Khyber53

Kay Adams kinda made a huge mistake stepping away from Good Morning Football. Kinda nice to see she found something besides Draft King commercials.

We've been bad for what like five, six years now? And we've gotten demonstrably worse each year. Our brightest spot has been a fairly okay run by an interim coach that we chose not to hire. Folks, this ain't tanking. This is a franchise that is swirling around the drain. Where there was once the Destroyt Lions and the Cincinnati Bungles, we have become the Carolina Punthers. It ain't tanking if you don't have the choice but to suck.

Maybe the answer isn't what can we do to make Burns better, but could Burns be the thing that makes someone else better. Maybe he just isn't the lead edge rusher kind of guy, but works best as Edge2? It may be the thing his agent hopes that no one starts saying out loud.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner folks! He didn't marry her for her brains.

Oh, you are probably right. Not going to get an argument there. But there have been crazier things.

It's a bitter pill, but it's the truth.

Or we could see something magical happen like 2003. Or we could see more of the same. Whatever is going to happen, one thing is for sure, times with this much speculation aren't boring.

Having a dependable QB would really benefit Tremble, too.

It's the last gamble that another team will want him at that price tag for the season. I don't think we actually do, but we're willing to give it a try. Honestly, his trade value will remain high up to the early season trade deadline, so we might as well. I still think there's a suitor out there for him, but he didn't do himself much help with the season he just posted.

I really had a lot of hope for him, but he had a lot of struggles on and off the field I guess. Good luck to him in his future stops. Wish it would have been better here for both him and us.

Draft WRs and build them. In FA, the good ones, as well as the great ones, are incredibly expensive and sometimes risky investments. In FA, that's where I think we can make some waves at RB on the cheap.

The beginnings of A Tale of Two Cities keeps getting played out again and again in life, doesn't it? We should be worried that someday the rest of it will again, too. (In the book a rich noble's carriage runs over a little boy and rather than stopping, it goes on by with the nobleman tossing a few coins out onto the roadside.)

I like your thinking but honestly, I'd worry less about a FA WR2 and look at the rather large stock of quality FA RBs that are going to be available out there. The top two will get good money but there are others that are going to be looking at the need for a 1 year prove it contract. Snag the best of them and give us something. Chuba played well for us and Sanders, honestly, we're stuck paying him the money but let the guy's roster spot go to someone else. Screw it, the guy just sucked here last year. In the draft, this is going to sound harsh, but if there's a QB like Rattler available at 33 take it and compete for QB1 here. As much as I think Bryce got pretty well screwed by coaching, roster building and injuries along the O-line, he's still got more questions than answers. And screw the costs already sunk into the position... QB is important enough to just keep searching for the guy until we find him. If Bryce does prove it and wins the starting position again, Rattler (or whoever) can be developed as either trade bait or as a quality back up at rates that are cheaper than the going FA rates for one. O-line will be better next year if everyone gets back to being healthy. But what we need is depth. We need to scour the FA pools for interior and outside linemen and then pick up someone in the later rounds for added depth. Most O-line candidates wash out early, this is just a fact of the game and we are going to have to just invest knowing that most won't make the grade. But some will, and we may find just the right guy for a starting position -- We have three guys on the line that aren't really young and three guys who have had injury issues. We need to plan ahead for that. On defense, we need pressure. We need to decide whether Burns (if he stays) or Brown gets a top end running mate to push the pocket with. Are we going to be strongest inside or outside? And then we need to look at linebackers to match that decision. I hope we can retain Luvu, he's a foundation piece and I believe Shaq will be back with a vengeance (and at low costs for the next two years), but that third Will LB needs to be top end good. FA or draft, we need better than we've gotten. And no more grabbing "stars" at the end of their careers... we need to get guys who want to play not just snag a few more paychecks by flopping onto piles and calling them tackles. Our DBs need serious help, but ain't nobody got time for that or the money or the draft picks. We've got a kicker, we've got a punter, darned good ones, too. And maybe JJ Jansen will be willing to come back for another season. Lose him and those darned good kickers and punters are going to suffer. poo man, it's going to take a miracle around here.

Well said and wise.

I just hope that they were asking the right question.

We'll know for sure by about week 3 of the regular season. If he's no better, then we should go ahead and start looking at who we will get with a high draft pick that we will "earn" and hopefully still get to use. And we could, of course, all be going "Wow, he was worth it" by week 3, too.

I think you're 100% right. It was a total clusterfug of a season and it started in coaching, management and ownership, then it was made worse by injuries.

Shingles first shot didn't bother me at all. I wheeled in for that second thinking I was in the clear. The next day I thought they needed to declare another nationwide pandemic shut down. Woof that was something.

I'm sorry. I don't have much confidence in him and his decision making. The guy was a berserker as a player and injured his own team mates by choice at times. Total meat head. You can put a suit on him, but I haven't seen anything yet that makes me think he's John Lynch.

Yeah, that O-line was terrible last season but it was also operating without both of its starting guards. Also, just about every good LT (and RT) goes through a tough second season. It's just an amazing learning curve and the physical wear and tear is rough. Tie that in with a weaker line due to injuries, a rookie QB and a coaching staff that is operating under job-security paranoia and well, dang man, who could do well there. I think he can make it and make it at LT. But we have to let him grow into the role. And let's pray that we can install a blocking scheme they can work with. We really didn't have one to speak of last year. It was just ACK! Help! Splat!

Icky hit the inevitable sophomore slump this past season. I think, with new and good coaching, he will excel at the position. If BC can come back and work beside him, we should see some improvement from that as well. Corbett coming back should shore up the other side of the line and I think we are fine at center and RT. Good coaching and better play design will help a lot. And I think we're deeper now than we were before along the line. We need receivers more than anything. And someone to design plays that doesn't send three receivers to the same spot on the field. Or guys who can stretch the defense. Or stand up to being jammed at the line. Or who will fight for a ball. Adam Theilin needs to be an asset to the offense, not the whole darned thing.

The draft picks underperformed across the board, some massively underperformed. Add in the terrible, ill-advised trade and it was epically bad. After it was done, we should have gotten hand-written thank you notes from the other 31 teams.

What the heck would make someone want to do that?

Honestly, set him free if there's not a trade partner if he doesn't sign a team-friendly deal that is more appropriate to his performance levels. A guy that is playing not to get hurt is pretty much just here to cash checks and well, we've had enough of that over the years. His stats don't warrant this much attention or such a big chunk of the salary cap. I like the guy and was amazed at how he played here at first. Then when the negotiations started, well, he just went all Meh. He says he still loves us, but man, he hasn't bought us flowers in a loooong time, yanno? If he doesn't want to be here, let him go, get the comp pick and write it off. No one year deals, no overblown contracts, just let him go. It's sad but true, there are edge players coming out of colleges every year and some of them can get both 8 sacks a season AND play defense against the run. He's a good player, but he isn't a HoF player, so let's quit treating him like he is.