On a related note, sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere, but did anyone see how good Marshall looked on Monday night?
For whatever reason Marshall is much more comfortable with Jay Cutler or someone who he "respects" throwing to him than he EVER was with what Miami trotted out with him when he was in Miami. I felt that it would be the same for Ryan Tannehill and I thought Marshall and Tannehill would have made an absolute AWFUL partnership. Tannehill needed this receiving corps. He needed to be the one calling the shots. Bess, Hartline and company are not going to go back to the huddle and tell Tannehill, "I'm open, just throw me the damn ball". Marshall would have done that.
Now would that have killed Tannehill's progress? I don't know. Maybe Tannehill would have just ignored Marshall and did what he wanted anyway, but then if he did, would Marshall have flourished in Miami in that type of atmosphere? I don't think so. Marshall needs his ego stroked long and hard. Cutler is sure enough in himself and sure enough that his coaches are stupid to do what Marshall wants and just throw him the damn ball. Even in the game that you say Marshall played so well, there was a moment in the game (I think it was the same game) where his coach came over to talk to Cutler and Cutler got up and walked away. Cutler is a gunslinger. Marshall needs a gunslinger. It worked in Denver and it's working again in Chicago. Tannehill is not a gunslinger at least it doesn't appear at this point that he is, so having Marshall around would have just sent mixed signals to Tannehill and frustrated Marshall.
I said all along that Hartline would be better than people thought and would take up some of the slack from Marshall leaving. He's done one better than that if you ask me and taken up all the slack of Marshall leaving. I'm not surprised in the least about how Hartline has looked so far. I won't go so far as say I knew this would happen because I certainly didn't know it, but I suspected that it could and now that it has I believe that Miami made the right decision in sending Marshall to Chicago. It wasn't so much that Marshall wasn't a good player, he can be in the right situation, but Miami wasn't that situation, Chicago was. Both Chicago and Philbin/Ireland seemed to understand that. I think we got a fair price for Marshall and Chicago got a fair product. That's a win/win trade and Hartline's play so far this year has been a bonus byproduct.
Author