Khyber53

There was a bright spot or two before Cam as well.

He's a gentleman and a first class person all around. Sadly, things just wore down here and it was time for both to move on. I hope he has great success there, just not when he's coaching against us.

Always a big concern, but our 12 year-old is free of it and the bloodlines for the 18-month old should be clean as well. Still, you can never been 100 percent certain no matter how you try. Sadly, the breed has an average lifespan of 10 years. Big ol' dogs with big ol' hearts just don't live as long.

Oh and here's some info on the breed: https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/the-greater-swiss-mountain-dog/

Our show quality Greater Swiss Mountain Dog ran $3k last year for a female. We've picked up four best of breed ribbons and four first place owner/handler ribbons so far this autumn. The dog has excellent conformation and we knew the quality of her parents and breeder before the purchase. Ours is a rare breed so the gene pool isn't too large, making any genetic problems a real danger. (The breed was thought extinct at the turn of the 1900s but two males and two females were found on a farm in the backwaters of Switzerland about that time and they were able to rebuild the stock). With only about 3600 or so of the breed in the US, it's both easy and darned important to know where their breeding stock came from. Temperament is an important part of the breed, as it is in any breed. Swissies are farmer's dogs, big, strong (they were bred to pull carts for farmers who couldn't afford draft horses or mules) with a deep, rolling barooooooo bark. The breed dates back to the Roman legionnaire war dogs and are the parent stock of the Bernese and the Rottweiler. Though imposing, they're very friendly and non-aggressive, more of a sentry dog than a guard dog. They have a mild herding instinct and naturally lay across thresholds, probably as a corraling or stalling measure to assist farmers in animal handling. And on instinct, before buying a pitbull, if you've never owned one: Please consider what the breed was bred for. Those are fighting dogs, pure and simple. If they are purebred then that is very strong in their bloodlines and if this is a reputable breeder then you can be sure that the parents were well trained. The puppies don't come trained at all, so you will really need to be committed to working on curbing that fight/kill instinct in the dog. This isn't for the casual owner. Before anyone starts on the "pits have a bad, undeserved reputation" you have to realize that breeds breed true and traits were built into them selectively. Greyhounds run, coon hounds chase, beagles bark, border collies herd, terriers will chase rats and tear up toys -- this is in the very fibers of their beings. To curb those instincts takes a lot of hard work and diligence, and you'll never know for sure you've got it under your control. Please think before getting a pit bull.

The schedule ahead is tougher than the schedule behind. There's a lot of hope and optimism, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

And do we know this is a direct quote? Sorry, just don't know Sheena Quick. Is she a sideline reporter or just a Twitter entity? Just trying to establish her credibility. Also, if he was saying it as "say no more coach, I've got ya" then why is this even a thing?

This 100%.

Gonna say the jury is out on that one.

It was also said that before any decisions were made Rhule and Cam had a lengthy conversation by telephone to hash things out.

Yep. But he probably still has the brains to cash some serious paychecks next year, ones like you and I will never see the likes of. He gets those whether he's sitting on a couch or a bench. We might as well see if we can get something out of him because we sure won't get anything for him without it costing us even more. And we aren't getting that draft pick back either. I kept saying we should have taken Mac Jones instead but nobody was wanting to hear any of that. So now I've been trying to be the good guy and spent the season polishing this turd Fitterer and Rhule were so proud of.

You're right, but Fitterer and Rhule signed on for next season, too with $18.8 million that isn't going away, so we better be about finding a fix.

That's the perceived pressure thing. Honestly, he may just be shell shocked and can't shake it.

You can certainly make a case for that, but I think that more than anything else the issue comes to the forefront when he is under pressure or perceives pressure is imminent. How do you train him to become bombproof?

I don't think PJ will or should be retained. Let him roam. If we need him after training camp, his price might be reasonable. If not, perhaps he'll catch on somewhere else. And all back ups have issues of one sort or another. We know Sam's. We might be able to fix them in time or can at least plan around them.

No doubt cute worked. But you can't rely on cute forever.

We have trouble at times getting the right personnel on the field when we aren't switching out QBs and the plays they can work with. Let's not get cute with it. Put Cam in the driver's seat, hit the gas and move on down the highway.

I'll say that I think Sam, minus the salary, is what you look for in a back up QB. He's no threat to take over the locker room, he doesn't push your starting QB, he knows the playbook and the tendencies of the players involved. He had some games where he was successful and in an emergency he might be able to go with the game plan and hold his own. He doesn't belong as a starter, he gets rattled when the game is planned to exploit his weaknesses, he's had some injuries but nothing that knocks him out of the league. That pretty much sums up the second string QB on most teams. We're paying him already next season, no way around that. We can't realistically trade him without basically giving up more draft picks on top of the ones he's already cost us. Might as well let him ride the pine and be able to make use of him in a pinch while he hopefully gets better at film study and quits seeing ghosts. We may have to find a good starter next season, we sure don't want to have to look for a back-up as well while paying someone big bucks to sit at home.

