Mr. Scot

Possible. Either way, if Tepper comes out of this looking like a bad faith negotiator, it complicates any future requests he might try to make for public money.

To talk about me... (rent free in his head) See, our friend here has been told he's in danger of getting banned for spamming the same bullsh-t into every thread (Tepper this, Tepper that, dumb questions, unsupported statements, claims about reporters, etc) yet he still continues. Even stated recently that he feels like it's his mission to defend David Tepper on this board (as if Tepper would give a sh-t). I've told him before how he can tone it down and not get himself banned, but he doesn't choose to listen.

Doesn't stop him from ignoring it

Still all speculation at this point, of course. The Browns have been reported by more than one source as not being interested in releasing Mayfield. Of course, you know how these things go.

And here you said you were going to ignore me. Knew you couldn't

I'm saying the statement you keep quoting doesn't imply blame. It just says what ultimately happened. You want to take it to mean that they blame Tepper less than they do Rock Hill. That's not true. They blame both. It is however true that based on what I've seen, they're not implying the city of Rock Hill committed a crime. Misappropriation of government funds can quite possibly be considered criminal, and that's what they're saying David Tepper's construction company did.

Oy

That's a statement of ultimate result, not blame. This however... The lawsuit alleges that Appaloosa Management, LP, DT Sports Holding, LLC, and Tepper Sports Holding Inc., misappropriated $21 million of public funding on the failed project. The suit states the money was specifically allocated for road expansion related to the project but that "rather than covering the ballooning project budget themselves, the Tepper defendants took money from York County and its taxpayers." ...is a statement of blame. Misappropriation of government funds is no joke.

It's definitely possible there may be some things in this saga that Tepper would rather not see the light of day. If it becomes likely that they will, that's where things get really interesting.

I don't hate Matt Rhule. Don't really think anybody else does either (or at least not most). But as has been said many times, thinking that someone isn't qualified for or isn't very good at a certain job isn't "hate".

Those two things are kinda related...

Definitely feels like it's gonna be interesting.

On the free agency front... 2021 = Fitterer / Rhule 2022 = Fitterer / Morgan / Rhule That's where I see the difference. As mentioned earlier, Morgan has a strong pro personnrl background whereas Fitterer has really only been a college scouting guy.

Cool Have there been reports of locker room dysfunction, though? Can't say I've seen anything like that.

To be fair, that's an extremely difficult thing to judge when they're not in pads.

Hell, Nick Saban was technically a failed NFL coach and look at him now. So was Pete Carroll at one point.

In what capacity (if you don't mind my asking)?

It's how they built it, though. They emphasized speed and filled the ranks with mostly undersized players. Then once teams realized they could run on us, we had no answer.

The roster isn't what scares me. I like (mostly) what we've done with it over the last two years. The coaching is what concerns me, specifically the head coaching. And I'll add while I get that Phil Snow is a popular guy, I don't think he's that good. His schemes pretty clearly got figured out last year and he wasn't able to adjust.

This is kind of a key factor to me. I feel like Fitterer Year One almost has to be judged differently than Fitterer Year Two, with the reason being the full offseason presence of Dan Morgan. Nearly all of Fitterer's personnel experience has been in college scouting. He's talked about "dabbling" in the pro side, but I don't think it's his forté. Morgan on the other hand has plenty of pro scouting experience. And I'm hoping it shows in our acquisitions this offseason. As I've said many times, I believe Fitterer and Morgan's complementary skill sets could make a great combo for us. If Morgan gets a GM job elsewhere though, I'm hoping the next Assistant GM has a similarly strong pro personnel background so we can keep that balance intact.

Same. I have a lot of positive feelings about what I've seen so far but at this point we're still judging off of a single offseason. And yeah, the fact that he doesn't have final say on the roster makes it harder to judge. Basically I feel like he's going to be a good GM, and I think he and Morgan will make a great combo as long as they stay together. But...it is still early.

Rhule is much better suited to coach at the college level. His personality, coaching techniques and "king of everything" persona work much better at that level. Some guys are just better suited to work with college age kids than professionals.

You're nowhere near as important as you like to think you are, dude

I have never given a flying damn about stats, and that's not changed. Stats are frequently misleading and can be twisted to mean something they don't. What I care about are wins. But hey, if you like stats, here's one. The defense you say was "improving" gave up nearly 300 points (283, to be exact) over the last eleven games of the season. That includes 25 to the awful Giants, 33 to the mediocre Dolphins, 29 to the lowly Falcons and 73 to the Buccaneers over two games. Does that kind of performance really inspire confidence? Our defense last season feasted on some bad teams early but absolutely got figured out and fell apart as the year went on. Bottom Line: That statistical ranking doesn't mean sh-t if it doesn't translate to points prevented and games won.

Did you look it up? And seriously, what does it matter if you hold teams to fewer yards if they still outscore you? Which of those would you want our defense to have: Fewer yards gained or fewer points scored against them? They don't determine who wins the game by who gave up fewer yards.