SmokinwithWilly

I agree with this and I think it's worth mentioning too that Bryce is not consistent on his placement and especially velocity and that in large part is driven by his footwork. We all know XL doesn't have the best hands and I don't know that he can overcome that. Cam always had the heater that just hit your hands and sank into your grip, where Bryce has some that are harder thrown, some soft. Bryce stepping into a pass looks so much different than that hop throw thing he does. I think XL really needs to hit the jugs machine and start learning how to catch all these different touch passes. TMac and Coker don't have these issues. If XL doesn't get some work in he's going to be out of the league in the next couple of years.

Become a trailer park ninja kung fu instructor for the Jerry Springer show.

If I remember correctly, one of the hire conditions was that Bryce had to be the guy. That probably greatly limited candidates. Coaches have to be allowed to control who they can play or move on from if they're not cutting it. That applies to Bryce or any other QB. I'd hate to be stuck with Josh Rosen for a starting QB just because he was a top 10 pick.

The one thing I did pick up on was Smitty wanted out the day Cam was drafted. He requested a trade. Sound like 3 years later, the situation was the same. So at the end of the day, while everyone thinks Gman did him wrong, and the way he was released may have been, he may have also been doing exactly what Smitty asking for.

He should be, at minimum his OC seat. His offense and situational awareness are some of the worst I've ever seen from any coach and that includes Matt Rhule. He's slow to react, he's not creative at all, and defenses can feast on his predictability. I think the HC seat is warm but will get hot really quickly if this team doesn't step it up, and by a lot. We need more Dallas, Miami and Atlanta offense instead of Seattle, SF and Tampa (2). Hell we even barely squeaked by the Jets. He's got to be better or he's going to be gone.

It isn't about looking bad, it's about proving the person that made the draft pick is right. Do I have definitive proof? No. What i do have are a series of events that when placed in order make no sense unless the purpose is to protect Bryce from being outshone by another QB and benched/cut. 1. Hiring of Reich to build his offense. Darnold is released and Reich gets to pick a shiny new QB to work with. After all, we signed him to a six year contract, so it's fair to assume he would have major influence in that decision. 2. Bryce interviews privately with Tepper, where he wows them with his ability to break down a play over dinner. By all accounts, Bryce is a very likeable, charming guy being interviewed. Even brought up here recently after an interview he did. 3. The sudden emergence of the S2 as the new "it" test to determine QB prowess after it's revealed Purdy, Mr Irrelevant himself, scored high and displaced the 9ers costly 1st round pick, Trey Lance. Bryce scores off the charts, and Stroud's results are "leaked" and he's publicly shamed as an imbecile going into the draft process. 4. Bryce is selected 1st overall, a QB that in no way fits Reich's QB type. Frank becomes disinterested, probably because he was lied to about picking his guy, doesn't appear to put much effort into developing an offense for Bryce, round peg, square hole deal. 5. An obviously unprepared Bryce is named starter, and goes on to have one of the worst rookie seasons in NFL history. The only game he didn't play, Dalton, in Seattle in the rain with Zavala giving up 14 pressures in that game, made the offense look alive, something we hadn't seen from Bryce. Bryce returns, offense goes back to crap. 6. Season 2, new HC, a QB whisperer to fix Bryce. Dalton returns and the only other camp competition is Plummer, who looks like he might actually be the worst QB not named Jimmy Claussen to ever get a number in camp. Bryce named starter again after leading the team yo the 1st overall pick, which was part of the package we traded away to get him. 7. Bryce is benched, Dalton comes in, starts 5 games, less than 100k yards, 7tds 6 ints, and makes it pretty clear he's not the long term answer for anything, not even being a backup. Bryce returns after Dalton's car crash and finishes the season playing better, but still not enough to guarantee he's the future. 8. This past off-season, Dalton gets a 2 year, almost fully guaranteed deal, when there are FA backups available who at least have potential if Bryce gets benched or injured again. One of those backups actually put up better numbers in 5 less games this year than Bryce, in case you were wondering. Then, lo and behold, Plummer is brought back for training camp. The guy so bad people were calling for him to be cut for the hot dog guy, or maybe Terry Bradshaw, the senile version on Fox. Plummer is cut again, shocker, and away we go into 2025. 9. Bryce starts off the year in typical fashion, lays a couple duds, then gets bailed out by Rico running wild for over 500 yards against the 2 worst defenses in the NFL. The entire season is up and down, with one exceptional game against Atlanta followed by a sewer plunge in Seattle. Multiple opportunities to win the division or win the big game when needed. Didn't show up for those. Finally breaks 3k yards for the season on a Standford band prayer. We make the playoffs when Tampa loses, since we couldn't do it ourselves. Bryce has a playoff game highlighted by a few beautiful throws and a final drive that looked like a deer in the headlights. 4 and out, 3 timeouts left unused. Now you could say that's a whole lot of nothing, but I see a whole lot of shielding to keep a bottom tier performing QB shielded from any real competition in the QB room. And I was right about Dalton. One game when Bryce was injured, and he looked worse than done. Phillip Rivers played better after being on his couch for 3 years. And let's not forget, Bryce also refuses to do anything about his footwork which is constantly being brought up. He says it's fine. So why did they pick up the 5th year? Who knows. I still say they should have played him on the final year of his contract as a one year prove it deal. But when you look at everything and the way it's transpired, I think it's pretty easy to see that someone at the top has been out to prove he made the right choice and that is David Tepper. So in response to the original question i commented on, what has Bryce done to guarantee the starting spot to the point of not even putting a viable backup at the number 2 spot or bring legitimate prospect to camp? Not a damn thing Edit: And let's not forget, we're dealing with an owner that's trying to drive marketing with a shiny new workout facility, and now a shiny new QB. The most cerebral since Peyton Manning. You can't market him if he's on the bench.

