Khyber53

Best of the world to him from here. Definitely a guy who never gave up on himself and gave his best for everyone who gave him a chance. Glad he spent some time with us.

I think that the Head Coach's duties during a game are to keep tempo up, handle issues that have arisen on the unit that is off the field, to manage the brakes/gas/clutch juggling and to cheerlead the players. An offensive coordinator, sitting in the sky box with an all-field from above view should be calling plays with some guidance from the HC. Canales can lead men but he has trouble delegating and, more importantly, he can become too timid. We need an OC who attacks and exploits. Not someone standing on the sidelines trying to juggle geese AND get plays in on time.

Brentson Buckner (who had a talent of grabbing and holding two O-linemen simultaneously without getting called for it -- just masterful), the vastly underappreciated Mike Rucker, the Principal Al Wallace and a fantastic supporting cast behind them... That was a helluva defensive team.

Of course, having Julius Peppers makes a colossal difference in that situation. If only...

We pretty much rely on Derek Brown to wreck their offensive line single-handedly in hopes someone makes it through. We are also terrified of being historically bad against the run, again.

Man, that AFC North is just a mess right now. Three out of four teams jettisoned their head coach. If the Bengals can't make some serious headway this next season, then he'll be gone, too. I'm not sure I've ever seen so much turnover in one division in a season before!

I agree with this, wholeheartedly. Bryce tantalizingly has his moments, even his games. This past Saturday was one of those. He really became the Mouse that Roared after the team fell behind and the o-line started collapsing. And, in truth, I think had the play calling been better at the end, he might well have brought us back into another lead change. Talk about a legendary moment just missed. I'm going to get lambasted for this but as a cautionary tale, I want to just say we're sitting at a spot that the San Diego Chargers were way back in the day. They had a short-ish QB on a rebuilding team that was underwhelming most games, but had some really good moments. They decided instead to take a gamble on drafting someone new and letting that QB, Drew Brees, go find someone more willing to let him develop. They turned around and had a draft debacle with Eli Manning/Phillip Rivers, ending up with Rivers in the end. We've got to remember that Brees wasn't who he would become at that time, it would take a coach willing to open up the offense and give the tough young kid a chance to grow. Rivers would become the poster child for the guy who almost was. Brees will get a gold jacket someday to go with the Saints only Superbowl win. Bryce probably isn't Brees, only one guy was and he barely got the chance to be him. Giving Bryce another season, maybe two, on squad gives us the luxury of testing the waters and the growth. QBs early in their careers take time. We saw Rogers last night at the end of his career (maybe), sputtering out before he heads to the barn for his spot in the HoF and we have to remember him at his best, after sitting on the bench for three years. And we have to look at the other side of that coin last night, CJ Stroud, a draft classmate of Bryce's who soared out of the gates but who has come to earth since. He's still a good QB with a long runway ahead of him, but his performance under the big spotlight wasn't as strong as Bryce's on this particular weekend. I'm not 100 percent sure Bryce will be the guy. I'd like to see some more fire in the young man, some push, something that shows he can force his will on the other team's defense. I am, however, seeing a kid that can make the throws, who can improvise and who amazingly can run braver and faster than I really thought he could. I think he needs time, he needs more confidence and he needs more brave coaching. If he doesn't get that here, I think he might find it elsewhere. And we'd find ourselves like the Spanos family, sitting on the couch in February asking Phillip Rivers to pass the chips during the Super Bowl commercial breaks year after year.

Rico got an opportunity here and he really made the most of it. For a few weeks there he was rightfully the talk of the league. There's a very good chance he is going to get a nice, not great, contract out there from some team. And don't be surprised if Johnathon Brooks can't answer the bell and Rico is still out there, that we don't offer a modest two year contract to Rico. He's a really good guy, great team guy and when he's on, he's a force to be reckoned with.

Young man, be the change you wish to see. Want more effective pass rushing? Then become an unstoppable force. Work on your technique, work on your strength, study your opponents, excel at practice and practice longer and harder than your opponents and teammates do. Otherwise, don't complain from the bench.

We're beating the teams we have no right beating and losing to the teams we should beat. For a team on the mend, that is a much better situation than it looks like. We have the potential, where we're failing is on the basics. Another offseason working on that and a summer camp reinforcing it will help a lot. Filling in some holes in free agency and the draft will be massive, too. It's something different around here. We aren't in free fall anymore. We're building something.

