Khyber53

If I had even the slightest bit of confidence in team management and ownership, I'd be looking at a glass half full. Instead I'm looking at a poorly lidded sippy cup knocked onto the good carpet and grape juice is staining the hell out of the rug. None of these guys were ready for the job they have been given.

It's a fair argument. Three wins in the last 10 years. Eight playoff wins, including a Super Bowl, for his career. And since 2007, his team has only missed the playoffs twice. In a league built on parity, his legacy is pretty darned good. Our fanbase would kill for that kind of record.

That should tell us all we need to know. And that was, oh yeah, when Tomlin had all those losing seasons. Oh, I forgot, he still has never had a losing season in his entire career. And Tepper has four in a row... Tomlin is going to go down as one of the great NFL coaches, first ballot HoF guy and one of the pillars of the league. And I am certainly not a Steelers fan, but that guy is one of the best ever and in the top three of this generation. Maybe top two.

You make a lot of sense. I'm still going to be mad about this for a long time. And yeah, I hope CMC has a great career there and gets a ring. Not as revenge, but because he's a dynamite player and seemed like just a great guy and teammate the entire time he was here.

We didn't just give up an RB. We gave up our best running back. We gave up our best receiver. We gave up the only guy we have who can block behind the line in pass protection. We gave up the only sharp offensive tool in our toolbox that could be counted on for next year. We gave up the guy that was producing basically 2/3 of our offense. And the best pick we got for it is at the level where we picked Terrace Marshall, Jr. and Yetur Gross-Matos. Woot woot, Fitterer the genius strikes again.

Wonder if Tepper will get out one of his old Steelers jerseys. I get the feeling the other owners of the Steelers were happy to see him go.

So, let's see... we need a good HC, OC and DC, plus positional coaches, trainers and medical staff. We need a QB, desperately. We need a WR1/2. We need a TE. Oh, and now we need to replace a RB who made up 75% of our offensive yardage. That'll be easy. (And our back-ups are barely back-up quality... no one waiting in the wings). We need a new team owner. And for fug sake, let's get a new GM because this guy is a certified sucker who can't judge talent. Oh and he thought Robbie Anderson was worth millions upon millions of dollars. Yeah, the rebuild. I'm so frikkin' expecting this to work.

fug this. And fug Fitterer and his "in on every deal" bullshit idiocy. And I wouldn't piss on Tepper if he was on fire.

If our QB would throw a 10-yards-in-the-air pass more than twice a game, maybe we could see some better stats out of DJ. It's not him.

He'll get a shot. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. He could come back and win five games and he's still not our answer at the position. The next coach and gm will get to make the choice of who our QB is. At this point I'd be amazed if any of the three starters we'll have fielded by the time Darnold takes the field will be with the team next spring. Corral and Eason may be our two most experienced guys in the QB room. And that'd still be an improvement.

You're exactly right. Look at what the Giants are doing this year. Had we jettisoned Rhule last season, I think we'd have probably been sitting here with the current Giant's coaching staff in a much lighter shade of blue than they are wearing now. Our personnel aren't that different, but the coaching is miles apart.

Honestly, there are ways to fix Shaq's contract. What we can't easily do is replace Shaq's ability and leadership. One thing we have to look at, when it comes to on field performance, is that Shaq has been hybrid played since Snow got here. Even as a MLB, Shaq spends most of his time dropping into coverage as part of Snow's Wonderbread-soft defensive scheme. He's pretty good at it, but he's also great against the run. He can't do both on every play, but you'd oftentimes see him in coverage and then having to mop up against the rushing attack. Part of that is scheme and part of that is that Snow relied on scheme more than he relied on situational decision making. Injuries to DBs over the last couple of seasons have made that even worse and pulled him more and more away from the line. Shaq's greatest strengths lie in speed and tackling ability. When positioned properly, or allowed to roam a bit, he is great at run stops behind the line. He can just get skinny when he needs to and break through. The guy is actually a good pass rusher, too, but that has been de-emphasized since Rhule came to Carolina. Lastly, look at the cast of characters he's had around him in the LB group. He is the ONLY continuity we've had there in three years. Luvu came in last season but was used only situationally that first year. Linebackers hunt as a pack, so to say, and that group instinct just hasn't been there. Of course, we haven't had Luke and Thomas Davis back there with him... oh what I'd give to have that trio back. Wow. I think they should work with Shaq to restructure his deal. The guy has been a stand-up team player and leader since he got here. He'll make the move and stay hometown. If he is made to go, though, we're not going to find an easy replacement and our defense will fall apart like our offense has.

