Ed Johnson Grievance

by EddieDean on Oct 15, 2009 12:52 PM EDT Comment 7 comments

Pro Football Talk is reporting that Ed Johnson was possibly cut due to his grievance stemming from last year and the front office is claiming performance as an excuse to bypass a possible second grievance by Johnson. If this is the case, then I'm very disappointed in the front office. However, 18to88.com has a breakdown of Johnson's performance woes against Tennesse.

Still, I feel like there's something that's not being said. The quality of Johnson's performance aside, our run defense has improved so much with him in the lineup that I have trouble believing it is simply a matter of performance.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Stampede Blue's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of Stampede Blue's writers or editors.

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I don’t know what the real reason is. If they would make their team worse over a grievance, that seems pretty petty to me.

As far as the 18to88 ‘review’ of Johnson’s performance, he may have had a weak game, he may have been the worst player on the field, but the person that wrote that review was clearly making things up. If you watch the first 3 plays he listed and then watch the Titans game again, none of them happened as he wrote. Not sure of his motivation for that. Maybe he just wants to believe the Colts made the right move. I don’t know, but he was pretty wrong on the 3 first plays, so I’m not sure how useful that review was.

by SpazMo on Oct 15, 2009 1:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Tape Review

Unfortunately I didn’t DVR the game and can’t go back and watch for myself, but I know that Johnson didn’t stand out either good or bad. In the Miami game I knew exactly when he was getting blown off the line, you could see it.

The ‘18to88’ post suggests that everyone else picked up the slack, but (and no offense to our guys), I have a hard time believing that if Johnson’s performance was bad enough to be cut that our guys could have picked up the slack so much as to have that dominant of a performance, especially with key guys out.

If Johnson wasn’t the best on the line, then he should have been benched (ala Ugoh). A “Zero Tolerance” policy violation seems the only viable reason for him to be suddenly cut, but if that’s not the case (and I trust Caldwell enough to take him at his word that it wasn’t), then there has to be something behind the scenes that we don’t know about.

by EddieDean on Oct 15, 2009 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

the need for a roster spot

may have been the decision maker between benching and waiving.

by jedye on Oct 15, 2009 2:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

it wasn’t as bad as that guy made it sound but he wasn’t any good. He took up space, and that was it. He was slow to shed blocks and very slow in pursuit.

Regarding the grievance, that won’t be getting anywhere. And it has also been present all along. If it really bothered them, they wouldn’t have re-signed him in the first place.

by willyduer on Oct 15, 2009 2:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The report is that they re-signed him in part because it was a gentlemans agreement that he would drop the grievance. Looks like now he will have a second grievance. Oops.

"Melissa, it's Ace. I'm in Psychoville and Finkle's the mayor!"

by AceOfSpades on Oct 15, 2009 9:00 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I've almost finished re-watching the game on NFL rewind

And Johnson was definitely a weak link. On pass rushing situations he was being completely stopped by 1 O lineman every time. When they ran he was always getting pushed backwards. I was really surprised to watch him get pushed around and then see the RB’s still get swallowed up. The other guys really were covering for him.

by jedye on Oct 15, 2009 2:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The Ed Johnson talk

needs to stop. This is getting ridiculous. The circumstances surrounding his release are a bit mysterious, but unlike some of the critics we have on this site who think they are smarter than Polian and Caldwell believe, it was not a bad move. It was not a bad move because A) they know what they are doing and B) Johnson was not a key to our defensive success.

I swear, with some of the criticism coming from the fans of this blog, you’d think we’d just released Bob Sanders or Dwight Freeney. It was Ed Johnson. Let me break down for you what he has done for us this year. He was suspended against Jacksonville, who has a great RB. His first game played was against Miami, who have one great and one very good RB. Ed got the absolute crap kicked out of him all game (though much of the D did, and Jennings deserved much of the blame in that game). We then played Arizona, who has a weak o-line and no run game. We then played seattle, who has the same situation as Arizona. The Tennessee game speaks for itself. So tell me, all of you who are in an uproar over Johnson’s release, why is this such a catastrophic move for this team? Better yet, tell me what Johnson has done well this year, or what he has done that makes him so irreplaceable?

And many on hear are in an uproar that we didn’t keep Andrus. Note for these people: Stover is much better and MUCH more experienced. Andrus was not going to replace Vinatieri. It is clear Vinny will be here for a while and it makes more sense to rent a great kicker while you’re current great kicker recovers. I mean seriously, who do you trust in a clutch kick situation, Stover, who is proven in these situations, or Andrus, who is not?

He was a decent player with a rough past, and it’s too bad for him he couldn’t stay on the team, especially since he was so well liked. But it is not as big a deal as people want to make it out to be and it certainly does not warrant any anger towards the front office. I agree with most on here that the details are sketchy and it makes much more sense to cut Simpson, but the team did what they did. That the way of the NFL. The Colts will still be the Colts and this doesn’t change what kind of team we are and how far are D has come with Coyer.

I really hope the interest in this is mainly due to boredom due to the bye week.

by npb1985 on Oct 16, 2009 5:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs