kungfoodude

Yeah, this is all projections of how it will turn out. Inevitability this list will look ridiculous in a full 2025 sesson hindsight, most likely. Still, I am pretty surprised that so many bristled at being thought of as having very, very lowly ranked WR and TE units. We literally have been for years. All you have to do is just have things stay the same and those are immediately bottom 5 units. It is easy to see why one would be reticent to have lofty expectations in the preseason. Gotta show it first when you are a perennial cellar dweller. That's just life at the bottom.

That's fine but you are just ignoring his logic behind because you just simply don't like it. That's your prerogative, certainly, but it doesn't invalidate his perspective. I would say if you weight the groups similarly to how he does, it's very hard to justify us being outside the bottom 5. On paper our WR group is easily bottom 3 in the NFL and our TE groups is probably bottom 5 too. As good as our RB corps is, for a "weighted towards WR" ranking of WR/TE/RB groups, it's very hard to justify anything outside the bottom 5. I don't see any reason to dispute it at all. These guys have to go out on the field and prove they are better than that. Nothing special about that scenario for a boatload if very unproven players. It just is what it is.

I am not gonna subscribe but I just plain don't believe we have had many offers.

I don't believe this at all.

His PPG actually did go up a little in Colorado. We will see. I still sort of believe we saw pretty close to the peak of his abilities last year. Not wishing him ill or trashing him in any way. Just tend to believe we did sell high and correctly so.

Well, other teams also had an offseason. I honestly agree with him. Right now I have way more faith in Coker ascending then I do XL. I think it's the TE/WR group dragging us down. Plus he does mention that the list was made with WR's very much valued more than RB's and TE's(I understand the thought process). In that context, we have a very aging AT, two "wait and see" second year players(one leaning bust) and a rookie. I really think this is a very fair rating, on paper and in the offseason. Quite frankly, aside from the aforementioned and aging AT, this is a bunch of guys still trying to prove themselves. Then when you go to TE, it's easily a bottom 3-4 unit on paper. That is probably being extremely generous. RB is where we make our hay. Probably a top 5-10 unit. But....he mentions early in the article that he doesn't value the RB units as much. So, really, it's the weighting of the skill positions that is what really fugs us.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/45679684/ranking-nfl-teams-wr-te-rb-groups-2025-season-best-players-playmakers-offense

Necas is great to watch but I firmly believe we were correct to sell high. I would be very surprised to ever see him come close to the clip he was scoring at during his time here last season.

Trading KK is still probably a tall order. He has a no trade list and even with the cap going up, not many are going to want his salary for the minimal returns he offers. Ideally, he had a "breakout" year early this season and then we can sell high like we did with Necas.

I agree. Blake seems like the classic Cane type of player. He is one I would be very reticent to part with at the moment.

Gustavsson would be insane. I think we would have to break the bank to afford that move. Which, I don't think is necessarily a bad idea. Ultimately, Freddie isn't likely to be around more than a couple of seasons more. We can all agree that unless they have a fleet of sports psychologists working on Kochetkov, he will never be capable of getting his head on straight enough to compete.

Watch them hire some even bigger buffoon.

I think a lot depends on health and if T-Mac pulls targets away from him. Hopefully, we can get both T-Mac and Sanders cooking. If AT doesn't drop off, that would make for some potentially formidable receiving threats.

Okay, so I can say it a little more nicely that he was "barely productive in his rookie season." There is zero comparison between these players accomplishments in their rookie years. Quite frankly, given what we have seen from XL so far we would all be very lucky for him to end up as a top 15 WR in franchise history. Cam's talent was very evident, significantly less so for XL. It's obvious that he is an athlete and very much less so that he is a football player. Don't get me wrong, I am not rooting against him because that doesn't help us at all. The pick is already spent for better or worse. I am just firmly in the camp that doesn't really think he will pan out. I also think he will firmly be entrenched as the 3rd or 4th option by the end of this upcoming season. Hope he proves me wrong.

He leans goon/enforcer, which we haven't had in a minute. I do like that.

Oooh. I hadn't been updated on that.

He's a lil fella. But, he is a Rod/Cane guy for sure.

You know Burns already re-signed, right?

I mean....Little Monster, maybe.

I will say that the past 2-3 offseasons have been pretty confounding and/or underwhelming and they turned out pretty well. I will withhold a lot of judgement for that reason but....I don't love it.

He is 1,000,000% actively seeking it. He is playing into it intensely and it is about as obvious as any social media Insta/Tikta ho. Again, I will stop having issues with this once he starts not looking like a complete bust. Once that happens, I will defend him intensely when he is attacked about his dumb shenanigans. Same as I did Cam. I only get annoyed because he isn't cutting it as a football player. IDGAF about the off the field stuff.

I think that a lot of the star players just aren't interested in playing hard all game, playing both ends of the ice and also coming to NC. For the offensive players, I think them not being "featured" offensive guys is an issue too. So, yes, it's partly a system problem but I think it does largely have to do with the players more than Rod.

I think we are struggling to really attract guys.

I generally believe that XL is less genuine with his schtick than Cam was. But, I know neither at a personal level, so I have no way to truly know. I know that if Sam Darnold or Matt Corrall was doing all the poo Cam did on/off the field and getting XL level coverage, I would be pretty over it too. Not saying I have any issue with XL's antics but Cam's production outweighed the sideshow that he was. Currently XL is 98% sideshow and 2% production.

He is an underwhelming player on a cheap rookie deal. The type of clauses you are talking about would be something to discuss if he ever panned out and signed a large second contract. Otherwise, nothing to see here other than someone building their "brand." Someone will eventually have to explain to me how this guy, who is not productive at all on the field, gets all this adulation for his oddball off field/on field antics and schtick but Cam got absolutely pilloried for his oddball antics while being arguably the best player in franchise history.