Time to move on from DJ Hayden

Twinkie defense · Post #1 » by **Twinkie defense** » Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:31 pm

He's been terrible this season, and we've got a better player sitting on the bench. No more scholarships. I'm not saying cut him right now, but let him prove himself in a reserve role and in practice instead of getting unearned minutes, just because he was a first round pick. Let's see what Amerson does as a starter, evaluate whether he is a guy who can play for us long term.

IDK what it is, but Hayden has zero ball skills. It doesn't matter how sticky your coverage is if the QB can throw it right into tight coverage and you don't even realize the ball is coming. Plus he makes stupid penalties and is often not a sure tackler.

From beat reporter Jimmy Durkin's recent article on IBABuzz:

"On paper, it’s getting simply harder and harder to justify Amerson playing over Hayden, the team’s No. 1 draft pick in 2013 who has struggled to live up to expectations of a No. 12 overall pick. Hayden ranks 109th out of 110 cornerbacks in pass coverage, according to Pro Football Focus. (Amerson is 54th).

Yet, it continues to be Hayden who gets the extra playing time."

On top of that the coaches feel the need to constantly prop up Hayden's ego, as if acting like he's good will somehow make him good.

Time to move on.

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Twinkie defense · Post #2 » by **Twinkie defense** » Sun Nov 29, 2015 6:11 pm

Hayden left out of nickel AND dime defenses today - thank you.

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Neddy · Post #3 » by **Neddy** » Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:51 am

Yeah I thought Amerson and Carrie looked better together.

Post #4 » by **FNQ** » Wed Dec 2, 2015 12:31 am

Yup. He's regressed a lot and you can't dwell on it when the team on the whole is on an upswing

Twinkie defense · Post #5 » by **Twinkie defense** » Wed Dec 2, 2015 1:03 am

IDK if the defense is on an upswing, but of course that's not just on DJ's shoulders.

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Post #6 » by **FNQ** » Wed Dec 2, 2015 1:09 am

We're definitely better than last year. If the raw #s don't support that, the eye test does. We play in games that actually matter now, instead of having teams let off the gas in the 4th like last year. I've been a little disappointed with our DT/ILB play most of the year, but figure that it will be a key focus in the offseason, along with our entire secondary. Feel that Heeney, Edwards, and Ball have shown out fairly well for rookies and will be competing for starting jobs, if not the incumbent starters, going into next year.

As for Hayden, he has gone in the completely wrong direction this year after showing a lot of flashes in years 1/2. I imagine he stays on the roster because 2m isn't breaking our back and he's got a lot of raw potential, so why not keep him as our CB4/5 and hope he flips a switch?

benchmobbin02 · Post #7 » by **benchmobbin02** » Thu Dec 3, 2015 11:58 pm

KNJ said, "It's competition and we just want to keep stressing you practice hard, you perform, you'll play and the same thing on the adverse side of it. If you don't practice hard and you don't perform, you won't play," said Norton. "We have a competitive group and it's week to week. You play hard, you perform, you'll play and that's what practices are for. You can't waste your time in practice. It's a time to get better. The only place we have to get better, that players have to get better, is practice, so use your practice time to get better and then you'll play."

Jack Del Rio said Amerson getting the start over Hayden had more to do with how Amerson was performing.

KNJ said "He's still emerging (Amerson), we probably still haven't seen the best that he has to give. We'd really like to see consistency. Anytime you see a game of that magnitude from a player, you want to see him consistently stay at that place now. Now the challenge is can he do that each and every week. Anybody can show up and have one of those games of a lifetime, but can you have that game consistently, week after week? That's the tough thing about being a top athlete. The good ones, they find a way to do it."

So from this I take that it could be a week to week decision as to who gets the start and what the depth chart looks like depending on what the guys look like in practice and their "game equity", for lack of a better term.

Twinkie defense · Post #8 » by **Twinkie defense** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 3:39 am

Raiders defense has continued to set franchise low marks on the defensive end this season; IDK if they are any better at all - seems more like the offense is better able to cover for the defensive woes this season.

I do think we have a couple good pieces on the defensive side now, just way too few to make much of a difference.

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Twinkie defense · Post #9 » by **Twinkie defense** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 3:42 am

I had forgotten about Amerson after he was picked up though - who expects any impact off the waiver wire? But from his very first game you could see he was making plays. Pleasantly surprised - another random dude Reggie found who can contribute. That is his superpower.

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Quake Griffin · Post #10 » by **Quake Griffin** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 5:13 pm

Wait.
Does this mean get him off the roster or just forget about him as a starting corner?

Seems like he could come back and play for this team for real cheap at this point and Neiko was awful last week.

Post #11 » by **FNQ** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 5:34 pm

He makes 2m next year. That's a very, very small drop in the bucket. No reason to boot him off the team unless we have a better player in waiting (we dont, currently) or he becomes a distraction.

