BrianS

Wilks has been a great story, no doubt. He's done what good defensive coaches do. He steadied the ship. We no longer look lost. Yea, he got a crap deal in AZ. He chose to take the job. He could just as easily have declined, especially given the circumstances. But that doesn't make him our long term answer. I have no confidence in his ability to take us to the next level. Specifically in his ability to identify, attract and retain the offensive coaching talent that is required to have a competitive team in this day and age.

Garbage time in this case is being classified as having either less than 20% chance of winning or greater than 80% chance of winning. Effectively when the game is out of reach for either team. It's a completely pointless stat. It could exclude drives in the second quarter of games for example if you happen to be down (or up) by 21 points. In the NFL, when it comes to defense, there is really only one stat that matters: Scoring. We are middle of the pack right now in that category, 13th. Somewhat interestingly, we are a top 10 defense at home, and a bottom 5 defense away from home. This feels about right to me. We have some pieces, but we need to put them together. We also need an offense that can give a good defense some time to rest. We're doing better lately.

Buyer beware: Reich as an OC has exactly one season of success: 2017 with the Eagles when Carson Wentz played out of his mind. His other three seasons as an OC his teams ranked 17, 26, 16 in scoring offense.

Robbie has more drops than catches in AZ.

Agree. We've got a bunch of "For the feels!" fans here who want Wilkes to continue, but I don't think that's the way to fix the franchise. We need a new staff. If the new HC wants to interview existing staff for roles going forward, by all means, interview them. I think Campen has been incredible for the franchise for instance.

Based on what? Hope? The Seahawks and the Lions are teams we don't match up to well. Yes, those teams have leaky defenses, but they score. A lot. The Bucs and Saints are divisional games, away from home. One of them is against Brady, who isn't "excellent" this year, but he's still Tom Brady. Leaving . . . the Steelers. Those guys own us historically (we're 1-6 vs Pittsburgh). Pickett is starting to figure it out. Whether you're a tank proponent or not, the fact is we are a bad team. We are far more likely to lose 4 of 5 than win that many.

No. Wilkes should not get the full time gig. He cannot fix the real problems here. For a couple reasons. First off, defensive coaches are great to steady the ship and establish an identity. Occasionally they will catch lightning in a bottle and put together a great run. Overall there are many, many solid defensive coaches. You can find tons of them. Dom freaking Capers is still a quality NFL defensive mind. Defense is easy to find and fix on the coaching side. Secondly, if you want to succeed in the NFL today, you need a head coach who has a highly successful offensive background. Not because you "need" that, but because if you bring in a coordinator who has any sort of success, he'll be gone in a year or two to be a head coach elsewhere. If you want to sustain, your HC needs to be the offensive guy. NFL teams are very in tune with this. When you look at the guys who are being sought out for HC gigs, how many of them are "offensive" and how many are "defensive"? It's just the way the league has gone. Wilkes seems like a great guy, a great story. I'm not saying he shouldn't be part of the staff. Set aside all the feels. The best way to have long term, sustainable success is to identify a quality offensive mind and make him your head coach.

He should be in the conversation. I don't think he should win it. Neither of those statements change the fact that the guy looks like exactly what we needed. This sort of trajectory and we could have our next Jordan Gross. Having that position looking solid changes SO MUCH about our offseason.

And yet, we have identical records since that SB. 39-58.

And none of those names are people I'd take over the guy we already have.

Kinda. A better example might be to look at the Browns history of drafting 1st round QB's over the last 25 years or so. They've drafted Baker Mayfield, Johnny Manziel, Brandon Weeden, Brady Quinn and Tim Couch. Statistically speaking, they should have "hit" on a couple of those. Heck, look at their picks in other rounds over that time period: Dishone Kizer, Cody Kessler, Colt McCoy, Charlie Frye, Luke McCown and Spergon Wynne. I mean, come on! Just sheer dumb luck at some point should have gone their way. But it didn't. This is where coaching and organizational quality come into play. The truth is that some of those guys probably were "good not great" QB's. Unfortunately, the overall situation in Cleveland doomed them. QB is the hardest position in professional sports to play. It's the hardest position in professional sports to predict. It doesn't invalidate the general statistical trend. Generally speaking, if you want the best opportunity for the most advantageous outcome you need to draft your QB in the first round. Generally speaking, having a pick toward the top of the draft is more important since the league has placed such an emphasis on offense in recent history. It's pushed teams to select QB's earlier in the draft since the difference between having a good QB and not having one can't be as easily overcome in the league today.

Statistically speaking, QB's selected in the first round hit at a rate of about 50%. Which isn't wonderful . . . until you consider that QB's selected in every other round hit at a rate of about 10%. Coaching and system play a huge role in this, yes, but the delta between round 1 and all other rounds is so high that you simply can't ignore it.

