Mr. Scot

Wish I could find the tweet, but I remember somebody posting how Tom Brady won the Super Bowl and took a pay cut while Russell Wilson hasn't won a playoff game in years and wants to run the team's draft. It was pretty funny

I don't really see anybody in next year's draft that screams "franchise QB" to me. No, not even Howell. I've been a fan in the past but right now I'm not sure he's a first rounder.

I've talked about Brady in a couple of threads today already. No, he isn't the Sean Payton clone that we believed he'd be. That doesn't necessarily mean he won't be good though. My most common statement on him is that he's way better at play design than he is at playcalling and game management. A big part of that is that regardless of how smart he is, he's inexperienced, and sometimes it shows. That's not something you can change quickly. Obviously, it takes time. It's a pretty common path in the NFL for a guy to become a head coach, fail at that, return to a coordinator job and be phenomenal at it. Brady following that road wouldn't surprise me.

Said the same elsewhere.

There's a load of talk about whether he's good or not good, but regardless of where you come down on that issue he is undeniably inexperienced. Truth be told, at least get the pro level, an awful lot of our coaches can be described that way.

"Open" is a really intricate concept when it comes to NFL receivers Sam has thrown to some guys who technically weren't open, but some of that is him pressing. Bridgewater wasn't willing to do that. Sam will because he really wants to win. But yeah, it can bite you.

I think most of the disagreement with the Anderson extension comes from people who were of the belief that Terrace Marshall was drafted to replace him. I've seen that said. And to be fair, that was probably a reasonable theory at the time.

I've debated with Spanish where I disagree with him, but he deserves loads of credit for his posts on this

I'd love to see Shi Smith in there but I get the impression that Alex Erickson is keeping him on the bench. And it's not that Erickson is doing bad or anything, but I question whether he has the potential to be as good as Smith might be.

Wilson wants input on the draft. There is no way in hell I'd give any quarterback that kind of influence.

And for the record, I know some have said this but I'm not ready to say that extending Anderson was a bad decision yet.

Arnold wasn't Olsen, but he was good (maybe better than we gave him credit for). I agree that Tremble has loads of potential, but it's possible the braintrust overestimated how quickly he was going to develop.

Nothing against max protect myself, but it's somewhat philosophically opposite a West Coast Offense. Heck, one of the reasons WCOs tend to have mobile quarterbacks is that they don't always keep the backs or TEs in to block. The idea being that more receiving options being open is the better way to go.

Billy M is a twit.

They've wanted to get his weight down and get him coached up.