That's some pretty deep personal poo shared openly. It's very rare that men actually talk about what's going on inside. A lot of that resonates very loudly and clearly.

I've only ever considered it possible for 1, maybe 2 if pinned inside the 10, deep balls per drive. The play is just too big. A new deep ball can be completed in under 2.5 seconds. That just isn't right.

I don't hate Bryce. I hate the narrative. And the reason I hate it is if Bryce was on another team, doing the same things with the same results, we'd all still be laughing about the stupidity of that same narrative. And part of that narrative is that you can have 4 "deep ball" passes on a drive and still be on the opponent's 19 yard line barely in the red zone. That is just beyond stupid.

I'm sure they are cheering him on and pumping sunshine. Tepper has been heavily influenced by his public image in regards to his decision making. He won't let Bryce get benched when he's a media darling. And I'm also sure every other team other than Atlanta would love for us to keep starting Bryce. 3 years of bottom of the league performance. We'd be happy as hell if we got to play Bryce every week on the Panthers with DC calling plays. This offense is a joke. I want to see Bryce do well but Im also a realist. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and overall good dude. His performance the 1st 2 years warranted a real QB competition this season, not Dalton and Plummer. Develop Bryce and whoever else too. Just be real about the situation. Bryce's development is not where it should be. He refuses to address his mechanics. He's been benched. He has yet to have 2 games back to back of franchise QB level play. There is nothing wrong with saying Bryce may still develop, but we need to start putting pieces in place if he doesn't so our season isn't lost on the arm of Andy Dalton.

Bingo. Because everything they've done to this point says they know he's not and they're working very hard to try and hide that fact.

There was one of those that had a glitch in the trade algorithm. Once you got into the 5th round, it would start offering future 1sts for pick exchange. I would trade back and grab 20 or 30 5ths and 6ths then start trading em all for future 1sts. I started doing mocks just to see how many future 1sts I could get. My best draft ever I ended up with over 40. It was funny as hell and I enjoyed it but they finally fixed it.

Ain't even all about getting old. My work boots have the knot pre tied. All I gotta do is pull em tight, flip 4 times and I'm done. 5 seconds and my shoes are tied. Don't matter if my hands are hurting that day or not. Ain't velcro yet, but I Ain't ashamed I'm getting closer.

Me too. DC has always seemed to be slow at recognizing the obvious. If this is just another example, you gotta ask yourself should Canales even be a HC right now.

Unless you get a true franchise HOF trajectory QB pick, age is really irrelevant. Worst case you get 2 contracts out of Shough, barring major i jury, if he's still the guy. How many of us would love to have a QB undoubtably worthy of a 2nd contract? Most of the time you get the 1st contract plus 2 years before the costs on the back end really start making it hard to build a playoff team. Only way around that is exceptional drafting.

I'm not even saying he's better than Bryce. I'm saying he's potentially better than Dalton and a decade younger. Dalton is done. Bring in Howell, see if he could develop into a number 2 and a potential. If Bryce remained starter and went down for half a season injured, can the guy be a potential starter if the need arises. I have no fantasies about him being the next Brady. Just hopes that he may be able to be developed. If not, send him packing. But for God's sake, stop holding onto this Dalton delusion.

Thielen I didn't mind so much because what he excels at doing is creating separation without top end speed and he was an elite route runner. I know coaches can coach to a point, but a player like AT knows the little nuances that can be passed on after practice or in game if a DB is doing something that can be exploited in game or help with somthing a younger WR isn't familiar with. They're a real time asset and that has a value as well as long as they're willing to share that knowledge.

Probably not. Do the picks that bounce of XLs hands count though? We can throw those in for free to sweeten the deal.

This is why I hated the Dalton deal last year. He wasn't good in his stint before when Bryce was benched, and we signed him to 2 years almost fully guaranteed when he already had one foot in the career grave and the other on a banana peel. I'm still of the mind that they decided to sign the 5th year last season and signed Dalton to keep Young comfortable until he was finished with at least year 4. I'm going to laugh like hell though when they extend Dalton another year after they announce Bryce's 5th year option. They'll call it a restructuring for cap relief but we'll know what it really is. Keep that QB room competition free.

Now if we could package XL and 19 to move up to 11, I'd be all for that. Heck, I'm sure we've got a copy of Hurney's notes on how not to bust on your 1st round pick in a desk somewhere to include in the deal.

Wonder what the Vegas odds were on the first TD of the game being a pick 6 by Darnold.

19 to 11 won't be cheap and frankly we still have too many holes to go trading up. We're going to need out 2nd and 3rd rounders.

Huge QB contracts really hurt the team in the long run. Hard to build a complete team when so much cap is tied up in one spot. Brady kept his cap hit lower so other players could be brought in. Granted he was compensated in other ways. The QB contracts are almost what the rookie contracts used to be, a weight around the neck of the team that drag you down.

I'm not a Geno fan, but LV had the worst Oline I've seen in a long time. Jeanty had a little over 800 of his 975 yards after contact. That's insanely bad blocking. I don't want Geno here, but I can't fault anyone for looking like complete ass behind that poo show.

We could have built a good team with Fitt. Just do the opposite of whatever he wanted to do.