Quote:
Originally Posted by YDFL Commish
My belief, is that AR was forced on Steichen by Jim Irsay and consequently convinced that he could fix AR. Being a 1st year coach, he had to tow the company line. I've noticed more pushback and assertiveness from Steichen as time has gone on.
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Is there any actual evidence that suggests this is the case? If anything the anything the comments by Jim at the time suggest the he preferred Levis. I mean he tweated about drafting him the 2nd even though we had already drafted AR in the 1st.
And there's no doubt in my mind Ballard was all in on AR (with some very strong pushing from Morocco Brown). You don't go from looking like someone pissed in your cereal to pure adulation b/c you just found out you get to draft the player your boss is forcing on you. Also, prior to '24 Ballard drafted pretty much on traits, traits, and more traits, so pretty easy to see why he would be all in on AR.
Also, while the picture isn't as clear on Steichen, his and Ballard's comments after the draft sure make it seem like he was all in on AR as well. And circumstantially he was looking to carry over his offense from Philly with the QB running a lot (and evidenced by our pre AR injury O his rookie year). He saw AR as a bigger, faster, and stronger armed version of Hurts.