Mr. Scot

Same Granted, the Patriots are doing well this year.

No. I experienced my mom going through it. Still have PTSD

We close the season well but don't make the playoffs, then we don't see Bryce tested at that level. That'll certainly make for some... interesting offseason discussion

This board has more moos swings than a schizophrenic woman in the third trimester of her pregnancy, so...

Could definitely see them doing well as analysts (I know David already is)

Hold on to your drink

I can't have smoke of any kind in my house. I've got birds.

I haven't even looked at playoff scenarios. It's been so long since they had any significance for us, I forgot the existed

Aren't you suspended?

Good Now I'm gonna raise my hands and back slowly out of this thread

You don't think I'm a neutral party? See, the problem isn't "apples vs oranges". It's "should vs will". Sad to say, a fair number of people don't seem to comprehend the difference between those two things, and that lack of comprehension leads to a good amount of misguided discussion.

Has anybody actually said anything of that sort? (if they did, I missed it) I get why some folks rely on stats. I don't, and honestly I'm not sure why people keep trying to convince me I should. (it ain't gonna happen) Consistency is my big thing too, and the lack of it is why I want to move on from Bryce. But again, that's an argument I make without denying that he can indeed play in (and yes, win) NFL games. Hating bad QB play is fine. Denying when you see good QB play is silly. Let's be real for a second... This may not be you specifically, but there are some folks for whom Bryce can do absolutely nothing to win their approval. Some are always gonna want a bigger / stronger / faster / more athletic (in some cases, Newtonesque) quarterback even if Bryce does start to play consistently. At that point, they'll just shift the argument from "we can't win with Bryce" to "well, we can't keep winning with Bryce" You know all this as well as I do. So again, I want to move on from Bryce as well. I'd happily (hell, merrily) keep him as a backup, but I doubt there's a realistic path to that happening. But no matter what, I'm gonna keep my debate points based in reality, and I'm not gonna be responsive to "he just sucks" level persuasion. Is any of that unreasonable?

Oookaaay. just to review the original topics and where we're at to this point: - Jeremy Fowler, Dan Graziano, Joe Person have all said that they expect Young's fifth year option to get picked up, with Person calling it an "easy decision". I've yet to see anyone say otherwise, and barring something crazy happening there'll likely be more insiders and analysts making the same prediction in months to come (especially if we make the playoffs). - Also doubt anyone disagrees that Dave Canales isn't being retained (which was actually the first point thrown out in this thread) and any staff changes that do happen will probably be backfilling as opposed to replacing. - Front office? Turnover, title changes and promotions are pretty close to an annual thing there. May or may not be major moves, but there will likely be changes. Heck, there are some prior positions currently unstaffed which they may be looking to fill (Neil Stratton is always a good source for news of that sort). ... So, questions? Comments? Insults? Or are we good?

My thread predicting Bryce would get the fifth year option (again, not even arguing that he should, just predicting he will) is up to 34 pages now. Likewise, the one wherein ESPN guys did the same now stands at 12 pages. Who do you think is driving those discussions? (Hint: It ain't the "Bryce Brigade") There's a thread whose sole purpose was to mention that Bryce was up for Player of the Week honors. What happened there? Hell, this thread is ostensbly about a guy on another team. How long did it take for someone to bring Bryce into the topic? Was it for positive reasons? This is the mood right now, and it's why, in the midst of at least a potential playoff push, we're not universally jubilant about our team's successes. And this coming Sunday, the cycle will start all over again.

Depends... Every few years there tends to be one or two guys designated "Rooney guys" who a bunch of teams interview in order to satisfy the rules even if they aren't really interested. That sucks, but it happens. I wouldn't wanna see Evero (or anyone else honestly) be one of those guys, but the league is what it is.

This isn't an area where I have a whole lot of options

Defense still isn't what I'd call great, but at least it's better than last year. Whether that's Evero or better personnel is a matter of opinion. Bottom line for me is I won't be all that upset if he gets a new job.

I can sign on to that. Heck, as a fanbase we've seen so little winning over the last several years, it'd be nice to just enjoy it while it's happening. Cause if it stops, who knows how long it'll be till we see it again?

There was a time here when you were only allowed to praise our starting quarterback and if you said anything objective or (God forbid) negative you'd automatically be called a...hater. Yeah, I think that was the term Now we're to the point of you can't say anything positive about our...ummm, quarterback without being labelled a "stan", a homer, or a member of "the Bryce brigade" Nobody's told me yet whether membership in this has benefits or perks. Doubt I'd join anyway though (not my thing). Swear, sometimes I wonder if the people to the extremes of a given argument hate the people trying to stay objective more than they do their direct opposites. Sure seems that way sometimes. Either way, the end result tends to wind up being less actual substantive discussion, more stat spamming and barrages of "he sucks", ".oh yeah, well you suck more!" Bottom line though, there is an actual real world discussion to be had about Bryce: the good, the bad, what should happen, what will happen, and all the in-betweens. Maybe we can have that talk at some point down the road.

If you say so

That's been happening to general quarterback discussion going back about thirty years

You don't connect the mod admonition that all Bryce discussion stay in the pinned thread as having anything to do with that? But hell, even with those rules we get new Bryce threads during games. The notion of a "Bryce brigade" seems a tad exaggerated to me. There might be three or four guys in that crop...and I'm probably being generous. So you genuinely believe the "Bryce brigade" is the reason why that doesn't happen? Eeehh, not so sure that theory holds up Hell, I started a thread that only said I expected Bryce to get his fifth year option now. It wasn't the only topic though, and even what I did say wasn't implying that he should. Who do you think is extending that discussion?

Rivera is more of a fanciful thought than anything else That said, I do think there's at least a half decent chance we have a different defensive coordinator next season, and there's more than one possibility as to how that might happen.

Don't know that he would, but it's an interesting thought. Person also said there's zero chance of Canales giving up his playcalling duties. But OC isn't necessarily the only job that might be available, especially if some of the current staff have other opportunities (or even simply aren't under contract). Lots of guys who lose head coaching jobs work their way back up from the bottom.