He played it during the Pre-Season while Martin took over Hali's spot. If you watched some of the rush packages with Ford, Houston, and Hali in, they put Ford in Houston's position while sliding Houston inside.

Ford can come in and play ROLB next year, but is at least one more full year after this year if he is gonna be expected to play LOLB.

I think he would be a difference maker at ROLB because of his tools as a pass rusher and that's what he would be doing 80-90% of the time as a right backer.

In coverage and against the run though...no way is he even close to being ready. Teams would target him in both of those areas constantly.

I doubt it.

And Bowe is having a bad season for a 3rd WR. I can't see us paying him that money to block downfield...

This makes no sense.

If he were actually the team's 3rd WR, 41 catches in 10 games isn't bad. He's actually leading the team in receptions. And, I know 41 catches at this point in the season isn't great, at all.

What team has a no 1 WR with 0 TD's after 9 games?

His 4 catches a game could be replaced by anyone and he's getting top 10 money for a WR...

Apparently they can't......considering none of our other WRs are doing it.

Because our WR's are $#it. It's what happens when you completely ignore the position.

That doesn't make Bowe a good player - it shows how stupid it was to ignore the position in both the draft and free agency...

Yeah, of they hadn't ignored it, they might be 7-3 like Denver

You're making it sound like we could replace Bowe with some team's #2 or #3 WR or even a rookie draft pick.

Or even... dare I say it? Keenan Allen. The dude everybody thinks is the greatest WR to ever play the game just because he had a good game against Kendrick ****ing Lewis and Dunta Robinson.

I'm not passing blame on Smith. Not at all. That's simply the nature of the way our offense is working at the moment, and it's winning us games. It's also due to the fact that there's no depth at the WR position, so Bowe has to put up with the team's best coverage every single play.

It's really tough being a WR in this environment. Every catch is of magnified importance far more than in an offense like San Diego's.

Bowe's playing really well this year. No, he doesnt quite have the numbers you'd hope for in terms of TDs, but he's still playing well

During the Vermeil years, did it matter when the offense made a non-turnover mistake?

**** no. That offense was explosive as hell. It took mistakes and kicked them in the balls.

Tony Gonzalez dropped an easy 20-yard pass? Whatever. Priest would just take a screen for the first down and the same pass would be attempted and then completed on the next set of downs. Holding penalty? R-E-L-A-X.

This offense isn't afforded those luxuries. It can't just suffer a holding penalty and then expect to get out of it no problem. And it also means that every time a player is targeted, we need those catches to come in. We're getting a high percentage of them, but that's not good enough. It needs to be EVERY down.

Frankly, I can probably count the number of WRs on one hand in the past 5 years who made a living by being that steady dependable reception no matter the circumstances.

Jordy Nelson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, Reggie Wayne... really, that's all I got.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Bowe makes more money than ALL those WR's.

Does that make sense?

We should pay him that just because he's the best of a bad group?...

Golden Tate would have been a really nice addition. The kid is clutch and rarely ever drops the ball.

Just by averages Bowe should end up with 65 catches. No that is not a lot or anything like that. I think we would all like to see a few more passes to WRs. I don't however think that is what this offense is particularly designed for. Andy Reid had success with marginal stats from the WR position while in Philly. I would be curious as to the number of receptions to their top WR not named TO.