This is a term that is used by a few sports personalities
here and there (when discussing football), but never seems to be taken to heart
by the masses. Furthermore, it’s amazing
to me how even some members of the media will use this phrase to add satire to
a segment, only to then go right into to doing the very thing they were just
making fun of. And just like clock work,
“Overreaction Monday” happens EVERY Monday during the NFL season….and Tuesday, and
Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday and all the way up to the next game. The same holds true for college
football. There is more flip flopping on
teams and players from week to week, than a politician who’s running for
re-election.
If you take nothing else away from this piece, please
remember this: You have to let things play out, let the players work out some
kinks, let the offensive/defensive schemes develop more, LET THINGS BAKE before
you rush to judgment on what a team/player is or isn’t!
Week 1 of the NFL
season, Colin Kaepernick threw for 412 yards and 3 TD’s. Monday, he was proclaimed by many in the
media to be #2 only to Andrew Luck in terms of potential and a sure lock Hall
Of Fame QB. He was the “new” model of QB
that all GM’s were going to draft, a dual threat athlete with a cannon for an
arm. The sky was the limit for Kaep and
the 49ers…….ooops. Now, in full
disclosure, I drafted Kaep with my #1 pick in my fantasy keeper league. I was hoping to get 250 -275 passing yards
per game and 2-3 total TD’s per game (passing and rushing). But with his main receiving weapons being
out, I knew to even temper those expectations a little. It drove me absolutely insane to hear the
extreme high praise for him after week 1, to “the sky is falling” comments
after week 2 when Kaep threw for 127 yards and 3 INT’s.
Overreacting week to
week is like listening to two opposing sides of an argument, and believing what
ever side you heard last, to be fact.
I’ll let some of you in on a little secret…..(whispering) the truth
always lies somewhere in between. This
is consistently true no matter the subject: politics, sports, baking, movie
reviews,….anything. After the first two
weeks of the NFL season, I was guessing Colin Kaepernicks game stats were going
to be somewhere close to his averaged results of these games. But no matter what, before I decided to
keep/trade/drop my 1st round pick of my fantasy draft, I was going
to LET IT BAKE for a while and see what happened. IMO it typically takes until week 9 to figure
out what a team or players identity is, and that’s the mark I was waiting for
before pulling the trigger on any move.
Here are Kaep’s stats per game:
-
Through week 9:
Passing Yards = 186.1, TD’s = 1.33, and Rushing Yards = 34.4
-
For the 2013 season: Passing Yards = 199.8, TD’s 1.56,
Rushing = 32.75
So he gained 13.7
passing yards per game, .23 TD’s and lost 1.69 rushing. All in all, pretty similar stats. And that’s with getting Crabtree back at the
end of the year. Once again, these stat
lines are not the extreme of Week 1 or Week 2, but rather in between.
Another example of
“Over-reaction Monday” was with the Auburn Tigers this year. On December 9th, 2013 ESPN’s Colin
Cowherd proclaimed that the Auburn Tigers would not only win this years’ BCS
National Championship, but also win next years.
Guess when this prediction came (besides the date I just gave you)….the
Monday after Auburn beat Alabama
Well, we know he was
wrong with his first prediction. Florida State
The moral to this story is – don’t be that guy. This goes for all things in life, not just
sports. Let things bake. Let your
emotions cool down, then analyze with a clear head, and make a rational
judgment.
JRob
