Khyber53

That last bit there, that's some masterful writing and insight.

Wilks really has an opportunity here and I hope he really is given a full opportunity. The more I've learned about him, the more I like him. Originally, I didn't want to see him as HC, but I've come around to think the opposite. I think you won't find a coach more committed to this team, the city and states it represents and the Keep Pounding mantra. I think he can give this team back its identity of being a scrappy, hardnosed team. I hope he can turn this around. I think he has a lot of the pieces he needs in place, but not all of them. QB is a big, big hurdle for us and he has to work with what we have in the building, because I'm not aware of an alternative out there waiting for a trade. If Wilks can somehow get five wins out of the schedule remaining, getting us to our best record in three years, then I think we'll know he should stay. Considering our first five games, doing this would be a miracle. Here's to hoping he can do it.

And his pro-QB record is...

Just because we've been screwed over badly does not mean we should go out looking for Hookers.

And that has been my problem, too. Baker has not been himself. I don't know if it's the prior injury or if his confidence was crushed during the whole DeShaun Watson ordeal (and really, what QB's confidence would come through all that crap intact?) or if we have such horrible coaching at the QB, OC and HC level that he never had a chance. I mean, there's no way anyone, even his detractors would have thought he'd be this bad. He's got a better line in front of him than we fielded last year (not just on paper, but on turf in truth). He's got two excellent receivers who can move the ball (DJ and CMC), some receivers he is familiar with and Robby Anderson who is good for one long sprint and catch per game. We don't have a TE for crap, but we didn't last season either. The guy has been demonstrably worse than Darnold was, and that's saying something that shouldn't make any sense whatsoever. What gives?

Trading away CMC doesn't make sense. Now letting Robby go, however, does. Robby is like what, our third biggest cap hit next season and he's like the what, fifth best receiver on the team? CMC is our best running back, our second best receiver, third best blocker and will consistently give you a big play in every freaking game if you just give him the ball. Hell, the guy might be the best QB on the team, we just haven't tried him there yet. Robby will give you two receptions, four dropped balls and an unintelligible tweet each week. Send him to Greed Bay.

He may well have found three halfway decent QBs here, four or five maybe. He just couldn't let them be who they could be. See, there's only room at the top for one guy and he didn't have the strength of character to let any of the be that guy. Can't develop a QB if you don't want to give that player some control. And that's why Cam was shown the door. Twice.

We get rid of our biggest problem and now it's time to sell of everything of worth??? Are you guys fuging crazy? This team is a coach and a QB away from being really competitive. We are poised to get both of those. Why do you want to set us back five years by having a fuging fire sale now?

I've said it before, but here we go again... You guys act like we can tank this season. Like we have a choice or something. There's a damn good chance we lose out from here. That's not tanking, it's getting our asses kicked.

We have to look at his competition for worst. Mayfield's body of work right now is about as bad as I've seen QB work in Carolina since Pickles or Weinke. But maybe the bad play from Mayfield is on Rhule. But so might the same excuse be there for Darnold. Let's face it, we aren't going to war next season with either of them leading the squad. Maybe one holds a clipboard here, maybe neither. But I say give Darnold a spin. Right now it can't hurt us any worse than we already are. If he's good, then heck we get a win to celebrate for once. If he stinks the joint up, then our draft pick will be higher. Win-win -- ish.

Hell, I believed Teddy back then and he was proven righht. Is Teddy a great QB? Nah, he's a helluva back-up, though. Could he have been a decent QB here? He almost was, but they made him wear boxing gloves. Teddy at least knew what he was doing and what should have been done. Coaching didn't and wouldn't back then.

It seems that to succeed at the college level, you have to build a culture that recruits for you, and with the better players you attract you can build a winner. There's just that much difference between the top and bottom players. If you hit the sweet spot at each level of the conferences, you can get some wins and make your mark. In the NFL, it's completely different since there are rules for parity throughout the system. Here, you've got to win first and the culture develops organically from there. Even when it comes to free agent recruitment, money and opportunity matter more than marketing does. I think that's where all of this points to: grabbing college coaches is just grabbing the wrong tool for the wrong job. We've just been treated to a case in point. Let's not do that again.

Some guys never really leave college. They're always a problem later on in the real world.

Sometimes you don't realize how toxic a relationship is until you get a bit of distance from it.

Well, it won't be pretty, whatever it is. It will be temporary, though. Strangely enough, I'm interested in seeing Darnold get back out there and give it a try eventually. He's no long term answer, by any stretch of the imagination, but after what we've been watching, he's got to be a bit better. Next year's QB room is going to be completely different. It has to be.

Never ever date your exes. He's a really great guy, but we need to find new pastures. I think we can all say that had he just stayed here, maybe things would have gotten better eventually, but that's just speculation. We need to move on and up, not revisit our past.

DC, let's start there.

Yeah, he was a revelation yesterday. That kid wanted to make the most of his opportunity and he sure as hell did. Not Steve Smith, Sr. first time touching the ball here level, but pretty spectacular just the same. We can start at the 50 any time and make that work. Keep it up!

Well, the outcome of that game was much better than it could have been. We're like a brand new team today. Sometimes it just takes a good ass whoopin' to get your priorities in line.

Alright, best thing to do when cleaning house is start with the big poo that is getting in everyone's way. Done and done.

Well, alright. That's over with. We move on.

Snow may stay until Rhule has his college coaching job. It's entirely possible that Rhule gets picked up quickly but stays with the staff already in place there for the rest of the season due to contract issues/player familiarity/recruiting. If that's the case, Snow could finish out the season here before joining Rhule in February to put together their coaching staff at the new gig.

We won't win with any of those. Folks have got to quit thinking that Wilks is a great coach. He's a really good positional coach, but as DC here he inherited McDermott's defense scheme and personnel and then he went on to the Cardinals and crashed. Any of the above will send us into a top 5 draft pick this year. I can't wait until we say that we won't pick until the bottom five of the first round of the draft.

You've got a new Brady jersey, don't you?