Mr. Scot

I suspect our last open roster spot will go to another tryout kicker. If Armstead gets signed, you'd likely see a corresponding cut at some point.

I wouldn't tempt me though

We do have a roster spot open, but we've already got a lot of RBs, so...

Nah, I'm gonna be nice.

Should I talk about how ironic this is? (I'll leave it up to you)

One thing I learned a long time ago is the difference between intelligence and expertise. Even an intelligent man isn't an expert on something he has no experience doing. And if he tries to act like he does over and above those who actually do, then maybe he's not that intelligent after all.

If I make millions trading stocks, and then I buy a home building business, does that mean I know how to build a home? As to Tepper, I'm going off of what he himself has said. Could he go back on that? Sure, but of he's smart he won't.

Okay, I'll give you that one.

Owners get involved because they think they know better than people who have years of actual experience doing their jobs. More often than not, they're wrong. My hope Is that David Tepper is smarter than that. He has been so far, so here's hoping he continues.

More qualified than us? Yeah. Definitely had better resources available to him than us. Unfortunately, his job isn't to be better than us. That'd be easy. His job is (was) to be better than guys like Mickey Loomis and Jason Licht. Given those conditions, he was a spectacular failure.

So basically you're certain that Rhule and Fitterer are going to be bad and force Tepper to interfere. I'm not betting on that just yet.

They were generally on the same page up until 2010. Hurney and Rivera tended to stay on the same page too. Unfortunately, neither of them really knew what they were doing.

I'd honestly just go with "bad".

It's an example of owners being bad owners. And while I get that it's what you want to happen, it's not guaranteed Tepper will do that just because others have.

There are people on here who insist such thinking is crazy.

Riiiiight. Jerry Richardson is a perfect example of what NFL owners shouldn't do. If you wanna frame him as anything else, I think we're done here.

You're referring to the guy who insisted on keeping Marty Hurney and reportedly told the personnel guys that Randy Moss was off limits? Yeah, sure.

I wouldn't go that far just yet. The good news though is that even if Christiansen doesn't prove to be our left tackle of the future, it doesn't sound like he'll be a wasted pick like Greg Little. It's very possible that he could man the left tackle spot adequately this year but be moved elsewhere next year in favor of a highly drafted or free agent left tackle.

Tepper can certainly interfere in decisions...if he wants to be another Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder. The most successful NFL teams have owners who trust their people. If the people prove they can't be trusted, then you get new people but you don't stick your nose in yourself. (at least not if you're smart)

I wouldn't even call him adequate. Three winning seasons out of fifteen doesn't qualify as adequate.

Appealing to "NFL history" is not only ambiguous, but meaningless. There are just as many hands off owners in NFL history as there are hands on. The reality is we're still talking about your feelings, not facts. The Athletic posted a pretty thorough behind the scenes story about the process that led up to Sam Darnold becoming a Panther. In that article, there were two names that were barely mentioned. One of them was David Tepper. The other one was Deshaun Watson. Now I know David Tepper is sitting next to you in the room and all, but even with that I don't think you have better sources than The Athletic does. You can hope all you want that David Tepper interferes and acquires your favorite player, but everything that's based in actual reality is pointing in the other direction. And frankly, I think we're all better served talking about the things that are actually happening than things we wish would happen.

I still can't believe there were people seriously arguing that Marty was doing a good job.

I'm saying when you combine that with Matt Rhule saying that Tepper leaves the football stuff to he and Fitterer, plus Tepper himself saying that he's not an evaluator and he's not going to try to be, it leads to a pretty obvious conclusion. And yes, I'll take their words as a better source than your feelings.

Tepper wanted Fields. We didn't take him. Those aren't just words. That's reality. You can continue to cling to a hope that what you want to happen will happen, but I just don't see it.

I would, because Matt Rhule said so. Heck, so did Tepper himself when he hired Fitterer.