One of two things is happening here. Either you have selective memory, or your hatred of Hall (stemming from his mouth?) clouds your memories. Look, I'm no huge fan of the guy. But to make the argument that he couldn't cover, and never tackled is hyperbole at best.
I assure you my memory of Hall is impeccable. His mouth actually didn't bother me, I could get by that if he was worth a damn, but he wasn't. I'm a TO fan, and a Chad Johnson fan, so obviously the jaw doesn't bother me. But they could back it up. Hall ran his mouth like he was good. It was the cockiness, not really the mouth that bothered me in that respect. Don't get burned for 40 yards, then run up the field, hit the guy as he's getting up, and talk **** like you did something. But he did that a lot.
And he couldn't tackle, because he never went for the stop, he ALWAYS went for the strip, to a fault. He couldn't help himself. He was so concerned with attempting to make a huge play, that he hurt the team by not making the play that needed to be made instead. A blown tackle will cost you a game just as often as a pic will win you won. This is something very basic and very important that DeAngelo Hall has still failed to learn in all his years in this league. This means one thing - he's stupid.
Hall was actually a pretty good weakside blitzer when called upon, and was at times VERY good in coverage.
Blitzing isn't a skill set coaches are picking and choosing their corners on. It's one of those added benefits that if you can get a good CB who can also blitz, so be it. Just like teams won't pass on a great RB just because he's a shoddy receiver. And Hall was rarely very good in coverage. Like I said earlier, he had 1-2 games per season where he'd light it up. And fans seemed to allow the other 14 games where he completely failed to show up slide, all for those 1-2 great games.
I know you point to his attempts at stripping the ball as evidence he wasn't a good tackler, but there were plenty of times he made nice open field tackles on RBs that gained the edge.
I'm talking specifically about his skills as a corner. The fact he's made solid hits on running backs is neither here nor there, his job was to cover receivers, and if he couldn't his job was to make sure they didn't score or get a first down. He was terrible at all of that. That would be like keeping a running back in the starting role with a 1.2 YPC average and 0 TD just because he's a phenomenal blocker. I simply said he isn't a good tackler, because he never goes for the tackle. Every team we played threw almost exclusively at Hall in comparison to our other corners. There was a reason for this. Our opponents liked their chances.
The dude was a solid CB. Not great. Possibly not even good. But definitely solid.
On a scale of 1-10, I'd be stretching to rate him a 5. That's not solid IMO.
Hall was either our best or second best corner on the team last year.
You can't make this claim. If not for his hissy fits he would have thrown, and his inflated contract, he likely would've had his ass planted on the bench. He did nothing. So if nobody else is given a chance (without Hall also lining up) there is no gauge to judge by.
Not having him means our already ****ty secondary got worse.
An assumption not based in reality
I know your argument is that others behind him might have been better than he was, but he was taking their playing time thus preventing them from getting on the field, and us knowing if they were any good or not. My counter to that is that is a purely hypothetical argument that is unwinnable for either of us.
Which is what I've been saying. You are certain we will be worse without him. I a certain we can't get worse than the worst. There is nowhere to go but up.
I'd like to think that Shanahan would put the team in the best position to win, and therefore played the best players - and therefore would have replaced Hall if his play was the worst in the league as you suggest. He didn't, so I have my doubts that our bench players were better. Again, completely hypothetical and unwinnable.
Look at all the decisions Mike has made since he's been here. Until he gives me a reason to believe otherwise, I put zero faith in his game decisions. After all that crap with Haynesworthless, he still played him. Was that giving the team the best chance to win? He kept Portis far beyond his worth, he brought back Cooley, he kept starting Heyer, etc. He's not an idiot by any means, but just because he made a decision, it wasn't automatically the best one. Look how long it took him to give his son more control, and Kyle ended up proving he's likely to be a far better coach than his father.
The good news is that Hall wasn't a great player, so replacing him with an upgrade shouldn't be too terribly difficult. The bad news is that Mara is a ****ing douchbag, and has severely handicapped our ability to do so.
Can't argue that.
My position is simply that our secondary is worse than it was two weeks ago; I think very probably it will get better before the season starts, and I think it even more likely that our secondary will be better than it was last season.
But right now it isn't.
Only because we're down a roster spot, and for no other reason. Fill his spot with anybody, and we're better than we were 3 weeks ago, no matter who that player is.
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