Can we now talk about Robbie being a total idiot without being called a racist? It's not about how he speaks or posts, although those would make me wonder about the college education he received. It's not about not knowing that Sir Purr wasn't a bear. It's more about the whole body of work. He was, and is, an idiot in full bloom. And like with the dismissal of Rhule and Snow, the team is experiencing addition by subtraction right now.

As a guy who said we should have drafted Jones, and then this past spring said we should draft Zappe... I think that we could do well with either of them. Both have incredible processing speed and good arms. Now that we have Rhule out of the way, we might be able to actually develop a QB, so if one of those guys does need to find a new home, I wouldn't feel bad about it. My choice of the two would be to take Zappe and let him and Corral work for the starting gig, mostly because I think we could get Zappe for a better deal. Either, though, would be a boost here.

Sure, we can make the team better by getting rid of the leader on defense, short-changing the only decent WR we have and how about we jettison CMC, too? There are other ways to skin this cat and better ways for sure. We just got rid of 138 lbs of dead weight in Robbie Anderson. That's a start. But we can't just gut the team of good, experienced players and expect to compete again in the next four years. We have a core now, heck we even have two good lines. Our linebackers show some promise. Our DBs can be very good, if they can stay healthy. We have one really good WR and some pedestrian ones. We have one of the most dynamic RBs in the league and some solid back-ups behind him. We don't have a QB, we need a TE, a WR2 (Chinnault might be that guy, tho) and a good slot guy who isn't wearing #22. We've got an ace punter and two good kickers. We need a new coaching staff, better front office people who are more savvy than suckers and better medical trainers.

74.5% of our offense in the last game. Dude, he isn't just the best player, he may be the only player we have. Give him up and we've got what to build around? What tools do we have on hand to entice a decent new coach? Do you think we can just draft another guy who can run, catch and block, knows the entire route tree and gives 100% on every freaking play whether he's being sent up the middle, playing slot receiver or blocking blitzers? Really, man.

Every player on every team in every game on every play has a chance to be injured. You can't play the game and be worried about that. Also, his injuries were not long-term debilitating ones or wear and tear ones. I both seasons where he was shut down, there was absolutely no reason to bring him back as both were already lost causes.

How about we keep him and you morons quit trying to trade away players we will need next year. I don't want to see us go into yet another frigging three year rebuild effort. Our team is short a QB and a coaching staff IF we do NOT trade away all of our best players. How do you not get this??? And when has our GM really done well with trades?

You're 100% right.

Bet it's quieter in the weight room.

Should have done this last year. Should have done all of this last year. Goodbye Sideshow Bob. Try not to get kicked off of a third terrible team, man.

Yeah, he's going to have to spend his money on that. I think he's shot the public funding in the foot with his previous two forays. Rich people... they really hope you have short memories.

A team that fired its coach on Monday, was down to its fourth string QB, had lost three major defensive starters to injury before the game, had fired its DC, traveled across the country and played the defending Super Bowl champs (who desperately needed a win) in their home stadium. It went about like you'd expect it to. Oh, except that we had a fight/argument break out on the sidelines between a starting WR and his position coach that ended up with the receiver being sent to the showers in the third quarter. So, Mrs. Lincoln, everything considered, how was the play?

Truth. A hard truth, but true just the same. Dorsey had to learn how to minimize those faults and then maximize the immense number of talents Cam had. It worked beautifully for a while, but neither the plan, nor the man, could withstand it over time.

The trick is determining which of the good young coaches are the real deal, long term capable guys and which are just the flavor of the month. Once upon a time, Rhule was that hot candidate.