BrianS

I think all the people being critical of the Horn pick have conveniently forgotten just how bad our secondary was last year. You cannot bring Henderson and Gilmore into any conversation about the Horn pick because neither of them were on the team at that point. We had tried drafting lesser prospects and gotten nothing worth mentioning. Horn fixes the CB spot. Done.

Wouldn't be against it, but it would be tough. He'd have to put on a lot of weight / muscle to do that. He's a lot smaller than TD was when he came in.

I like DJ, really do. There's been a lot of chatter on the boards here about "hospital balls" being thrown by our QB. When you start hearing footsteps as a WR, you start dropping passes and being less enthusiastic about running routes. Sounds like where he's at. Now, where I disagree with many of the Huddle masses is that many want to talk about those throws as QB responsibility. I think a lot of that is part of the scheme. You don't just scheme to get a guy open, you scheme to get him WIDE open. This means that you actively scheme to drag defenders out of areas where they can take those big shots, or at the very least don't drag defenders into those places. I've seen our scheme do both. I've always seen the problem with Burns. I think everyone can see his limitations against the run. But against the pass, even when he's playing well, he is heavily guilty of overrunning his target, making it too easy for the QB to just step up. I think he just needs to decide if he's an DE or a LB. If he's a DE, he's gotta bulk up and improve his strength so he has a bull rush to go with the other moves. If he's a LB, he needs to go to a 3-4 team. Not sure what to make of Brown. People expecting him to be Aaron Donald are surely disappointed. I was hoping for Star. Not ready to give up on him, but we do need to see him progress. Our team has a problem with run defense. I gotta be honest, it's damn near CRIMINAL to move Chinn further from the LOS when you know you are having trouble stopping the run. I think our problem is that we don't have a real FS. Burris is a SS, but not as good in the box as Chinn. Burris however would be even worse as a FS. Hopefully we fix that this offseason . . . somehow. Robby was never worth what we gave him. End. Jermaine Carter is that guy who should sit on the bench and be that reliable backup who gives our starting MLB a breather. He'd be great for that. Snow is fine, but he's gotta get that run defense figured out. I don't think he values run stopping DE's nearly enough.

I agree with regards to our OLine . . . but our ST's are actually in a good place right now. Our punter is #5 in the NFL for gross average, and middle of the pack for net average. The mess we had early in the year has weighed down our team numbers, but Edwards is doing well. Likewise with kicker. Gonzalez is having a career year with us. He's at nearly 91% for FG's right now and he's making great progress on his touchbacks. We gotta look at the big picture as fans and make sure we don't get caught up in how frustrated we are. For example, across the NFL, an average offense scores 24 points per game. If our offense was just "average", we'd be 6-5-1 right now. Likewise, the average NFL defense surrenders 23 points per game. Our defense is "above average" by that measure. The twist comes in that any time we give up more points than the average, we lose. It boils down to our offense being really bad, which is easily what we see on the field. Defensively, we are just painfully inconsistent.

I'm not sure where the idea that Rhule was an "offensive" coach came from. His past experience is actually very balanced. That's kinda what made him a good HC candidate. Positionally, he's coached: Linebackers, Defensive Line, Special Teams, Quarterbacks, Tight Ends and Offensive Line.

Broncos are relevant why? Can't we just:

That's really the bottom line. Three winning seasons with the best QB in franchise history and the greatest MLB to ever play the game.

This is where I disagree. The defense haven't been great, like we initially thought. But they've been good. If you take away drives less than 25 yards (aka drives where our offense crapped the bed) we gave up 20 points last week. Likewise, 24 the week before on the same metric. These are not outstanding numbers, but even so they are borderline top 10 defense numbers. Imagine how much better they could be if our offense could, you know, sustain a drive. I don't understand how we currently average 4 yards per carry over the season but we can't do something simple like sustain a drive. Doesn't that come down to play calling? Are we just getting too cute? Our problems earlier in the year were just about stuffing the ball in when we got close. Well, we solved that issue. Now we can't get down the field. Something is broken on the offensive side of the ball. Our line is terrible, yes. Our QB situation is quite murky. Consider however that our offense has the second most third down attempts in the league. Something is wrong there. WHY are we constantly in third down? Being the third most penalized team in the league doesn't help. "Don't beat ourselves" right? Our defense has faults, yes, but they are miles ahead of our offense.

Never forget that our SB defense went to poo right when McDermott left the building. WTF hasn't done anything this year. They have one win against a good team, and if you go watch that game against Tampa, you'll quickly see that it was actually the Bucs who beat Tampa, not the WTF's.

That doesn't change the fact that he hasn't shown anything aside from his time on one of king Andy's teams. And don't forget who the coordinator for that Super Bowl season was: Frank Reich. Pederson's team took a nose dive when Reich departed for Indy. Coincidence?

I'm not saying BC has been great against the eye test, but for heavens sake. He owns the fourth best rating on our roster over the season, as a rookie, often playing out of position. Can the guy get some snaps without it being forced by another injury? I swear I cannot understand this staff. While I generally don't use PFF ratings as a bible, by this point in the season there is enough data to at least see general trends. What I see here is that Taylor Moton has been pretty good. Sam Tecklenburg, also pretty good. Oh wait, we don't play him.

My concern about Pederson is that he has not proven successful without being under Andy Reid. He has shown exactly one season of offensive success outside of an Andy Reid team: 2017 Philly. That team just plain caught lightning in a bottle. Otherwise, he's been average. Now, average would be a step up for us, and maybe all we need, but that's what Pederson has been.

I read that at the time and agreed at the time. Unfortunately, it seems that Brady isn't the guru everyone thought he was. Maybe a step up from Gase. Maybe? What we effectively did was talk ourselves into the idea that Sam's problem was the situation. That's all fine and dandy, but what we followed up with was putting Sam back into nearly the exact same situation. A line whose play demanded he be a very fast decision maker and a scheme that might not be very good. Definition of insanity.

