Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Nickson's the man
Maurice Patton of the Tennessean has reported that Chris Nickson will be the starter for the Miami game. Not a big surprise there, but I expect that Mac will be waiting for his shot if Nickson struggles in the first half.
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"I expect that Mac will be waiting for his shot if Nickson struggles in the first half."
Therein lies the problem. I don't know the inner-most workings of the minds of the coaching staff, but if they truly did wait until two days ago to tell Nickson he would be the starter, does that really give him a whole lot of confidence? Not only will there be the inevitable butterflies of the first game of the season, there will also be the ever-present knowledge that any mistakes or bad play could result in another benching. And that very rarely improves a person's play to add even more pressure.
I feel like Johnson should have made this decision a long time ago. Give Nickson more reps in practice, give him the confidence that a starter needs to play his best, and most importantly get him to remember that his most important competition and his most important focus should be beating the guys in the different-colored uniforms on Saturdays (in this case Thursday), not worrying about his own job security.
This is all speculation on my end, of course. Adams and Nickson really are very closely matched and I'm sure this was a hard decision to make. And it's a great luxury to have two proven winners at the quarterback position. But I don't think there's anything more important on the offensive side of the football than uniting the team under one signal-caller, and doing it far more than two days before the beginning of the season.
I think it's a little bit of a stretch to call them both "proven winners" at quarterback. I think "proven losers" might be a little more accurate.
That fact aside, I agree with the overall assessment, and wish this decision was made weeks ago, and wish it went the other way too.
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