7/24/24 Daily Training Camp Thread

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by raybec 4

It really is too bad that he played his best years as part of a shitty team with no direction.

Losing the first couple of years of his career as an iffy scheme fit (primarily due to all the turnover and turmoil; he was a DV pick, then Herm, then Pioli and his weird shit when Haley effectively benched in him 2009) hurt as well.

The peak version of him; from about 2010 through 2013 was a HoF caliber player. Unofortunately he got hurt in 2014 and never really got the explosion back. He was 32 and blew his achilles; it was never terribly likely that he was going to get back to where he was.

To get into the Hall as an off-ball backer, he'd have really needed to have probably 8 seasons at/near the level he had over those peak 4. And being underutilized for his first 5 then losing the last prime year he had (and playing diminished over he last 2-3 effective seasons) prevented that.

There's a world where DJ goes to the Hall. Circumstances cost him that; it wasn't for lack of talent.