Yes, Luke's comment was inaccurate and just plain wrong to publicly attack coach Beard. It comes off as just grievances for not playing Ray Ray. He should not have posted on Twitter/X. However, I think people should watch the Canesville podcast instead of just dismissing his post on X formerly Twitter as crazy disgruntled Luke.
On the Canesville podcast, Luke explains that outside of the QB room, the WR room is the ONLY position group that backups haven't played any significant game reps. So, his position is either Mario is telling Beard not to play backups or Beard is making that decision on his own or perhaps Dawson is telling him not to rotate WRs. Luke hedges that Mario would NOT put his thumb on WR coach Beard, but allow all the other position groups to rotate as those coaches see fit. He wouldn't single out Beard, but allow the other position coaches to substitute .freely. Therefore, he points his finger at Beard.
Luke says that player development is not just about practice. He said game reps are critical to player development. If you're not getting players game reps, they're not fully developing.
Another point Luke made is that based on the lack of game reps, we will have an inexperienced WR room in 2025 not knowing who will emerge. So, they're either going to play inexperienced players at the WR position or they're going to bring in transfers with experience to play in front of them.
I get Luke's point in the podcast. There are 13 players in the WR room. Only 4 play any meaningful snaps. If none of those other 9 WRs are ready to contribute, then whose fault is that? So, if we have an injury to any combination of Restrepo, George, Brown, or Horton, then we'll get the other WRs ready to play? It's a failure not having backups ready to contribute at any given moment. The same thing goes for QB, which we haven't provided any meaningful game reps to keep them ready.
At this point, none of the 9 backup WRs are going to get any game reps barring injury. We'll go into the 2025 season with only 1 experienced WR in Horton if Brown moves on. So, Mario is either going to play inexperienced WRs against ND and FL or he's going to hit the transfer portal for experienced WRs to play in front of this year's backups.
So, when does the talented WR classes see the field? If anyone says they'll work them in with the transfers next year, I'd argue why? Inexperienced WRs aren't playing this year, why would they play next year? The expectations for team next year won't be any different from this year. If anything, the expectations will be greater. If they integrate inexperienced WRs next year, why aren't they doing this year? Again, the expectations for the team aren't going to change. If you say the backup WRs aren't ready this year, but will be ready next year, then whose fault is that? That is the reason why Luke attacked Beard. There are no backup WRs ready to play this year in that entire WR room. That is a coaching failure or you're simply choosing not to play capable backups in any meaningful snaps, if even to just give the starters a break to keep fresh legs.
For those that argue Horton put in work to make himself a bigger contributor this year I would point out that Horton got significant game reps last year, which is why they let Colby Young walk. Horton played a lot and had more catches last year than the entire backup WRs have this year. They knew what Horton would project into because they saw it in the games he played in. That is my point.
At the end of this season, we'll know nothing about 90% of our WR room because they'll have little to no game experience. That's 3 years of WR recruiting going into year 4, and 1 WR will have experience. That's 3 years of WR recruiting that is going to be "portaled over" in year 4. How is that a sell to WR recruits? The decisions Mario, Dawson, and Beard have made this year regarding the WR room will have consequences next year.
