Quote Originally Posted by Beef View Post
I concur. However it completely pisses me off. I hate that T.O. Had to go but he did. If you can't keep moral up in the locker room you damn sure can't keep it on the field.
The far more logical theory behind TO's drop off isn't that he is a locker room distraction (teams don't magically get better without him.) His issue is that when he first comes to the system, he ramps up offensive production because he is such a dynamic player and every team has implemented him differently. In year one, you run short on game film.

Year 2-3, you've got a base of work so his production levels off and/or drops off as defensive coordinators have more film to breakdown, and eventually the problems that the team had before he got there (typically bad defense or inconsistent line play) are no longer masked by his dynamic impact on offense.

Look at the Cowboys: they are fucking terrible. TERRIBLE. They didn't make any changes on defense and they got worse (hint: they were NEVER good.) Their offensive line made no improvements. Their run game suffered from injury and continued bad blocking. Sorry, the Cowboys had a shot at the playoffs because of TO in his maiden season. They didn't have a shot after that because they couldn't figure out how to surround him with talent. Dallas has always been an 7-9 or 8-8 team and any wins above that can be attributed directly to TO's presence. Pacman showed he no longer had the tools to be good; fuck the "locker room" bullshit.

The Eagles dropped off when they released TO until they started addressing the concerns that his offense had been able to mask.