Irish Bloggers' Top 5 Players of 2011

[Whiskeyjack]

Article can be found here.

 

[Rhode Irish]

DMQ is a little bit of the crazy, huh? I never really distinguished between the writers at HLS, but his submissions to Keith's lists seem to be provocative for the sake of being provocative, which is probably my biggest complaint about the media. I mean, I love David Ruffer as much as the next guy, but um.... Also, I'm not sure I can respect the football opinion of someone who would leave Crist off of the top-25 players on the roster. I know he went on a rant explaining his bizarre choices at HLS, but as entertaining of a writer as he may be, I hope they use someone else for football analyses like this one going forward.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

DMQ is a little bit of the crazy, huh? I never really distinguished between the writers at HLS, but his submissions to Keith's lists seem to be provocative for the sake of being provocative, which is probably my biggest complaint about the media. I mean, I love David Ruffer as much as the next guy, but um.... Also, I'm not sure I can respect the football opinion of someone who would leave Crist off of the top-25 players on the roster. I know he went on a rant explaining his bizarre choices at HLS, but as entertaining of a writer as he may be, I hope they use someone else for football analyses like this one going forward.

Agree completely. Pretty obnoxious. He's written some very good analysis in the past; I'm writing this off as a marketing stunt.

 

[Riddickulous]

Michael Floyd should not have been on the list.

As of right now, he's not a part of the football team. It is what it is.

 

[Domina Nostra]

If we are going to be great this year, this is who will have stepped up and had huge years

I know that wise prognosticators are supposed to leave first year players off the list, especially true freshman lineman, but this is just my gut...

Tier 1
1. Michael Floyd (WR, Sr.)
2. Manti Te’o (ILB, Jr.)

Tier 2
3. Cierre Wood (RB, Jr.)
4. Zack Martin (LT, Jr.)

Tier 3
5. Ethan Johnson (SDE, Sr.)
6. Dayne Crist (QB, Sr.)
7. Gary Gray (Sr., CB)
8. Harrison Smith (Sr., SS)

Tier 4
9. Louis Nix (NT, So.)
10. Aaron Lynch (DE, Fr.)

I also know that KLM, one of my favorite players, is expected to outplay EJ. He might, but I kind of think that the greatness of the line will be on EJ's shoulders. I expect him to surprise people this year. Best case scenario: EJ breaks out, and KLM breaks out bigger.

 

[GoldenIsThyFame]

I agree with this from Arnold:

I want Manti Te’o to be the best linebacker in the country. I can’t argue that he isn’t one of the most talented, but I want him putting up monster statistics, something Luke Kuechly does at Boston College. (No I’m not discounting 133 tackles. I just think Te’o has the ability to do more.) Walking into his junior season, I think Te’o can do more than just amaze with his athleticism, he needs to be the tackling machine that Bob Diaco’s defense allows him to be, and that means cutting down on his misses. To use a baseball analogy, right now Te’o is a devastating power hitter. Call him Ryan Howard. He needs to become a devastatingly complete hitter, more like Albert Pujols.

 

[Rocket89]

DMQ is a little bit of the crazy, huh? I never really distinguished between the writers at HLS, but his submissions to Keith's lists seem to be provocative for the sake of being provocative, which is probably my biggest complaint about the media. I mean, I love David Ruffer as much as the next guy, but um.... Also, I'm not sure I can respect the football opinion of someone who would leave Crist off of the top-25 players on the roster. I know he went on a rant explaining his bizarre choices at HLS, but as entertaining of a writer as he may be, I hope they use someone else for football analyses like this one going forward.

I tried my best to let him see the error of his ways.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

I tried my best to let him see the error of his ways.

That you did, but considering he got 70 comments on that post, he probably doesn't care.

 

[Rocket89]

That you did, but considering he got 70 comments on that post, he probably doesn't care.

I honestly don't think he really thought it through. I'm hesitant to say that he did it just for page views and comments.

I think he might have thought, "Well I wasn't happy with the way Crist played so I'm going to leave him off this list and then back up my decision with some (rather weak IMO) Rees vs. Crist comparisons."

Then someone like me came along (who has seen his full list) and said you put someone (Schwenke) with 2 career tackles ahead of Crist. But everyone wanted to keep turning it into a Crist-Rees pissing match.

Then I get yelled at for caring too much. :banghead2