Sam is here next year. It's inevitable. It costs us more to get rid of him than simply keep him as a backup. I cannot envision any scenario where Sam getting moved is a net positive for us.

See, I think this is faulty thinking. The problem with our draft wasn't our draft, it was what followed. We drafted Jaycee Horn. He looked great and got hurt. Should we have drafted Fields or Slater? Maybe. But I don't have a problem taking Horn. Our secondary was awful last year. We drafted Terrace Marshall. This wasn't a problem at all. The problem was we followed that up by re-signing Robby Anderson. That's the mistake, not the pick. We drafted Brady Christiansen. We needed a tackle. He was there. On a team with a weak Oline, the problem is we aren't giving him playing time to develop. That's not a draft problem, it's a coaching problem. We drafted Tommy Tremble. This was a great pick. He's got a chance to be a long term starter for us. Our first three rounds were fine. Keith Taylor and Chuba Hubbard have looked ok for us given where we got them. I don't think our draft was the problem. It's how we followed the draft that was a problem.

The round depends on the money involved. We should get something - assuming our losses outnumber our signings - but we won't know what until we see the money.

The only pick we traded away that doesn't look like it will pan out is the 2nd for Darnold. The deals for Henderson and Gilmore are looking fine, though for different reasons.

Nah - that's not it. All said and done, the Patriots are only spending 4 million above the NFL average on their OLine. This isn't to say they don't have a very good line - they do - but they didn't grossly overspend to get there. Mac Jones works in NE because he is literally the most Belichick QB ever. He fits that system better than any QB in his draft.

I am still struggling to comprehend how we aren't at least giving BC playing time in every game. It would be criminal to walk out of this season without knowing what we have in him. I mean, in limited time, he's shown growth. He even had a game where he looked average. With this line, I'll take average. A good coaching staff can work with average.

While I don't disagree that we've botched the QB position and Darnold was part of that, some of that blame needs to fall on the offensive staff. It seems certain they've had input into every QB that's walked in the door . . . and all of them have failed. For all his faults, TB5 is having his best season as a pro in Denver this year.

The move for Henderson made sense, we had just lost Jaycee for the year. We were looking really thin at that time. This particular one doesn't seem "bad". Henderson has begun getting playing time, and not looked too out of place. It could still pay off. The move for Gilmore made sense. We had a very young CB room who could use some veterans in there to help them get things figured out. We gave up a pick, but if we lose him we could end up with a compensatory pick. Thus, this one could still pay off. Those don't seem like "win now" moves to me. The Darnold trade doesn't look good, but it also didn't feel like a win now move. Everyone gets the QB position wrong, it's the hardest one to project. The only thing about the Darnold trade that I think we got wrong was the cost. We gave up far too much for him. It was blatantly obvious the Jets were drafting a QB. We could have gotten a QB for a lot less, either Darnold or someone else. I don't think the Darnold trade will pay off.

There is so much wrong here. Where to begin. Cutting Elflein / Irving. Could we save a little money? Yes, but no. Your total savings by cutting those two next year is 5 million. With that five million, you have to bring in not two but FOUR players. One replacement, plus a backup for each. It doesn't add up. The smart play is to keep them as backups and simply go out and get better players. Offloading McCaffrey / Anderson. Who will take them? At very best, we get nothing in return. CMC is now being looked at as an injury prone player. Maybe he's just incredibly unlucky and goes Thomas Davis on us. I hope so. But from the outside, no one will give us anything resembling value for him. RA has grossly underperformed. Reasons are irrelevant for a WR. He hasn't performed. No one is gonna pay him and give us anything in return. And in the unlikely event we do offload them we're STILL on the hook for unpaid signing bonus for each (13 million, CMC . . . 8 million RA). The increase in cap won't only affect us. Every team gets it. Thus, it isn't an advantage to any team. It's going to drive FA costs way up. Players like Elflein and Irving will probably get MORE than what we paid in the new landscape. You might even make that argument for RA. There is no simple answer.

That's a pretty shallow take. Who is to say that Baylor might not be in the same place or better had Rhule stayed? The juniors and seniors on that team are the guys Rhule recruited and coached. Baylor did well this season. Matt Rhule should get some credit for that. Saying they got there because Rhule left is at best a shallow look at the situation. MR's suitability for the NFL is questionable, but his success in college should not be. Rhule may or may not be the answer here. Jury is still out. I will say that it's not looking good for him. Most coaches are able to at least make progress in their first two seasons, even if they don't end up with a playoff team. Some examples: John Harbaugh took over a 5-11 Ravens team and got them to the playoffs the next five years straight. Andy Reid took over a 2-14 Chiefs team and got them to 11-5 the next year. Sean Payton took over a perennial loser in New Orleans, 3-13 the year prior, and got them to 10-6 his first year. Pete Carroll took over a 5-11 Seahawks team and built the Legion of Boom by year three. If you believe in a coach when you hire him, you give him three years. If he hasn't turned it around by the end of year three, he never will. I don't understand the seven years, that never made sense to me. The only thing I can come up with is that Tepper was still in Steelers mode. The problem with that thinking is that the Steelers are a complete anomaly. They've had three coaches since 1969. That's just not something you can count on reproducing.

Oh ffs give it a rest. Fournette was NEVER AN OPTION. Not that we didn't consider him. We did, all evidence indicates we did. But he was gone by the time we picked! If you really want to wallow in self pity, consider that we passed on Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson to draft CMC. Those guys were actually available at our pick.

Actually, if Suleiman is considered a minority, we would get two compensatory picks were he to be hired as a GM. Apparently the NFL passed a resolution last year for that.