Khyber53

Maybe not, but give me a guy who runs up the hill at the end of training camp practices and encourages his team mates to do the same. We need that guy again.

Thanks for the post on this. More than anything, I'm really beginning to like the 33rd Team -- good takes without the call-in-talkshow kind of reporting. And yeah, I think they went a little light on Rhule. They did remind us of the reputation that brought him here, but were also smart enough to remind us that this isn't Kansas (or Waco, TX) anymore, Toto. I hope he can pull off the miracle season and that the last two were just the adjustment period. If he is going to be the magician, though, he's got to know he's no longer playing Indian Reservation casino lounges and he's now center stage on Penn & Teller's Fool Us.

I sure hope everything works great this season and we have one for the record books. Please excuse me while I don't hold my breath for it, though. I've been disappointed so badly over the last couple of years that I'm going to have to see massive improvement before believing they've arrived. Show me and I'll cheer like never before.

Lot of gigantic QB contracts given out over the last couple of years, with buttloads of guaranteed money. You know some of them will not pan out just from the law of averages. This is how great teams go back into the bottom echelons and bad teams get even worse. I think the Murray one here is one of those that will crash and burn. Talk about jumping off of bridges because everyone else is doing it...

Haven't we seen recently that the ability to make money and the ability to lead don't always go hand in hand? Ego trumps understanding and that can be a very bad thing.

You're trying to imply something here.

We must have watched entirely different Panthers games last season. The dude had hands of stone, ran meh routes and was more than happy to throw others under the bus rather than take responsibility.

I just want to see which coach has their team better prepared.

I just might need to clarify. I want to see Brady at LG and Icky at LT. From the start and through the end of the season. Icky was picked to be LT, let him be it.

It doesn't take much to replace butterfingers Robby. He's a WR2 here, he's camp fodder elsewhere.

Just jettison Robby.

Let's take Brady and work him at LG. Let Icky learn the pro job at the position he was picked for. Apparently, Brady was picked for guard as much as anything. If those two can solidify that left side and be competitive there, then we've got our line set for the coming years. And more than anything, I hope we've found out center finally and that he earns a good four to five year contract with us that we'll all be happy about. If you have a line good enough to give one of our QBs some room to work and some muscle for CMC and Chuba to run behind, then we're ready to roll. All our defense needs to do at that point is slow down the opponents. It worked for the Colts throughout Peyton Manning's time there, same for most of the Patriots teams. If we have to win our games 41-38 week after week, it sure would be a lot of fun.

Now if they can all look that good come December and January, we'll be in business.

Rich people... sheesh. Am I right?

Well, we've just got to prove them wrong somehow. Rhule has backed himself into this corner, can he fight his way out? If so, he'll rightly deserve the praise and adulation he'll get -- I'll be first in line to say I've been wrong. If he can't, well, that's kind of what we are all expecting to happen anyway. But as I said when Rivera was canned, the answer we will get might well be worse than the problem we are losing.

I hope we have a few guys on their end of the season version of this list.

If you knew who this guy was, raise your hand.

Sounds like he drew the short straw and had to come up with a new way to bash Baker. Dude is our QB now. Arm strength certainly hasn't been his problem. I think coaching and team karma has been his problem. I hope it works out here and he just makes everyone sit up and take notice. I want to see him earn back all of that incentive money and really make a point of his opportunity here. And I want him to start it off against Cleveland in week one.

Cam had that kind of passion and it left him on the sidelines brooding with a towel over his head at times. When he channeled and controlled it, though, he had a historic season and took us to the pinnacle of the sport. It's a maturation thing and it happens when a hero finds out that they are mortal. I think Cam found it in that truck wreck. Maybe Baker found it in the Deshaun Watson/Cleveland train wreck. I hope he finds that maturity and strength that Cam did. It could be quite magical to see that again.

Well, there we go! And something to look forward to!

Does anyone know if Matt Ioannidis is good against the run? Sorry, I just haven't got much of a look at him before. If so, that'd be great.

This was probably the nicest anyone's going to write about us before the first of the year -- thanks Bucky, we appreciate it. Still, I'm not optimistic and I'm tired of being that way. I just something to believe in with this team.

On second listen, either it hasn't aged well, or maybe I haven't. Still, worth a spin.

Check out The Ambient Collection by The Art of Noise. Old, old album, but it was really good back in its day.

Doing your own demo, if you aren't a skilled carpenter, can suddenly become frikkin' expensive.