No idea!

Well, unfortunately I didn't know that the game had already been lost when the whole sorry affair was told to the team. I hope you made a few quid from your knowledge of same though!

He'll be an SD charger for more than a few years if the HC and GM stay in place that long. He'll be a fan favorite (the jokes, samoan culture in SD, media exposure, name recognition etc.) and the fact that he's a pretty good LB will allow him to stay.

Teams won't be solely attacking him either when he's playing next to Donald Butler in a 3-4. He'll have limited attention that should provide him the opportunity to shut up his detractors that watched the Bama game.

Is "he needs to be masked while the defensive coaching staff prays he doesn't get exposed" really shutting up detractors?

Yeah that's not the expectation for a high second round linebacker. If he is on an NFL roster for just a few years he will be a huge bust.

I think the Bama -20 offer had everything to do with the knowledge of ND being an imaginary top ten team and zero to do with imaginary girl friends.

What story was told to the team prior to the game against Pittsburgh region small high school all stars?

Anytime you get a long term contributor to your defense with a second round pick you've done fine imo.

The end margin of victory and unusually flat Irish Defensive performance had everything to do with imaginary girl friends imo. Though you are obviously entitled to believe different.

Sorry Tim Tebow exists.

I continue to laugh at everyone who thinks they are better talent evaluators than every single pundit during draft coverage. If you want to believe that he was overhyped during the season because of ND or the girlfriend or whatever reason that's great. But there's no reason at all for them to keep pimping him as a first/second round pick after that.

Even Tim Tebow basically got railroaded by the McShay's of the world during draft coverage.

Now I'm not saying he's going to be Ray Lewis or something, but I have a tough time believing McShay(and sources), Kiper(and sources), Mayock(and sources) and lots of other scouts were all dead wrong and the guy is destined to suck in the NFL.

Tim Tebow was mega elite in college. He sucks in the pros and was expected by many to suck.

Jake Locker is a better example. He was projected by many as a potential #1 overall pick and still went in the top ten despite literally never having a statistical top 50 QB season in any of his four years in college where he had a 52% completion rate.

Before people actually get into an argument over this...this is serious?

Yeah, it couldn't have been that ND had about two guys who would start for Bama (Te'o wasn't one of them) or that the coaching matchup was even worse.

How did Ogletree play against Bama?

He didn't quit no matter how many times they peeled him off the turf.

The game would have been a lot closer without the Manti nonsense breaking to the team days beforehand, yes. I know that's inconvenient for you, but you know.

By a lot closer you mean Bama pulls their starters in the 4th Q up 35+ instead of the 3rd Q up 35+? The Bama starters spent that 4th Q planning how to celebrate with their real girlfriends.

I think Nico Johnson & Te'o have about equal talent & measurables.

Both should be solid NFL linebackers that never make a pro bowl or all pro or finish top 10 in PFFs LB rankings, but both will have 5-7 years (barring injury) of starting MLB in the NFL on their resumes.

Both probably should have been 3 rd round picks. Nico went later because he was lost on a defense full of stars. Te'o went in the 2nd because he was the star on a good defense.

FFS this. There's 4 years of tape on the guy. Despite an awful performance against Bama, there's still plenty of reason to think he'll be a perfectly cromulent contributor to the Chargers D.

ITT people actually are using the fake gf as an excuse for ND losing

Wow, just wow

Do people in real life know this guys story exactly? To me its just "blah blah girlfriend blah blah hoax blah blah no girlfriend" - or something close. I just hate the fact that now with tebow gone, this clown will be the new human "interest" story that gets jammed down our throats every week.

Nope. ITT people note that the margin of victory and nature of ND's performance would undoubtedly have been adversely affected by the news. Shouldn't be a controversial point, infact it should be incredibly obvious.

Bama would still have rightly been favourites, just a shame we'll never know how they actually would have matched up all things being equal. That's life.

Because there's never been a draft bust in the NFL.

