kungfoodude

With Tampa, all they really have to do is wait for him to hit free agency if they had any real interest. Why pay so much for a guy that you will have to re-sign and you can probably get for nickels on a "prove it" deal?

Yeah, I wondered if that was just pure BS, though. You can't expect him to get up and gut his guys this early in the offseason. That's a mid-season Rhule move.

Very interesting indeed. I honestly would have guessed the reverse scenario. IMO, if this move does happen and Rhule is anti-Baker(which we also don't 100% know is true) it is the first concrete indication that Rhule has lost final personnel decision power. That would be a huge shift.

Are they having outdoor activities in 100+ heat? Seems a little unwise.

I know one thing that I have been concerned about pretty steadily is the youth of our team and building such a bad culture. I hope we aren't bringing up a bunch of "core" guys that have no clue how to win because they rarely ever do it. I think it's probably easier with a veteran team for most of them to compartmentalize that kind of stuff because they have the experience as NFL professionals. But a lot of these core guys really only know losing. I do wonder about that long term. Will we eventually get someone in here that can instill winning culture?

Do we have a quote on that? I was very curious about how that broke down.

Pretty much my thoughts, as long as we don't trade anything more than a 5th rounder for him. I am fully aware of the anti-Baker contingent and why they don't want him. At this point, I don't care about the future of the position nor do I care about the future cap implications since we have an idiot running the show. As a fan, I just want something interesting. At least Baker Mayfield starting would genuinely be something interesting to see again. Honestly, minus that and maybe seeing if we landed a franchise LT.....there is absolutely ZERO interesting things about our current roster. It's all been seen before and in disastrous fashion. I just want to watch something to make me have passing interest.

I think the difference will be who is beating the war drums for Mayfield. Sam was a Snow/Rhule thing, so I imagine that was why we blew our load so early. Seems like when Rhule fixated on a move, we make it quickly. Which, he is the GM, so I suppose it should work like that.

I think just losing is bad for the locket room. I don't doubt that many of the players in that locker room are well aware that Sam Darnold is incapable of being an NFL QB but I am not sure how quickly I would jump to "locker room killer." It's possible that is the case but perhaps the locker room morale isn't nearly as bad as the fan morale.

Yeah, no doubt. I am just curious if people think that was a fluke thing or we will start getting antsy again this season.

Eh....talks don't mean a deal is imminent. This sounds like a battle of who blinks first on their offer.

No but it does fit the mold of flailing about with roster moves to try and salvage something.

This was a big thing last season as we attempted to bolster the defense after a couple of injuries early in the year. Apparently we fully believed this was going to be a playoff run. Will this happen this year? Will it be dependent on early season results?

Not sure how much lower we can go without being subterranean.

As someone who was beating the drum for getting rid of Teddy and was not a believer in him when we signed him.......I immediately regretted getting rid of him when we traded for Darnold. What I will NEVER forget is the people last offseason that tried to convince themselves that Darnold was a better move than Stafford(yes this did really happen in the Huddle).

I don't think Cam is gonna bite on it this time.

I mean.....that appears to be the Matt Rhule strategy too.

A lot of those first three games was smoke and mirrors, TBH. It didn't take long for opponents to figure out what we were doing and proceed to dominate us for almost the entire remainder of the season. Sam starting would be a disaster for us(the fans) because the chances of winning consistently will likely be small. But, on the positive side, Rhule should be shown the door relatively quickly in the offseason. Well.....I hope. If we have another disaster season and we keep Rhule.....it's time to start protesting at the stadium.

I have my doubts about that. Statistically he has struggled the most with a clean pocket.

Yeah, my guess is he is looking for one last cash grab, so I don't know if he will get it here. I will be generally perturbed if it is in the 8 figures range of pay for a single season. $6-9 mil for one year is fine with me.

In fairness, this does sound similar to our offseason last year in bolstering the DL that netted mixed results. Even with Dunlap being added, I would be pretty surprised to see us field an elite DL in 2022. A modest improvement would be nice and should be the minimum expectation.

Well it is much more understandable than that. He knows he is on the hot seat and could get fired. So he doesn't REALLY care about the future if he isn't in it. Dunlap is a short term boost for the team and it definitely will improve the defense. Will he be around for this "7 year plan?" Absolutely not.

Better at this point in his career than Allen was.

It's not about putting the defense on his back. We literally lack pass rushers. TBH, Dunlap would probably be our best all-around DE if he signed with us. I don't want to see a long term or high priced deal but he would immediately make our defense better.

FTFY