Khyber53

Every season there's an NFL team that comes out of nowhere (to everyone but their diehard fans) and makes a huge leap forward. There's no reason it couldn't be us this time around. Every season there's also a team that inexplicably collapses at the halfway point. I don't see us as being that team. So, I'm optimistic that in a crippled NFCSouth, we somehow pull out enough wins to take the division. Beyond that, well, there's no way I can predict a win there right now. I think we are poised for better days, just we aren't fully there yet.

Freshman 15.

Look, until we prove otherwise, it is going to be us in the bottom tier. And honestly, all of the "theys" have as much chance of being right as the "we"s do. We could roll into this season and set the league on fire. It could be a replay of 2003 when a gritty team of overachievers just out tough everyone and a QB starts playing like no one could have imagined from him at that time. Or we could see our undersized rookie QB get splattered in the first game, our lack of receivers kill us, have a non-existent running game and all find out that Indianapolis' collapse was Reich's fault. We just have no way of knowing what kind of season we will be having. And that's why they play the games. And it's not just us. Any team can have any kind of story going into this year. There's no reason the Bears won't be great and there's no reason that the Chiefs can't collapse. Me, I can't wait to see that first official, real game.

The climb will be epic. Just watch.

There's a lot of inexperienced or new guys that make up the rest of the offense... might not be the smartest thing for us to outpace them all with the new QB. Just sayin'.

It's only a matter of time before the NFL runs into a huge scandal with betting. I wish they had never gotten involved with it, much less fallen so in love with it and the easy money. I guess that's how all gambling stories start off.

If Baldinger says it, it's gotta be true. He's the best player evaluator in football media, hands down.

Built with tax dollars stadium.

That's great!!!! I hope you have amazing success! And my wife and I are looking to add a term life insurance policy in the near future! Maybe we can give you a call then!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, having a star wide receiver can be more of a problem than a gift. Our two prior Super Bowl runs we didn't go into those seasons with star receivers. In 2003 we had a sturdy Mushin Mohamed who wasn't lighting the league on fire, some slow white dude cast off from the Greatest Show on Turf and some little punk that was a punt returner and a fight risk. They changed the league's opinion pretty fast. In 2015, we lost our "star" receiver Kelvin Benjamin in training camp and our lone "big name" receiver was Ted "Feet of Lightning/Hands of Stone" Ginn, Jr. and a cast of whos? Of course, we could be looking at Moose, Ricky and Smitty v. 2.0 in TMJ, Thielen and Mingo. That sure would be nice!

They're more optimistic in their endorsement than I am, but I can't argue with their logic except for the take on our secondary -- a lot of that is going to depend on if Jaycee Horn can get and stay healthy. Let's face it, though, it has been a looooooong time since there was any real optimism here, from the fanbase to the national coverage. It could take us a while to get used to it. I'm willing to try.

Wouldn't it be amazing for him to just burst onto the scene this year as the sack monster no one predicted for 2023??

We're kinda becoming the Legion of Broken here... c'mon Jaycee, get better and stay healthy!!!

Yep, just my annual gripe about the slow season.

So many rumors, so little real news.

Sure, feel free to buy them one. Let's just not use tax payer dollars on it. Let's have the ultra wealthy actually pay for their own sh!t for a change.

And here's the latest. We really do appreciate the views!

Yanno what? Good luck to him! I had high hopes for him when he got here. I sure don't mind dusting those off and having them again. I hope he does us proud.

A YouTube channel with 542 subscribers is praising one of our free agent pick ups. Okay. I guess that's good, but it's not like the hot story on ESPN's flagship show. Got to start somewhere I guess.

I don't mind not having soccer one bit. But that sport was probably meant to be played on grass, too.

We need to follow the Panthers North team, if they can grow grass up there then we sure as heck can do it down here. The change here was a terrible idea. Football is meant to be played on real grass and dirt.

Well, he'll just have to do it again, or better. But let's face it, we're a small market team that had a dead man walking as a head coach, then an interim head coach and what had been a mushy soft defense for a couple of years. No one was really looking at our defensive players at all. Hopefully this will be a sit up and take notice year for the NFL when it comes to our defense. We need, desperately, to regain the strength and reputation that we've had in the past. And there's only one way to do it and that's with INTs, sacks and giving busted lips and black eyes to our opponents. We, as a team, need to play the whole season like the first hit Thomas Davis would put on Jimmy Graham every time we'd play the Saints. He'd just knock the dogwater out of him and Graham would play scared the rest of the game. You could see him flinch every time Davis would make a quick move in his direction. We've got to be like that every game this season.

True, very true.

He's right, we spend way too much time obsessing over ever single moment of OTAs and practices and stuff. There's just way too much media out there right now and honestly it's ruining the game. Everything is so under the microscope anymore and there are soooo many pundits that it's easy to forget about the game itself. I realized that during the week, I'll spend more time watching football coverage and conversation than I actually spend watching the games. I'm not sure that's healthy for the sport (much less for myself) and for the fanbase. And honestly, I'm getting kinda creeped out by the overly enthusiastic man crushes people develop over players, even newly minted rookies. I think we're losing perspective.

They said Big Ben was a meathead, too and couldn't move up from college and make it. Somehow the big lunk did. (And I still think he's a meathead.)