Racehorse and Shreck, I appreciate the responses and perspectives. And I’d love to hear Puck’s as well.
It doesn’t sound like we are that far off from each other. I thinks when you are as consistently critical as I’ve been, people believe you have unrealistic expectations and just complain about everything. I honestly don’t believe that is accurate for me. I don’t believe they should win the SB every year and I’ve never believed they should sign every big FA - things I’ve been accused of. I can love the down years, not just the winners. Hope is what I love about being a fan, often even more than the reality. I love watching a player and especially the team develop. Those years where you can see the small progress and you start projecting what they could become in the following years. Anticipating getting over that hump. That is where I think I’m the happiest as a fan honestly. The years where you KNOW they could win it all are great, but for me the hope and anticipation of those lesser years define fandom.
And that is largely why I’ve been so critical of Ballard. From his second offseason I’ve had no faith in his stated beliefs and philosophy so it’s been extremely hard for me to ever have hope. If his methods worked I’m more than capable of realizing I’m wrong. The problem is, that while I’ve been wrong on some individual moves, he has not really proven me wrong on his philosophy. The team has been almost exactly where I’ve said it would be when Chaka was on the board telling me I just couldn’t see the dynasty Ballard was building.
As far as this coming season, I’ve agreed it made sense to keep Ballard and Stechein at least one more year. I’m not a big believer in DJ, but you had to run it back with him to see. I think AP is probably overpaid (temporarily) but he was a must resign. And once they committed to AP they had to move on from MP. None of that is a major surprise or a major complaint. It’s just that I see almost nothing that gives me hope. Doing what you had to do is fine in some years, but there should be times you load up and go for it. Isn’t this one of them? It never seems to be with Ballard. It’s part of the philosophical disagreement I’ve always had with him. So again I can’t find much hope for the season. It sucks.
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