Garbage Time?

[Corvus]

I have been hearing all off-season and into the regular season from Harbaugh and the staff that they want to develop our young talent and progress them as football players. So my question is, wasn't the Colts game the perfect time to get in some of our younger, inexperienced players in to get some valuable on the field, game time experience? That game was beyond reach for our offense by halftime and we all knew it, the coaching staff knew it, we simply don't have the offensive firepower to come back from that far down. This was potentially valuable garbage time as they call it for players like Zbikowski, Nakamura, Gooden, Marcus Smith, Cousins, Lamar Divens, etc. and yet we played our starters pretty much the entire game. Not only that but it also risked needless injuries to our starters (Marshal Yanda anyone?). Ray Rice only got in because McGahee got hurt and he was just about the only bright spot on our offense (sans that botched handoff). So what's the deal, am I just overreacting and thinking this was a waste of our team's time by leaving our starters in a lost game or what? Any thoughts?

[Troy SmiTH Xx]

I don't know. I just hope next time this happens...if it does...they will do so. It would've been a shame to leave our starters in there, and then one of them got injured. That would've taught them a lesson.

[neepo13]

The problem is we have so many young guys starting right now that you cant really bench anybody to bring in the rookies because they all need the reps. He bought in Ray Rice, Dwill got some more looks. Really the only guys you could pull are Heap and Mason. Everyone else who was out there, needed to be out there.

[PuRock]

[quote name='Corvus' post='75900' date='Oct 13 2008, 05:03 PM']I have been hearing all off-season and into the regular season from Harbaugh and the staff that they want to develop our young talent and progress them as football players. So my question is, wasn't the Colts game the perfect time to get in some of our younger, inexperienced players in to get some valuable on the field, game time experience? That game was beyond reach for our offense by halftime and we all knew it, the coaching staff knew it, we simply don't have the offensive firepower to come back from that far down. This was potentially valuable garbage time as they call it for players like Zbikowski, Nakamura, Gooden, Marcus Smith, Cousins, Lamar Divens, etc. and yet we played our starters pretty much the entire game. Not only that but it also risked needless injuries to our starters (Marshal Yanda anyone?). Ray Rice only got in because McGahee got hurt and he was just about the only bright spot on our offense (sans that botched handoff). So what's the deal, am I just overreacting and thinking this was a waste of our team's time by leaving our starters in a lost game or what? Any thoughts?[/quote]

It think it's because we needed our starters to click on offense - even if it was in garbage time. And our starters on defense to keep any further embarrasment from occuring.

But with our track record of injuries last year and the carrying over into this year. I'm sure Zbikowski, Nakamura, Gooden, Smith, Cousins, and Divens will be starters soon enough.