Let's not count any chickens before they've hatched. WTF just beat the Bucs. MIA just beat the Ravens. Those supposedly bottom-end teams have serious defenses and coaches they will fight for. Our defense was spectacular last week and our offense, too. There was a lot of extra energy on hand for our side, and all we can do is hope it is still there. Washington will be tough. Let's just get through that first.

Dang. New guy is doing well, but Charlton was, too. No team has the luxury of carrying two punters, though. Good luck to him!

I don't think anyone ignored it. I think everyone decided not to get involved. That's how little togetherness there was on the team. The fanbase called Robby out.

They've said that or just speculating?

Yep, but that team leader has to be the not just the right person but the right position. On offense it has got to, got to, got to be the QB. If not, there's trouble. We ran into that this season -- Darnold wasn't that guy, it just wasn't in his makeup. CMC isn't that guy by nature, either. Then you get Robby Anderson throwing a fit on the sidelines and there's no one to step up and put him back in place. On defense, it's a bit more open, but generally your best position for it is at LB, bridging both the line and the DBs. Shaq has really stepped into that role fully now and it shows.

I think Rhule has always been worried that it would be Cam's team, not his, from the get go. And there's the thing about good coaching, errrr great coaching, in the NFL. The Patriots had always been Brady's team. The Steelers had always been Big Ben's team. The Seahawks are Wilson's team, the Chiefs are undoubtedly Mahome's guys. All of those teams have master level coaches and are always contenders. There's a subtle thing there about leadership and command, that in the best of situations the two can be different entities. All of those coaches empower their QBs to be the leader of the team. And when there's a question of "Who runs Bartertown" so to say, you can end up with a situation that we've seen twice in Green Bay, once when the organization let McCarthy go for Rodgers and this spring/summer when Rodgers laid down the law for them again. Both of those situations were tenuous and it's a marvel that they didn't explode in the franchise's faces. Or look at Houston and really see how bad it can get.

Rhule and Co. swallowed a lot of pride last week and brought Cam back. This was not their plan going into the season and probably wasn't even close to their radar screens before it was apparent that Darnold could NOT be sent out there again, because of injury. Let that sink in a bit. If Sam hadn't been hurt again and been obviously unable to play, we'd have trotted him out again against the Cardinals. On Monday evening after Sam's MRI, there must have been the start of a very difficult conversation that carried over into Tuesday and probably early Wednesday morning. On Thursday the decision was implemented, the appropriate calls had been made (including the most important one between Rhule and Cam) and a deal was very quickly signed. Whoever pushed for Rhule to accept the change and go after Cam did not just the right thing, but offered Rhule a second chance right then and there as well as a huge learning moment. Rhule was apparently wise enough to take it. Let's make no bones about it, had we kept going the direction the team was, Rhule's days were numbered here. Brady would probably be pushed onto his own sword first and then Rhule would follow... contract be damned. His desire to hold onto the idea of Darnold and Walker as QBs was not playing out and was killing the team and the fanbase. In the off season, Darnold had been a cute, smart gamble but when it quit paying out it put a lot of blood in the water. Any other advances made by the team were completely swallowed up by how bad the QB situation was. Gosh, even I wanted it to work out for Sam, but there was just no doubt in even the most ardent supporters minds that the kid was nowhere near starting QB capable -- those ghosts were real and they were running all through his house. He couldn't read the defense, he couldn't work with the line (which was atrocious) and he didn't have the leadership skills to make his linemen or receivers accountable for their mistakes. It was a train wreck, week after week. And through all this, Rhule may have learned one of the most important things that makes the NFL and college football different -- star power at the right position can elevate the entire team. On the defense we've seen Shaq Thompson's star rise along with the leadership he provides there (there's no doubt after seeing them play when he was out) -- he elevates that unit. On offense, there were some excellent players but there wasn't that person in charge who could bring the power levels up by force of personality and actions. Cam, whether he has a noodle arm or not, has three truckloads of charisma and a massive amount of experience putting that to use. So, now Matt Rhule may understand that mojo makes the difference in the right hands. And Rhule had to eat some crow to learn that. If he's the guy we thought he was, then Rhule will grow from this and become a better coach. Tough medicine to swallow, but it might just cure what ails us. Lord, I sure hope so.