BrianS

Is it possible we get to the playoffs next year? Yes, it's possible. There are some requirements. The main one is that the entire staff is removed and replaced with an actual NFL coaching staff. Given the events of today, do you see that happening? Yea, me either. If I can do that math, you can bet your (*&@ Cam Newton can do that math too. Cam Newton doesn't like winning. Nope. That's not even enough to describe him. Cam Newton despises losing. That's his motivation. It's not winning. And to see this team as anything less than a perennial loser with this staff in place is breaking out your old college beer goggles, your rose tinted glasses and dropping some LSD.

Sam Darnold? I wanna know why we continue to employ PJ Walker. There are 1000 PJ Walker's out there. At least Darnold was drafted. More than one team thought he might be good one day.

I wish someone had followed up that answer by asking "And your standards aren't as high as Cam's?"

Good numbers, love it. This is why I hate PSL's. It totally separates the team's on field success from it's ticket sales. Who cares if we win? We sold our tickets, we get our TV money, sheer inflation increases the value of the franchise. Winning is irrelevant.

Gase was very nearly .500 with the Dolphins. 23-25 overall. Rhule would need to go 13-4 next year to catch up in wins, and would still have a lower winning percentage.

These go to 11.

Where was this?

Better way to say it: Cam played 252 snaps, was involved in 9 TD's, or 1 TD every 28 snaps. Sam played 771 snaps, was involved in 14 TD's, or 1 TD every 55 snaps. Effectively, half as often. As a frame of reference, Dak Prescott led the top scoring offense in the league this year. He was involved in 1 TD every 27.947 snaps. Cam had no training camp. No offseason. No time to learn the playbook. No time to develop timing with WR's. What do the analytics say Matt?

So Miami fires a coach with two straight winning seasons, while playing the Patriots and Bills twice each season. I get that they also played the Jets, but still. Two straight winning seasons out of three seasons coached for a team that hasn't done that since 2002-2003. Fired. But Rhule remains. SMH.

I hear ya, but I can't quite reach ya. Rhule's sole year of NFL experience was as . . . an offensive line coach. The one job he seems to have bungled the most this year is the one he himself has the most pro experience with. When you start telling the press that your potential LT can't play there because his arms are too short . . . and then that guy drops three of the best grades on your team that season at the position? We can beat around the bush all we like, but it seems that every decision made on the offensive side of the ball this year has been the worst case scenario. It makes you wonder how at fault Joe Brady actually was.

"Deonte Brown isn't ready." I don't know what his grades looked like. He only played a few series. I noticed him twice. On the 4th down where Sam tried to sneak it left? Yea, Deonte moved his man back. Might not have gotten in the end zone, but he definitely got enough for a first. And then this time: The guy NOT getting pushed back into Sam's lap? Yea, that's Deonte again. Again, haven't seen his grades, he didn't play a bunch . . . but are you (*$@ing kidding me?

That's it? One QB who never progressed as a passer past what he accomplished in his first season? That's what it takes to be a good QB coach? Your standards for "good" seem far too low. Frankly, he's terrible. Cam's greatness came largely from Cam up until Norv and Scott showed up, by which time there were only 8 games left before his career effectively ended. Come on man, this isn't even remotely controversial. Shula is terrible.

Based on what evidence is he "not bad at all" as a QB coach? As a QB coach he's worked with Jay Fiedler, David Garrard and Cam Newton. He never fixed Cam's mechanical issues, despite being the guy with the best opportunity to do so. The other two guys were the definition of JAG's. Mike Shula is a name. That's all.

Believe it or not, if the Saints get in it's going to be on their defense. They currently have the #4 scoring defense in the league. Their failures this year are 100% on the offensive side of the ball. If they had a typical Saints offense this year, they'd probably be favorites to win it all.

Not sure if I agree regarding Chuba. I hear this a lot and I just shake my head. Now, I do agree that Chuba will never be a bruiser of a runner. If that's what we want, no, he won't be that. But we could easily look at him the day we drafted him and see that he wasn't that guy. With runners you need to take the line into consideration. We know ours is bad. The question is, how bad and how much does it affect our perception of our runners. I can answer it, at least partially. Chuba averages 1.6 yards before contact, and overall averages 3.46 yards per carry. This is, as expected, on the low end. Now, let's say that Chuba was running behind the Minnesota line. Dalvin Cook went over 1000 yards this year. They were good, not exceptional, but good. Cook averages 2.6 yards before contact and 4.6 yards per carry overall. Do you see where this is going? If Chuba got 2.6 yards before contact, he'd be averaging 4.4 yards per carry and we'd be looking at him in a completely different way. Maybe not as a high end back, but probably as a VERY serviceable runner with the ability to break one if the blocking actually, you know, blocks sometimes. The other thing about Chuba is that he does have that big play in him. If we had a line that could block and allow him to make that cut farther down field, he'd probably break a few for us. I'm not saying he's CMC or Joe Mixon or Jonathan Taylor. But he's not what we often make him out to be. The difference between the pass game and the run game is that in the pass game the QB can go to a hot read and get the ball out quickly if the line can't hold up. Well, a good QB can anyway, no comment on Darnold. But in the run game, you are completely dependent upon your line to make the play work. If they don't block it right, the play is generally going to be bad.

