Stevie Brown

I felt this thread was needed because of much of the animosity directed toward Stevie Brown, much of it unjustified. He has made a few mistakes but I feel much of his pain, being a safety myself.

Playing safety is possibly the least rewarding position on the defense because:

If a DL blows his gap assignment on a play only the coaches see it.

If an LB blows a coverage or gap assignment the coaches and a few avid football fans realize it .

If Steve Brown at Safety blows his assignment everyone knows.

At the same time though, if a DL makes a great play everyone sees it, if a LB makes a great play everyone sees it, but aside from an INT or pass break up, if a safety maintains gap assignment on a run play or has excellent coverage leading to a sack people rarely recognize it. Even if a safety makes a play in the running game people a re generally pissed that the RB was able to get into the secondary.

Steve Brown is a lot better than people give him credit for, because keep in mind that this is his first year as a true starter. He has had little game experience and doesn't exactly have the best group of linebackers in front of him to allow him to make plays, and notice how on a lot of those deep balls, he is all by himself on an island, which is an extremely a tough play to make, and one that most NFL corners have trouble making, let alone safeties.

I know that this kid is going to be great before everything is said and done, and all of the ad hominem attacks are worthless and unfitting for a kid who clearly loves michigan and gives his all every week despite the fact that 99% of the michigan fanbase wants his head.

Mark my words, before his career is over Stevie Brown will be a living testament to "Those who stay will be champions."

I'm just getting this awful sinking feeling that much of our fanbase is devolving into an angry mob, hell bent on crucifying not just RichRod, but many of these kids as well. It's all of those waspy old motherfuckers who feel entitled to their michigan football. As far as I've noticed it's not really prevalent in the student body (thank God).

I know everyone is on edge due to the current situation, but what gets lost in all of the bickering is that these are people, and the players are just 19-21 year old kids going to school. When Stevie Brown makes a bad play, you are visibly upset, but take the time to notice that after making a bad play that, like you, Stevie Brown is also visibly upset. Except when you make an error in whatever it is that you do, you don't have 100,000 people in a stadium and millions more through television as witnesses to your screw up, much less letting you know how they feel about it via calling for your head.

Then think of how he must feel walking around Ann Arbor after a loss, when a lot of people point to him as the primary reason for many of the losses this year. I haven't personally met him on campus, but from what I've heard, he is a very nice kid, and he is extremely shy (just watch the rivals video from spring practice of him talking with a reporter, he looks uncomfortable and you can hear the nervousness in his voice).

Imagine what it must be like for that kid.

Imagine what it would be like for yourself.

I think stevie brown will be a whole lot better next year, and he will be far and away our best safety. I mean if there is anything people should learn from this season it is that you cant really rely on freshmen week in and week out because its a huge jump from HS to college, and then another large jump from playing to starting on a college team, so I wouldn't get too giddy about the incoming freshmen safeties next year k bizzle.

Safety is a unique position because experience is maybe the most important factor in whether or not you are a good safety. It's much more likely that you see freshmen making a impact at DL or some other position just because of the relative number of reads a safety must make on any given play.

That's not to say that other positions dont make a lot of reads, or have a critical impact on the success of the defense, but safeties dwell in a unique jungle. If they screw up or are out of position it affects the defense moreso than any of the other positions because its six points. Safeties are, as the name implies, the safety valve, the last line of defense. If a DL makes an incorrect read, he's got the LBs to back him up, if the LBs make a bad read they've got the safeties to back them up, but if an S makes an incorrect read, there is no one behind him.

Also a lot of times safeties are dependent on the players in front of them to make plays. If, as is the case with our team, the linebackers are running around making bad reads and missing tackles, that leaves the safeties to cover for a mistake that is not their own, and they are playing in position so when an LB whiffs on a play they look out of position, because they are running to stop a play that should have never been allowed in the first place.

In essense on a lot of plays safeties are trying to clean up other people's shit, aka mistakes, so this in turn makes them look like they don't know what they are doing, which is what happens to stevie brown a lot. If you couple this with the fact that Brown, along with several other members of our secondary, also make bad reads, and it looks like our safeties have no idea wtf they are doing out there. 

Playing safety, is pretty much a shitshow because most of time people dont pay attention to you unless you are; A). Extremely good like Ed Reed or Darren Sharper (but even guys like those two look awful when the guys in front of them aren't doing their job). B). Chasing after a guy running toward the endzone.

Safeties are to the front seven as Runningbacks are to their OLine. Good OLinegood RBs are great, bad RBs are good. Bad OLine, Good RBs are bad, bad RBs are atrocious. Just as you can't evaluate our RBs because of our horrible OLine it's hard to evaluate our safeties when our LBs are so horribly out of position on any given play. Same concept.