So over the last couple of weeks, I've been rewatching the 2005 NFC Championship game against Seattle. No, I didn't pull out the tape. I'm just seeing the same scenario that happened to us back then playing out all over again. The Seahawks had figured ahead of time that the only true weapon the Panthers had was Steve Smith. Thus, all they needed to do to nullify our offense was commit to taking him out of the game. They were right, and beat us pretty soundly to make it to the Super Bowl. (as an aside, if John Fox would have had similar thoughts about Larry Fitzgerald in 2008, that Cardinals playoff game might have gone differently...but I digress) Now sadly, we're back in that same old situation, only this time the sole weapon is DJ Moore. What I've seen over the last few weeks is that nobody among our skill players really scares opposing defenses outside of Moore. And if we're being brutally honest, why would they? - The runningback position is average at best without Christian McCaffrey as a threat - Robby Anderson has disappeared - Terrace Marshall is a promising rookie but still a rookie learning the game - So is Tommy Tremble, but Ian Thomas is our starting tight end anyway - We did have another starting tight end before Thomas who was looking decent, but we traded him So...yeah. That crazy cache of weapons we all believed we had prior to the season...it doesn't look quite so threatening these days. Add in that as much as I like DJ Moore, he's not Steve Smith in his prime. Unless you had an absolute lockdown corner, trying to cover Smith one on one was insane. To be clear, I think Moore is a great receiver and one of the better pass catchers in the league, but he's not that guy. He can be covered one on one and it doesn't necessarily take an elite corner to do it (at least not yet). Basically, if you have the resources to cover DJ Moore, you can tee off on Sam Darnold and dare the Panthers offense to beat you with everybody else. Frankly, as an opposing DC, that's a chance I'd be willing to take. And clearly I'm not alone in that thinking. Now, I know some are gonna clap back at this and say the real problems just boil down to Sam Darnold. Sorry, no. It's valid that Darnold has his own issues and does need to improve, but putting all the blame on him is far too simplistic and ignores the other issues. Factor in also that he's still a reclamation project. And while I agree with the decision to try and rebuild him from the ground up, if you want that task to succeed you're gonna need to do a waaaay better job of protecting him. There will also be some who put most of the focus on Joe Brady. It's fair to say that Brady does have to take some blame here for poor playcalling. Also fair to say though that he has to work with what he's got. Trading away Dan Arnold probably didn't do him any favors, and the quality of our interior line is a major problem that isn't really his doing. Working around that line isn't gonna be easy, but again if you fail to do so you risk seriously derailing the above mentioned reclamation project and putting us back at square one in the QB spot. So what can be done? Unfortunately, there's no easy answer, especially when it comes to the offensive line. We've discussed options elsewhere, but none of the truly practical line options are going to be quick fixes. Truthfully, the best, most realistic options are 1) get McCaffrey back healthy and 2) figure out what's going wrong with Anderson. Anderson's issues are the biggest enigma of the moment. Is it "got paid" syndrome? Is it jealousy because Moore is the number one? Is it lack of connection with Darnold? Could be one of those, but those are mostly unknowable for fans My biggest question mark though relates to how he's being used right now (and yeah, that's a Joe Brady question). Currently, not Anderson's primary role seems to be as a deep threat guy to stretch the field. That's cool, except it hasn't been working and even when he's open our line generally isn't giving Darnold enough time to make those throws cleanly. Now in the past, we've tossed it short to Anderson and let him run with it. I'd like to see more of that again. Keep him as a field stretcher for sure, but get him the ball more short as well and let him run with it. We do that with DJ Moore and we've done it with McCaffrey. Why not more with Anderson as well? I'd say it's worth a shot. As to McCaffrey, getting him back healthy is obviously a huge deal. It's equally true that getting him back healthy is one thing, having him stay that way is another. Fair or not, the last few seasons have made some folks doubt whether we can count on that as much as we would like to. Yeah, he could come back and prove durable again, but if he doesn't then we're stuck in the same boat until somebody else develops. On that front, yes Marshall and Tremble may develop into weapons that have to be accounted for also but that happening is probably several weeks away at best. Over on defense, Stephon Gilmore joining the fray will help somewhat, but even the most stifling defense only goes so far when the offense is ineffective. Bottom line: A healthy McCaffrey and an effective Anderson are the most "within reach" cures for what ails us. Yes, the offensive line needs work as well, but that's a much more difficult task. Ultimately though, regardless of what happens next, I've mentioned numerous times that I saw this as a transitional year... and I still do. Early success got everyone's hopes up, perhaps even among those within the building, and there may yet be a good season to come. But even if there isn't, there's no need to panic. I still think we're on the right path when it comes to building for the future. That takes patience. Fans don't have a lot of that, but sometimes football teams have to.

Unfortunately, neither is Spanish (see above)

If the choice is between... Moton - Erving - Paradis - Brown - Christensen or Moton - Christensen - Paradis - Brown - Erving ...which are you taking?

We've got a stretch of some winnable games, though it's fair to say yesterday was winnable too. I still go back to saying this is a transitional season though, so for me it's not so much about the winning and the losing as it is the building. Pretty clearly, our building needs some foundation work.

Definitely don't agree. I don't know what Darnold will be yet, but I don't doubt that he's better than Bridgewater. I think some folks are letting current issues alter their memory of just how bad Bridgewater was.

Yeah, I'd have to say characterizing this as "blaming the defense" is a stretch.

At 25? A lot.

Disagree. They weren't perfect yesterday, but they weren't the big problem. I'd rather see them continue to get reps at those positions going forward, though I wouldn't scream about trying Christensen at guard.

Technique and strength are two different things. Offseason conditioning is likely to do him a lot of good.