoye because I had such high expectations of him. I watched him chasing the Bengals QB last week and was shocked at how slow he seemed. I keep hearing that he is being used incorrectly and actually hope that it's true. Because if it is it can be corrected. If the D doesn't improve, I imagine Smith will be gone whether it's his fault or not. It would be interesting to see whether his replacement would do anything different with Okoye.

Okoye's a DT. It's going to take him a couple of few years to grow into the position, and I'm not just talking about his age. It's very rare for a DT to come into the league and be a consistent force right away. RB's, WR, CB's, LB's, DE's all can contribute very noticeably early on. DT's, unless they're one of the few that can dominate, Hanynesworth, are rarely noticed. Even Haynesworth took a few years to get it. I'm not so sure that it was only because he was lazy, or that he only started trying when he needed a new contract.

When we took TJ it everyone spoke about how it would take time for him to develop, and to be patient. If you ask me we finally started to see the real TJ this year. Now, he's not what we hoped for, but again I think he's a solid player being asked to play to his weaknesses and not his strengths.

Okoye's got even more growing up to do than the average DT coming into the league. He's shown signs. I think he'll be fine. I don't know if he will ever be great, but I think there's still a chance. If all people worry about is sacks then you will probably always be disappointed. Hell he was about eigth in the league in sacks last year among DT's.