On waivers. I strongly suspect that had he cleared waivers, other teams would have gone in. It's been widely speculated that the Rams put in the claim specifically to block him from going to the 49ers. With the Rams position in the waiver order, no one else was going to have a shot.

Our next coach MUST have a proven record of developing a QB. There is no more important trait in the league today. I saw it earlier in the thread somewhere, the idea that there are three classes of QB's: Great ones, who will be great anywhere. Bad ones, who will be bad anywhere. And the much larger middle group of QB's who can be anything from terrible to terrific based on the coaching situation they fall in to. We need to be sure we get that coaching RIGHT. It gives us a much higher chance of succeeding at QB, and therefore in the league as a whole.

I hope we don't continue with Darnold. There are far too many options hitting FA this year. Brady, Garoppolo, Jones, Brissett, Smith, Jackson, Dalton, White, Minshew . . . etc. Yes, we need to draft a guy we believe in, but there is no reason we can't come up with something better to fill the gap.

They drafted Malik Willis, the guy with potentially the most upside in the draft. They sat him behind a competent veteran who is painfully familiar with maturing as a player in the NFL. The Titans have never had a losing season under Robinson. He fired the coach who gave the Titans their first back to back winning seasons since 2007 and hired the guy who took them to the AFC Championship where Mahomes finally ended their season. Look at the QB's who have knocked them out since 2016: Brady, Mahomes, Jackson, Burrow. That's like murderers row of QB's.

Baker wasn't good here. In fact, he was at his all time worst. He has to own that. Rhule did not put Baker into an offense tailored to his skill set. He - along with his "rockstar" OC - has to own that. Our offense has been historically awful since the start of the Rhule era. Is it QB? Is it coach? I'd say it was both. Trying to place full blame on either is pointless.

Because of the contract they gave him. They are stuck with him until 2026 at least - and that still gets them 31 million in dead money. The contract was 161 million guaranteed.

I don't see it on McKee. He's running an RPO offense out there, and he's "ok". He definitely doesn't have a lot of help around him, but he's not mobile AT ALL. Get him off his spot and he's not very effective. His decision making is also a bit on the slow side. We already have a young QB from an RPO background on our roster. McKee looks like a less twitchy, slower version of Matt Corrall.

The problem with the tweet is that it assumes that everyone accepts these things listed as "luck". I'm not sure that's the case. Opponent dropped interceptions - Are your receivers contesting these? Good teams have receivers who do it and coaches who teach it. Is your QB just throwing too many to the other guys, creating excess opportunities? Bad QB's do this. Either of these can skew such a stat to show that you're "unlucky". Opponent dropped passes - are your DB's in tight coverage making the catches contested? Good coaching and DB's heavily affect this stat. I'm not talking about pass break ups here, that's different. But just being in close proximity to a receiver can force mistakes. And that's not luck. Opponent kicks - Hey, here's a thought, don't let them get in a position to attempt the kicks. Good defenses do this. As a team, we are 20th in the league in number of FG attempts against per game. As a team, we are 21st in the league in TD's allowed per game. Overall, we're 17th in scoring defense. That seems about right. But it isn't luck. Fumble recoveries - While statistically speaking, fumble recoveries are a coin flip, there are other factors. Are you creating a lot of fumbles on defense? That's coaching and execution. Remember the impact of Charles Tillman here? Not luck. What about ball security on offense, do we have players who fumble more often than they should? Not luck. Awareness and coaching can affect this as well. This is the closest thing to luck on there, but it's not a slam dunk.

Being the "best" of this sorry group is nothing to write home about, nor is it anything that should guarantee a paycheck in 2023.

The guy is not wrong. Ravens are 2-4 this season when opponents score more than 20 points. Ravens are very inconsistent on offense. Now that's not all on Jackson, but if the Ravens put him on the books for 250 million what makes anyone believe the team will become MORE consistent? You just lost all your ability to sign vets, so you're depending on your drafted players on first contracts. The absolute definition of inconsistent.

Defensive coaches are a dime a dozen. Wilks is that. The landscape is littered with Steve Wilks caliber defensive coaches. Dom Capers is still coaching for heavens sake! In this league, creating and keeping an offensive identity is far more important than defense. The only way to do that is to make sure your head coach is the one who is bringing that identity. You need an offensive minded coach to set you up for long term success.

We don't have to give up ANY picks for Lamar Jackson. He's an unrestricted free agent after this season. However, I also don't think we should pay him. I think the QB market has finally reached a tipping point. Teams are starting to see what happens when you commit too much of your cap to a QB. The impending retirements of Rodgers, Brady, Wilson, etc are going to open up the playoffs to a number of teams with only "good" QB's. We've spent a lot of seasons now with some generational QB's in the league. Seems like we may be entering a patch where there aren't very many, if any, truly generational QB's in the NFL. And frankly, it will probably make things more interesting.

Think of it this way . . . if Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes suddenly became Panthers . . . how good would our offense look?