kungfoodude

Agreed. I don't care as much about losing the next couple of seasons as much as I do becoming competitive. That's not nothing.

This is just Ball thing all over again. The dad is a nut but that doesn't mean all the kids will be nuts too. That is up to the various teams to do the appropriate deep dives and see what is hype and what will be real issues. Maybe Sanders is the same head case as his father but maybe he is also just going with the flow of what Colorado is doing and will adjust to the NFL just fine.

We are largely lacking winning culture but the lack of talent is still a massive issue. To be clear, that doesn't mean we don't have good talent. Our starting OL, for instance, is quite talented. Now, once you get into the backups, that comes apart very quickly. A prime example is the amount of bottom of the roster shuffle/dumpster diving we did prior to the season. That isn't the sign of a healthy roster, it's the sign of one that REALLY has major problems with depth. And....we definitely do. But, we have also had guys like The King of Pop step up in a major way, so it's not all a bag of dicks.

I fail to see how any of this changes anything, even if it is true. He is the billionaire owner of a team. Have the guys removed. Throwing a drink and then running is still a bitch move.

I mean....we definitely are the least talented team in the league. To be clear, that isn't implying that we don't have talent. We just have substantially less of it than anyone else. That's not a hard thing to really wrap your head around. Just fire up the last 4-5 offseasons worth of drafts and personnel moves. The evidence is all there. That is precisely how you end up with the least talent in the NFL. Now, on the positive side, some of our past offseasons personnel moves appear to be working out pretty well. If we can get something out of the draft, as well, it's a possible first step in pulling up from this roster nosedive.

It was them playing as bad as much as we were playing that good. We all know Minshew doesn't normally have a complete meltdown like that, for example. It shows how functionam we can be if given the right circumstances. I think that is an important thing to see, TBH. But we shouldn't be assuming this is the start of a 2015-ish run.

I am actually an outlier in that I am very wary of Hunter.

He looked very good in the Pac 12 although I did notice a little tendency to make throws you just won't be able to make at the NFL. Seems very confident in his arm, sometimes to a fault. As always, it will depend on his development. Not a guy I would be upset to end up with. Probably a guy I would be upset to see immediately start on the 2025 Panthers. If you can give me 1-2 years of Dalton with him riding the pine and getting up to speed, I am all in.

Agreed. The roster is bad. Don't throw another rookie at a bad team. Make the team good and figure out QB. I realize this is counter to conventional wisdom but having a bad overall football team is a LOT for any rookie/young QB to have to deal with.

I don't think it is as much about us/Dalton as it is Burrow/Chase/etc. Those are NFL centerpiece star players. They will obviously always get much more coverage. Look at the shift from our coverage once Bryce wasn't the focal point. He was the only guy on our roster that had anywhere close to national visibility and that is from college/#1 overall draft. It isn't anything he has done in the NFL.

The salary isn't the issue, the bonus money is. That's prorated signing bonus money that is long spent. The only trick allowed is spreading the hit over two years. That's what I am describing. The other option is absorbing a $22 mil cap hit immediately.

IDK if I really like him as a Round 1 talent. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't have the look of a stellar draft class so it's very likely he will end up as a top 20 pick, I am just not sure I would want him as a day 1 starter. I will have to catch some more Miami games this year to see.

Well it's not really that relevant if he sees the field again. That means Andy is likely hurt and the remaining options available to us at QB offer very little hope of being competitive either. That's just the scenario we would be in if Bryce was here or not. I am fine with trading him but in the offseason when it doesn't create a salary cap calamity that would now have to make our FO scramble like maniacs and possibly make bad contracts even worse. The medicine is in our mouths already, may as well just swallow it until the end of the season. The taste is going to be there regardless, and spitting it out likely means we are just going to get a future dose.

Yeah, I care more about how the team performs and if the game plans look sound. It's acknowledged that we dramatically lack talent(I know people get upset to hear this) but it is actually very true. We are a team lacking in overall talent. That will manifest itself several times this season, most likely. The sky will not fall if that is the case. It just is what it is.

Yes but he doesn't do that on the bench. Hence why your argument is basically completely invalid. If it had any validity to it, how did we win last Sunday?

I think this could be a very good game. The more I think about it, I just don't see our secondary being able to contain their WR's because Burrow is a dramatically superior QB to the Minshew in Bryce Young clothing version that we saw Sunday. I think our inability to consistently create pressure on Burrow will lead to issues defensively that we just aren't able to overcome. There are Asians in the Bengals armor, however. They do not run the ball well and they do not defend the run well. If we can control that aspect of the game, we might be able to force them to be fairly one dimensional. I am actually looking forward to this matchup.

Gunslingers always tote higher INT's. They gamble big. Hence the name.

There are always going to be guys on every team that you just know don't have the ability to be relied on. Usually backup guys but sometimes starters. That's usually just a morale issue and not truly toxic. Toxic would be any of the Josh Daniels stints or Brian Flores. Those are scenarios where people are actively sowing division or torpedoing morale intentionally. Bryce is not intentionally doing anything. He just isn't confident or capable of doing the job. So, with that, him just not being a starter essentially removes that. If he was actively toxic we would have lost against the Raiders because the morale was still ruined by his active negative presence. I have experienced all of this in various workplaces. If you have a co-worker that just sucks at their job, it can impact morale negatively because you know everyone else has to either carry their load or the team as a whole is at a reduced level of effectiveness because of the weakness created by them. Toxic is wholly different. That's someone(as an example) pitting co-workers against each other for any number of reasons and essentially actively and intentionally destroying morale for their own reasons. Bryce is not that latter thing.

And Jimmy ended up being a huge liability everywhere because he committed the unforgivable sin of a game manager all too often.....turn the ball over(TD:TO ratio close to 1:1) . And he usually did it at crippling times.

I don't think he is anything close to toxic. I think what you are seeing is just the fact that all of his teammates know he cannot do the job at the necessary level to win. So in that regard its demoralizing to watch him fail and the team suffer. That doesn't necessitate his immediate removal, especially when removing him means that some of his teammates will likely be leaving with him or having to enter into contract negotiations during an active season.

If you want to see a guy taking career shortening hits, watch Anthony Richardson. That guy gets DESTROYED at least once a game, often more. As a result, he has already had one concussion and a season ending injury. THAT is the classic example of a guy that has drastically too little awareness of avoiding punishment.

If you look at the game, he still leans gunslinger. It's just who he is. But he is a relatively low TO gunslinger. If you look at the QB school tape, you will remember those couple of dropped INT's from the Raiders game. It could have been a less stellar game if those guys make those plays.

Yeah, it's a take with a lot of nuance. Lots of personal definitions.

The only thing that goes away is his base salary, which is very small.

I would disagree on Brady/Brees/Marino. Those are elite guys because they were capable of elevating play around them on a consistent basis. That puts them out of the game manager category for me.