I'm not looking at any of those as a good choice. Willis is a pass and Jones will probably get a contract offer in Indy (and should). Now, work out a trade for Mac Jones and I might be intrigued. The two best QB factories right now are SF and LARams. Grab someone from their benches and you get a quality guy from a prior high draft that might be reaching their potential. Everything else is a crap shoot at best.

A team should always be putting at least one or two draft picks in at tackle and guard each season. Those guys just don't last nearly long enough and those that do get very, very expensive. In our situation, we need a little more time to see what the Icky injury works itself out to. Njiman performed really well out there and if this injury lingers into the next season, then he might do well enough there to hold the line for the team. Or we could draft early if there is a stud LOT in the draft when our spot comes along. Honestly, we may be looking at replacing both LT and RT this season at this point. Moton is getting long in the tooth and while he deserves a shot to go for a playoff run with this team, I don't know whether we will really see him come back next season yet. It's still so darned early in all of this to say.

Actually, that depth on the line... I was impressed how they showed up after Icky went down AND Hunt had to come out of the game for a while. We may have a pretty decent line for next season, whether Moton decides to play another year or not. Cade Mays at Center helps a lot.

If in June you said we'd have hosted a home playoff game and had four lead changes in the final quarter of that game vs the mighty Rams, but just lost by 3 in the end... I'd have thought you were smoking crack. The guys did better than any of us expected this season. They've set the bar high for themselves next season. I ain't mad. And Bryce played like he deserved to be there. Still not sure why we didn't keep pushing those slant routes at the end there with the success we'd been having with them and three timeouts in our pocket. Oh well, coach and company have grown a lot this year, and they've got some more to grow on.

Bad weather, big rain. Brings it down to luck and the running games. Slugfest in the trenches. That gives us our best chance.

Not gonna lie, I'd be all for it. MM was leading the pack in new coaching ideas and I think it was injuries that derailed everything for him, not his coaching. That and there had developed a few bad lockerroom guys.

2003 was just magical. The Cardiac Cats were something else and it was the ultimate underdog story again and again and again throughout that season. There was no give up in those guys. I still can't stand Belichick and Brady and you can't convince me that they hadn't been cheating and stealing our signals before that game. 2015 was just a steamroller year, but as it wore on and our celebrations each game got more raucous and unsportsmanlike, I just knew Karma was hovering around, waiting to strike. We came into that game like we had already been crowned as champs, acting like fools, wearing masks in interviews and sadly, got just embarrassed by a decent, not great, team headed by Peyton Manning on his last legs. Karma is a b!tch.

100 percent the key to the game, just like last time. Edit to add: Oh yeah, and playing outdoors on a wet field, possibly in heavy rain conditions. Sometimes your only chance is to drag the other guy down into the mud and grapple him.

Can't argue with you there.

Maybe getting a big receiver out there that can be seen over the o-line might change that a bit...

I really, really agree with this. Why do you have a big, athletic guy with reach competing with the sidelines when he could do a better job in the center of the field or running the opposite seam to the TE?

Harbaugh will end up in Miami. While they have a decent foundation for the team, they are in a newly resetting division that will feature pushover Jets twice a season. And then the biggest unspoken factor... tax benefits from living in Florida. There's no state income tax there. Tennessee is the same, but they've got a massive amount of work for a rebuild.

Good to see merit winning out here. Maybe XL roars back or finds him a place in the third WR spot. He's got some serious competition for it though with Horn, Jr. and Tremayne. And you can't tell me that David Moore doesn't know how to fight and compete for a roster spot. Work, man. Woulda been easier for him out of the gate rather than here at the end of the season.

Yep.

This 100 percent. Think of the Packers during the Brett Favre era as well. They kept drafting guys to sit behind him and learn from their system and Brett, too. What they did was they created not just qualified backups, but a farm system where they traded well trained QBs that smart GMs traded for as starters rather than risking it all on a high draft pick. I hope Bryce wins out this season because I'll never go against whatever brings wins to our team. Even if he does, though, there should be a QB in the wings, learning and ready to roll out at a moment's notice, whether for our team or someone else's.