Twinkie defense · Post #12 » by **Twinkie defense** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 7:14 pm

Quake Griffin wrote:Wait.
Does this mean get him off the roster or just forget about him as a starting corner?

Seems like he could come back and play for this team for real cheap at this point and Neiko was awful last week.

No I don't think you cut him in the middle of the season. He is one of the worst rated CBs in the League though, if after three seasons this is what he is he should definitely not be back next season - no scholarships.

In related news...

Ken Norton Jr sends strong message to DJ Hayden: "If you don't practice hard... you won't play"

benchmobbin02 · Post #13 » by **benchmobbin02** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 9:47 pm

Twinkie defense wrote:In related news...

Ken Norton Jr sends strong message to DJ Hayden: "If you don't practice hard... you won't play"

Yeah I referenced this already in this thread...

KNJ said, "It's competition and we just want to keep stressing you practice hard, you perform, you'll play and the same thing on the adverse side of it. If you don't practice hard and you don't perform, you won't play," said Norton. "We have a competitive group and it's week to week. You play hard, you perform, you'll play and that's what practices are for. You can't waste your time in practice. It's a time to get better. The only place we have to get better, that players have to get better, is practice, so use your practice time to get better and then you'll play."

Jack Del Rio said Amerson getting the start over Hayden had more to do with how Amerson was performing.

KNJ said "He's still emerging (Amerson), we probably still haven't seen the best that he has to give. We'd really like to see consistency. Anytime you see a game of that magnitude from a player, you want to see him consistently stay at that place now. Now the challenge is can he do that each and every week. Anybody can show up and have one of those games of a lifetime, but can you have that game consistently, week after week? That's the tough thing about being a top athlete. The good ones, they find a way to do it."

So from this I take that it could be a week to week decision as to who gets the start and what the depth chart looks like depending on what the guys look like in practice and their "game equity", for lack of a better term.

Hayden definitely hasn't put his best foot forward this year tho he did have a stretch of games from 5-8 where he showed improvement and flashes of the potential realized. He will have to earn his snaps in practice according to the coaches. I think he will prove to be the best option in the slot as our nickel corner. He still has one year left on his deal and I don't see them cutting ties with him unless he shows no improvement and reacts badly to the benching.

Post #14 » by **FNQ** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 10:44 pm

Twinkie defense wrote:No I don't think you cut him in the middle of the season. He is one of the worst rated CBs in the League though, if after three seasons this is what he is he should definitely not be back next season - no scholarships.

"one of the worst rated CB's in the league"

should be taken with a grain of salt. Usually, DBs who play that poor are benched. In order to be the lowest rated player anywhere, its bad play X volume of plays, and Hayden played quite a lot. So the rhetoric about him not getting a scholarship because he was drafted in the 1st round and is among the lowest rated DBs is just that - he's not noticably worse than a guy like Thorpe and offers significant upside that Thorpe doesn't, regardless if neither has realized anything beyond CB4 this year. You just lower expectations, as if he were a high upside UDFA. We can afford to do that because of our cap situation.

Twinkie defense · Post #15 » by **Twinkie defense** » Fri Dec 4, 2015 11:13 pm

If they are that bad that means we can likely do better - on unlikely do much worse - starting fresh with our backup DBs next season. We got both Amerson and Carrie basically off of the scrap heap. Find some more gems on the scrap heap/late round picks instead of not learning from your mistake with DJ Hayden.

benchmobbin02 · Post #16 » by **benchmobbin02** » Sat Dec 5, 2015 12:20 am

We do that every year but what we are saying is that Hayden is cb3-cb4 caliber among the guys that we have brought in. Of course we will try to upgrade at every position possible but Hayden will stick until someone can take his place. McGill and Thorpe were given there chance and couldn't do it and the McDonald's couldn't even stay on the roster over them.

Hayden may have his faults and have play poorly in 8 out of 11 games in a starting role but he is better than what we have now behind him and still has potential and a favorable cap hit. Next year we'll bring in 3 or four guys and if they out play Hayden then we can talk about letting him go but not now when it would make us even worse on the back end.

Twinkie defense · Post #17 » by **Twinkie defense** » Sat Dec 5, 2015 5:39 am

$2 mil is a lot for a special teams player!

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benchmobbin02 · Post #18 » by **benchmobbin02** » Sat Dec 5, 2015 7:41 am

Not really when you take into account that the other 4 cb signed so far for 2016 (Carrie, Amerson, McGill and D.McDonald) are making a combined 2.8mil. Hayden's cap hit next yr is 3.2mil and we still have plenty of room to spare. That's 6mil total for corners out of 150-155m in total cap of which we have between 72-77 mil to spend next year. Even if we sign a big name FA to a huge deal like Sean Smith or Janoris Jenkins we'll still have room to move around. :cheesygrin: