Khyber53

What I want to see is which players aren't going down with the losing culture. Those who are phoning it in get exposed and those who try should be obvious. A new management team and coaching staff needs to know who those people are. And the only way to do that is to try and win games, at least from an interim coaching standpoint. As for us fans, I just don't know. I'll watch the games because that's what I do, but I can't ask anyone else to do it.

Now if he was showing a willingness to tackle in the run game... but no one is really doing that.

Considering his performance, we will give him $35 million a year. Because we do stupid things here of lates. Brian Burns quit trying after the trade deadline passed. And it wasn't like he was trying real hard to do much before that. The best we can do with Burns is wait for a compensatory pick when he goes elsewhere unless he suddenly finds a desire to play really hard for the team.

This has been the "Hold my beer" moment for fuging up a professional football team. The whole thing reads like a Will Farrell movie script that no one wants to make or see.

Look, we're like the ninth best football team in North Carolina. That's something, right?

Indeed.

Oh, I agree. That's the way it is supposed to work. But here, the owner seems to be very, very inserted into the chain of command further down than is practical. It's just a mess. And in our case, maybe it would be better if someone at least familiar with football makes the GM decision.

This is very likely the exact situation. If a head coaching candidate is that big of a get, Tepper will jettison Fitterer and let the coach be involved in selecting someone to work with. That could be a good thing or a disastrous thing, depending on the dynamic that develops. Retaining Fitterer and his staff including the scouting departments, though, will continue to be a disastrous thing down the road.

Done!

If Fitterer is still in the GM position, it won't matter who we snag. No coach can work with an organization that can't evaluate players.

Run blocking, there's the difference right there. Get back to a run heavy game plans. Let the maulers maul, otherwise its just a set of turnstiles outside of a kindercare facility. And use Blackshear as the RB2 instead of Sanders. He's just too small to ever provide any protection for Bryce. He's actually smaller than Bryce. Sheesh.

Yeah, it wasn't a high bar to clear but he did.

There's no way at all to evaluate Bryce in what we've seen since he came to the pros. There may be a small chance to see him perform a bit during the interim. Whether the kid is good or not, we're stuck with him for the foreseeable future. Still, if Eberflaus can make that division II son of an armwrestler look halfway decent out there, a good coach can get something out of what Bryce should bring to the table. Can't make him taller, but maybe at least take his feet out of those cement overshoes that Reich was saddling him with. Just remember, neither Reich nor McCown had any history of successfully developing a QB. Reich went through them like crazy at Indianapolis (including some blue chippers on their last legs) and McCown's prior coaching credentials were at the high school level. Their years of experience as NFL QBs was given massive credence with little attention paid to the fact that both spent most of their time riding the pine. I keep looking at the hiring a lot like I look at our drafting... our GM and owner are more apt to listen to hype from agents than they are to seek out the wise counsel of good scouts and personnel men. Maybe, like we did last year, the team will luck into someone who can get something out of this collection of losers we've become. And hopefully, if it should somehow happen, we won't be stupid and let the solid candidate go.

Never.

I still think that the Reich hiring and the assembling of a monstrously large, all-star coaching staff was one of those Dream Team attempts that is just doomed to fail. There were just too many voices at the table, too many names, too many reputations, perhaps even too many factions. The team, offense and defense, just played like a collection of players instead of one team. There was no cohesiveness, no sense of shared purpose, no identity, no immediacy. All of which points to the famous "too many cooks in the kitchen" set up. I get the feeling that Reich never got to put him plan in actual place, and there's a really good chance that he never really developed a plan in the short time between his firing and his hiring. There was nothing really built there and then it came down to a committee approach with the most lackluster results imagineable. Reich, in the later news conferences, looked like a weathered, worn out Dad at the end of a five day family road trip. What had seemed like the dream vacation had become a migraine-inflected nightmare.

That's all we need, another Frikkin' Yankee coming down here to "fix" things for us. Honestly, why would Belichick come here where the cupboard is bare when he will most likely have his pick of QBs in the upcoming draft since none of the other contenders for the crapfest award will need a new QB. And honestly, as bad as his team has been for the last couple of years, they have more key players in place than we do. Bill's not going anywhere and we look as attractive to him as fully awake colonoscopy.

With the personnel we have, the defense dictates what our offense does more than our coaches do. We're just that bad.

Trevor Lawrence. And on the quarterbacking prowess of Reich and McCown we have to remember that both of them had long careers as journeymen back-ups. This wasn't Marino and Favre. Both guys spent a lot of time on the bench and if they were your starting QBs, your team had some major problems. They were good men to hold a clip board and see you through a short, short spell, but neither one lit the fields on fire out there. And Reich's tenure as QB here was even shorter than his tenure as a coach. Just saying their resumes look great on paper but neither one had a whole lot of win in them. Modest skill sets, good at learning systems, non-threatening back ups. In their heydays, Jake Delhomme would have taken their jobs away from them. Not suggesting Jake as coach, though. Although the pressers sure would be interesting.

Our QBs couldn't play and our running backs couldn't run. Seems like the coaches for those two rightfully lost their jobs.

Honestly, we need a Head Coach on the defense side of the equation. One who can pick a competent OC and QB coach, then stay out of their way. Our identity is a stout defense and a punishing running game. Get back to that and they can open up a world of opportunities for Young or whoever we install behind that dotted line we have.

I don't disagre with you at all.

I am going to say this: Frank Reich is a good man and outside of football I think he's admirable. Honestly, he should have taken a year off between head coaching assignments and retooled his philosophy. And maybe, just maybe, he was a heck of an OC and QB coach, but just hit his ceiling back then. I wish him the best in his future endeavors, but man, it was obvious that this was not working out with him here.

Me, too. And obviously, unquestionably, without a doubt, blindman find it in the dark good. Like heralded by the trumpets of angels good. But, like when we fired Rivera and hired Rhule, then fired Rhule and hired Reich, I'm going in with this caveat: "What we get may be worse than what we jettisoned." I was right about that when we let Rivera go. And again after Rhule (and who in the world would have thought that, not me even). Let me be wrong this time, let me be wrong! Please.

Honestly, I don't know. We could be both surprised and angered by who we pick up. And I don't think Belichick is going to be free (not that I want him). I think Belichick is doing the most covert tank job of all time so he can have pick number 2 in the draft AND get the QB he wants.

Honestly, if I'm a young coach, I'm going in with the understanding that this can make or break me and that any HC opportunity I will ever get (barring a HC retiring) will be with a wounded or floundering organization. If I'm an experienced HC looking for another crack at the big time, I'd move in with some caution, realizing that almost no one gets a third HCing shot in the NFL. I'm also looking at those high dollar coaching contracts Tepper has given out and how he's still paying for them even after they are gone. Maybe I can make it work out and get some serious concessions, or I can wipe my tears away with hundred dollar bills. Coaches, particularly those with the drive to get to the NFL, will leap into the lion's mouth for a shot. It's built in their DNA; if it wasn't, they wouldn't be head coaching candidates. Look at Campbell moving into Detroit and Payton heading to Denver... both ran into trainwrecks of teams and organizations. Opportunity or a truck load of money, whatever it takes, the temptations are there.