It's not just the Alabama game.. plenty of us watched a lot of Te'o before the Alabama game and concluded that he has a lot of glaring deficiencies. They were hidden a bit because he was playing against less than stellar competition. When he faced a bunch of NFL caliber talent, those deficiencies could not be hidden.

Since when, on this forum, do we encourage people to just go along with everything said by the media and people who have proven to be bad at their jobs?

I watched a ton of Manti Te'o before the Alabama game. Several things stuck out to me. He lunges after ball carriers rather than tackling properly, he guesses on plays because he has his eyes in the backfield, and he takes blocks straight on instead of at an angle like he's supposed to do.

Here's the Alabama tape:



Here's some of the plays that, in my mind, confirmed that Te'o has big issues that are going to really prevent him from being a productive player in the NFL.

0:46- This is exactly what I'm talking about wrt Te'o guessing. He does this all the time.



This is the play right after the snap. Both LBs shifted to their right at the snap. Louis Nix (#9) is beating the OL inside. Stephon Tuitt (#7) has outside/contain responsibility. With all the help outside, Teo's job right here is to help stuff anything up the middle. The other LB is in position to stop anything off left guard/tackle. Notice the WR coming across the screen being used as a decoy.



Te'o guesses that the WR is going to get the ball and begins to shift back to his left. You can see in this picture that he's shifted his weight back to that side of the field to try to make a play on the WR.



At this point, he's made the move over there and he's in no man's land. He realizes at this point that the RB has the ball and he's going to try to recover.



But because he guessed wrong, he can't recover. He lunges after Lacy and Lacy scores a touchdown on a 20 yard run.

This is completely on Te'o. Notre Dame has everything defended well in this play if Te'o simply sticks to his responsibility. He has free reign to fill the space in the middle and make a tackle, but he guessed and can't recover in time.

1:56- This is another 20 yard (near touchdown) run that is directly on Te'o. He makes 2 of the mistakes he often makes: he guesses and he takes an OL on directly.



This is right about when the ball is being handed off. Zeke Motta is shooting the gap on the left side of the OL. You can kinda see his helmet between 2 of Alabama's OL (89 and 71). The ND DT engaged with #71 is in good shape, beating the lineman to the inside. And then there's Te'o. He guessed the wrong way when his responsiblity is to fill the space left of #75. He has Chance Warmack coming at him for a block. He should be taking on half of Warmack leaving the left side of his body to make a tackle if the RB hits that hole.



But he guessed wrong so he can't get outside. He compounds the mistake by engaging Warmack full on instead of leaving half of his body free to get off the block. Warmack is going to win that battle every time.



Warmack still has him fully engaged because he didn't leave any of his body free.



And that leaves the right side of the middle wide open for the RB to cut outside for a big run.

2:15- Te'o guesses wrong again here, and it leads to the TE being wide open for a touchdown.

4:25- He hits the gap well but lunges after Yeldon. This is how he tackles. He has an easy TFL here which would force a punt if he just tackles how he should.

6:10- I have no ****ing clue what he's doing here. This is just a terrible, terrible play. There's a huge hole right where his responsibility is and he just decided to jump into the pile instead.

In picture form:



7:35- This is another great example of Te'o guessing wrong and vacating the open space that the RB ends up running through. Again, it results in a 3rd down conversion on 3rd and short.

There's plenty of other examples in there of Te'o making poor plays because he's guessing, taking on blockers improperly and using poor tackling technique.

What I will say is that I don't see the terrible pass coverage that Palo is always going on about. I don't see any major errors there in the passing game. When I watched the rest of his tape earlier this season, it's the one thing that I thought he did well.

Cliffs:

Yes, he played dreadfully against Alabama. A significant part in his performance would have been the nightmare personal **** he was dealing with at that time. Examples of his play from the regular season are far more relevant - and you can probably find more than enough there to prove your point.

I wouldn't be surprised if NFL scouts wrote off the Bama game from any assessment of his draftability.

Okay, Dr. Phil.