I totally agree that his is a debate, I should have never used the word conspiracy. And to those that do not like the thread, as Mike Tyson once said "Turn off your station!" lol. Threads like this are some of my favorites. It takes intelligence to take on so many people, and some have probably been swayed pro Trent. Bottom line that we all can agree on is that Trent will get another shot if he wants one, although next year. He would have to train on some things imo. Most top picks, even after this type of exit, get another chance with time. There are examples galore.
I remember one of Trent's first games and they showed the play from behind. Trent is running toward the line of scrimmage, then he suddenly planted one leg and hunched down such that his thighs were parallel to the ground, and then he just launched his entire body about three yards laterally with that planted leg and basically shifted two gaps over and accelerated through a hole that was just opening up and made a good gain on the play. My dad started to curse him when he planted his leg because it looked like he was following the correct block, but that blocker was stopped cold and knocked back and dad stopped right in the middle of his pejoration, stuttered a couple of times, and then said, "That guy's from another planet or something because that's just not possible." I remember announcers making statements about his unbelievable lateral agility and how he kept his entire body low to the ground even when making lateral cuts so that it was almost impossible for a tackler to get leverage and even if they did, he might not be in front of them anymore by the time they made contact because he could shift laterally so quickly and with so much power.
I hear excuses like "NFL vision isn't like college vision" and "he was good at Alabama because he had such a great offensive line". If there's some great identifiable difference between "NFL vision" and "college vision", I would think that pro scouts would be aware of the differences... especially if any posters at Tidefans are so aware of it ... and could spot possible problems. In Trent's junior bio at Alabama, he is credited with 49% of his yards AFTER CONTACT, so that somewhat contradicts the offensive line justification. Actually Eddie Lacy had a much better line blocking for him than Trent. I'm not sure what the problem is with Trent, but he had no problems with vision or missing holes here, so something has changed and "the NFL is so different than college" isn't a viable excuse when Trent played in the SEC and most of the guys that he dominated in the SEC are now in the NFL.
His best season was his first season. Players typically improve, but he regressed after his first season. Other than some undisclosed injury or just losing his passion for the game, the most likely culprit is that he was coached into inefficacy. It can happen. Just look at what happened to our defensive line after Lance Thompson left. Our superb athletes are finally reaching their potential.
Great players are usually born with physical gifts. A coach can just as easily destroy the potential of a player as they can improve the potential of a player. You can't take just anyone off the street and turn them into a Trent Richardson, but you can take a Trent Richardson and turn him into an indecisive, over-analyzing, uninstinctive player by trying to make him change his natural mechanics, used for 20+ years. If I told someone who walked fine that they walked like a doofus and they were now constantly paying attention to HOW they were walking, they might trip on the first step on the stairs.
