Mr. Scot

McDaniels makes history, but not the good kind... Also, an update on an old friend of ours... I didn't actually remember that he was with the Raiders.

Yeah, that's a cop out. CRA wants to put the blame for the offensive struggles on Reich so he denies the fact that Brown wrote the playbook...and you're supporting that for apparently no other reason than to argue against me. You might want to take a step back and look at just how profoundly silly what you're arguing here is.

So no, you don't.

Boy, that's some irony Outside of your own suppositions, can you find anything anywhere that suggests Thomas Brown did not write the offense? Input from Reich is understood, but Brown himself said prior to the season that he built the offense from the ground up. Can you find any solid evidence whatsoever to contradict that?

And apparently it ain't over... Wow

Because one is reporting and one is speculation. "I think we're ready to win' is an opinion. Maybe it's genuine, maybe it's not, but you can judge that by the situation. "I wrote the offense" is a statement of fact. What point would there be lying about it prior to the season even starting?

A little follow-up... I've seen it reported that the Raiders weren't taking calls yesterday, so even if anybody had wanted to make them an offer they might not have been able to because they were busy firing everybody Also, this... It's speculation, but it's worth a thought. If it does happen, probably won't be anybody all that notable.

So can you find a report from anyone who covers the Panthers suggesting that Brown didn't write the offense? I get that you don't believe you need facts or reporting to support your argument, but some of us actually like that sort of thing. I mean you can say, "Well nobody anywhere is reporting it but I know its true anyway" like you usually do, but you'll have to pardon me if I don't find that...convincing. Oh, and FYI: David Tepper being in the room with you doesn't count as a valid source 🫥

That's the story told by McDaniels' wife. Is it true? Don't know. Is it believable? Well, we're talking about Jim Irsay, so...

Step one: not CRA given that he tends to directly contradict things that are reported from multiple sources. When asked why he thinks a certain way it's always basically "because I said so" Realistically though, what reason would Brown have to lie about being the guy who wrote the offense? Perhaps more to the point, this article was written before the season ever started. Nobody knew how things were going to go. Are we going to suggest that the Panthers preemptively asked Brown to act as a scapegoat in case Reich failed? How stupid does that sound?

Heard there were a load of complaints about quality issues over the last couple of weeks...

I'd forgotten about the Colts thing. Technically this was McDaniels' third head coaching opportunity. He just bailed on his second one

So again, no matter what anybody says, including the people directly involved at the time things were actually happening, you still prefer your version of reality. Right

Mike Kaye's summary of events (or non-events)...

Speaking of which... I hadn't seen this till now

That's what I'm wondering too People are saying it doesn't look good for Ryan Poles, but assistant hiring is up to the head coach so it's really on Matt Eberflus If he's brought in a bunch of low character guys.

What's most important to me is the symbiosis. If you have two guys who are independently good at their jobs but also work well together, that's the best path to success. Who hired who or when they got hired is really just incidental. My preference has always been to hire a GM first and let that GM hire the head coach. That's the way it's generally done. But that's no guarantee either.

The Belichick coaching tree has Dutch Elm disease.

More info from the other firing today... Haven't read all the details yet, but yhe story's being compared to the firing of Alan Williams earlier in the year, so apparently it's related to some kind of off-field situation. Yeesh

Not sure it even matters. It's the Raiders For what it's worth, Gruden had full control and a puppet GM but still ended up scapegoating him. Mind you, I'm not sure Mayock would have been any better on his own, but damn did he screw up a good broadcast career with that move. Gruden, Mayock and Matt Millen are all examples of how it's easy to sound like you know it all until you're actually put to the test.

Again...good luck with that

Quotes from Thomas Brown himself... Thomas Brown has had just more than seven weeks since he agreed to terms to become the Panthers' new offensive coordinator to work on building a new playbook from the ground up. ... "You come in with the thought process because you understand what you're interviewing for and what job you're about to accept," Brown said. "But it's always different when you get there. There are always new challenges, new ideas that come up, and things you probably haven't prepared for, which is probably part of on-the-job training. I don't care how long you've done it; it's going to always happen to some capacity." ... Brown's experiences – especially his past with the Rams – color the Panthers' new playbook. Input from head coach Frank Reich and position coaches, along with their roster evaluations, have also played vital roles. And yes, the playbook was built from the ground up. "The beginning for myself and the rest of the staff was really breaking everything down to build it back up," Brown said. "So building a brand-new offense from ground zero essentially based on what we've done before, both myself in my previous experiences from the Rams, but also in college as well. Then kind of blending together with what Frank has done, and guys in the room as well." Thomas Brown dives into the work behind creating all-new playbook

Unless you've got some Urban Meyer style dysfunction going on behind the scenes, you're not gonna know something like that in just one year. Plenty of coaches who turned out to be great got off to rough starts.

And that's an idea you're comfortable with?

Not saying he is. But we've seen a couple of would look to be questionable roster management choices this year. Heck, that was one of Ron Rivera's downfalls. Just hoping it's not a trend...