Way to straw man argue against me.
Nothing you said was at all relevant to anything I said lol. And I said #9 was not a football reason, I listed it last for that reason. How about you respond to the first 8 and not the straw man arguments you constructed.
Okay then, have it your way.
Reasons to start Joe
1. First and foremost to protect Lamar who doesn’t quite seem to know how to protect himself and can’t effectively carry the offense without running as much as he does
2. Lamar isn’t ready or refined enough as a passer to win against good teams and teams aregoing to keep challenging him
3. Joe might play better with some time out and some motivation from how Lamar played
4. There’s reason to believe the run game won’t disappear with Joe , we weren’t playing Edwards and Dixon early on , and we have momentum with the running game
5. If Joe plays bad, you can put Lamar back in
6. If Joe plays well, you never can count us out in the postseason
7. If Joe plays well that boosts his trade value , especially because not playing again after an injury at his age surely isn’t going to help his value
8. We can still play Lamar for entire drives and plays like we were earlier in the year.
9. Last reason is less about football, just out of respect I think once Joe is cleared to play it’s just disrespectful to sit him.
1. Lamar has been fine. He got hurt in the pocket and seems to know when to get out of bounds. This is a weak argument in general. Kid is tough and not getting routinely clobbered.
2. You constantly claim that he cannot throw the football.. No, he can't do it consistently yet(most rookies can't), but he's way better than you give him credit for. Hell, Lamar threw the TD to put us into position to win. Not his fault the defense blew it towards the end.
3. Not a good argument. With Joe we have to go pass heavy because the interior is utterly pathetic. We'd have to give Lamar the majority of the snaps under C and do we want Joe as a receiver when he's been doing nothing?
4. A big reason for this is is... Skura and whoever is at LG have been atrocious. They were in today's game too. A big reason, and a better argument is that Orlando Brown JR is a much better player than Hurst and Stanley has come on big time. The defense has had to stop for a second to make sure, and one of Lamar's strong suits is that he can sell a fake like it's nobody's business.
5. If we think Joe is going to play bad, then why start Lamar when the offense has been way better.
6. Technically we are still in position for the postseason anyways. I don't think we make it with either.
7. He's a SB MVP QB, some schmuck will take a chance on him anyways and someone like the Jags might give up a pretty penny to do so. Especially since he was good at the start of the year before defenses figured out that we couldn't run the football. Teams with a real OL and running game without a QB(See Jacksonville) would likely pounce anyways and might overpay considering that a QB is all that they're missing. The boost, if anything would be minimal.
8. We can but then they seemingly become gimmicks. It's a decent strategy, but again, Flacco doesn't do much on those packages where we line him out wide. Eventually a consistent identity is going to win out. Playing two QBs in the playoffs at the same time works when Payton does it, but not Marty.
Playing Lamar is the smart move. Offense has been MUCH better, and if we win, great, he gets young, postseason experience. If we lose, great he gets experience and we get a higher draft position. It's a win-win either way.
Only way I see us playing Joe again is if we do get into the postseason(Which I doubt), and if he can convince us that January Joe is coming back.