In isolation, it does not. Saying that we give up very low yards is all well and good. But it's not the story. If your defense is allowing 60 yards a game, but giving up 30+ points, how is that relevant? As I showed . . . somewhere in this thread . . . our defense has definite signs of life. The problem is that they are put in awful positions. Some of that bleeds into yards allowed. It's sickening how many times we give our opponents the ball with less than 60 yards of field left to our goal line. The stat is here, somewhere, but our defense is faced with the worst field position of any defense in the league. However, that can make "yards allowed" look good, when in fact it isn't. Our defense doesn't give up as much yardage, because there isn't as much to give. Rhule clearly hasn't learned to value field position. The result of field position is forcing the opposing offense to run more plays in order to get in scoring position. It's more chances for your defense to make a play, or for the opposing offense to make a mistake. Yards allowed means nothing in isolation. It can reinforce or undermine the value of other stats, but in and of itself yards allowed isn't terribly relevant. In the case of the Panthers, yards allowed, along with other stats, shows that there is a problem with other facets of the team. We give up very low yardage per drive, very low yards per play. But yet we're 19th in scoring defense. And that's the stat that actually matters. Don't believe it? No problem, here you go with more stats. This year, 11 playoff teams are locked in right now. Of those 11 teams, exactly ZERO of them rank below us in points allowed per game. Of the top 15 defenses in football, do you know how many have been eliminated? TWO. There are seven teams still on the bubble. How many of them have worse scoring defense than us, do you think? Only three. Of those three, only one control their own destiny. Scoring defense is the stat that matters. Yards are only helpful in identifying strengths and weaknesses.

Patriots - Bucs.

Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, Seattle, Denver . . . pretty much every team not named New England?

YES! If it wasn't luck, then top 10 QB's would always be All-Pros, right? Jameis Winston threw for 40 TD's and 10 INT's his freshman year at Florida State. He was the number one overall draft pick. Here's a little bit from a pre-draft evaluation: Yea, all those things people thought they knew about him as a QB? Nope, they knew nothing. Marcus Mariota played three years of college football, threw 105 TD's to 14 INT's. Where is he now? If you somehow stumbled across the QB crystal ball, you will shortly be very, very rich. Otherwise, yea, finding a franchise QB is just a best guess and a lot of luck.

This is what it will take to get the message across. Vote with your dollars. The concern is that PSL holders are just kinda stuck. They made that big investment, and walking away from it is hard. Buy your tickets or you lose your investment. So glad I wasn't one of those who did it.

No coach worth having wants a one year gig, which is basically what any coach Rhule hires is looking at. Would you want to come here as a coordinator knowing that the HC is already on the hot seat? This is one of the reasons I think that bringing Rhule back is a mistake. We have (correctly) identified an issue with the team regarding the woeful performance of our offense and there are a significant number of independent issues there. Fixing it in one offseason is likely to require more assets than we have available, both in draft capital and cap space. Knowing that it is unlikely to be corrected completely for next year . . . what then? Rhule is done here. I just don't see how it's fixable. His ability to evaluate talent is questionable. His game management is bottom of the barrel. His leverage to improve his staff is non-existent. It's just completely incomprehensible why we seem determined to keep him. Rhule becoming the guy who builds the Panthers into a winning organization seems like such a long shot you couldn't even get odds on it from the shadiest bookie in the country. Bottom line: There are no external candidates who will improve us and be willing come. We're going to promote Nixon, be terrible again next year despite heavy investment. We'll then fire Rhule having wasted another season. It's blatantly obvious.

Short answer: Yes, they are. Long answer:

Let me just understand a minute . . . the only sources calling Robinson a legit safety are Rhule and Snow? I mean, those guys are great evaluators of talent, yea? Come on man. Robinson seems like a good dude, yes. But calling him legit based on the evaluations of guys who have serious credibility issues in that area isn't exactly quality reporting. Disclaimer: I don't know if Robinson is legit or not. Like BC, we haven't seen enough. Just saying I'm not going to take Matt Rhule's word for it.

Bienemy will be another in a long list of Andy Reid tree failures. The only Reid disciples who have made a mark in the league are defensive guys. It's understandable, as you said, Reid is the offensive genius. If you're doing defense under Reid, you're probably the one doing the job. If you're on the offensive side, you're just a coffee carrier to King Andy. Leftwich is in the same boat. Not only is Arians the offensive mind, you're giving him props when he's got the GOAT at QB. It's Adam Gase all over again. What you're looking for is someone like a Nathaniel Hackett or Brian Callahan. Guys who are actually doing the job and have done so with something less than super talent at every position.

I can answer this with stats. I chose to look at other teams coaches who appeared in the SB - not necessarily won it - since that game can go either way. The paste isn't pretty, but the format is: Team: Record prior to coach taking over => season records until SB => What year did they appear. That's 26 coach / team combinations who have appears in SB's since 2000. Of them, only the Shanahan 49ers stumbled the first two years before getting to the big dance in the third. Even that one came down to one simple factor: Jimmy G could not stay healthy. The first season Jimmy G played a full year, they went to the dance. There is no room for a Rhule apologist agenda. The odds that Rhule is "the guy" are so abysmally low that you just can't afford to risk it.