Peon Awesome

Biggest problem with your post is relevance to this situation. 1. McCaffrey wouldn't be breaking the bank exactly. They'd get him for 3.65 years, $36 million. $10 million per year, zero guarantees, isn't exorbitant for a productive starter on pace for 1900 yards from scrimmage with the worst qb play in the NFL. Also if they're worried about paying him, rent him for a year for less than $1 million en route to the Super Bowl and trade him in the off-season to recoup some of your lost draft picks. I doubt anyone is going to cry over losing pick 32 if they win the super bowl. 2. You talk about how important the passing game is while ignoring the fact that McCaffrey is the best receiving RB in the NFL. If you don't think Andy Reid would salivate at ways to have McCaffrey be a nightmare mismatch in the passing game, I don't know what to tell you.

Your assessment of what we need is assuming we've maximized the talent of our current roster. Do you agree our coaching staff sucks? If so, how many of the things you mentioned do we actually need vs how many players' talents are being squandered by coaching ineptitude? I mean what combination of Tremble, TMJ, Shenault, Shi Smith, Cade Mays, Haynes, Hoskins, Roy, McCall, Brandon Smith, and Barno can't fill at least half of that, especially with functional coaching. Also if you're worried about depth, that's what the draft and cheap free agency signings are for. Those don't break the bank. A QB in the 1st, good coaching staff and then fluff out the roster as needed with free agency and rounds 2+ of the draft is really not a tall task. A rookie QB also is huge for cap room. We'll be flush for years until they're due for an extension, assuming they deserve one.

While I don't advocate trading Burns because good pass rushers are so valuable and hard to come by, it make more sense than trading McCaffrey for a couple reasons. 1. Burns hasn't signed a big extension so its our one chance to get compensation for him IF we don't plan on resigning him. McCaffrey meanwhile we've already committed a bunch of money to so we'd be spending a lot of money for him to not play for us. There's minimal dead cap for trading Burns and tons for McCaffrey 2. Pass rushers are valued more, so we're more likely to get better compensation for Burns 3. Burns is our one good pass rusher but we've got good contributors throughout our defense and could weather his loss a bit easier than McCaffrey who is 95% of our entire offense. I don't think we should trade either, but if we can get 2 1sts or a 1st and 2nd for Burns, you could at least justify it. https://sportsnaut.com/brian-burns-trade-landing-spots/ Also this is an interesting article. Gives 3 potential trades for Burns. The returns are awesome. 1) Trade to Baltimore for Ojabo (their 2022 2nd rd pick), 2023 1st and 2024 2nd 2) Trade to Seattle for Denver's 1st from the Russell Wilson trade (currently top 10), and both their own 2023 2nd and the 2nd they got from the Wilson trade. Plus Drew Lock 3) Trade to Philadelphia for the 1st they got from New Orleans (currently top 10), Philly's own 1st in 2024 and Andre Dillard Hell if those are the expected returns and you're not sure Burns is worth $25 million per year in an extension, you definitely need to take those calls.

Yeah I think the bottom line is that our cap situation is fine. Anyone worrying about out lack of cap space next year doesn't understand how the cap works. We will get well under it very easily without making a single difficult cut. The real question is how. I'm ok with all your suggestions although I'd prefer to see if Shaq would take a team friendly extension. Why not add 2 years and $4 million to his current contract and turn it into a 3 year, $28 million deal? Basically you ask if you'd rather pay Shaq $11 million to not be on your team or $9 million each for the next 3 to be on your team. Granted he might say F you and happily prefer being cut than staying with this organization, but I'd at least try. The question is what can Shaq expect to get as a free agent if we cut him. More than 3 years $17 million (which is the added money if he takes our extension rather than being cut)? Plus there's some comfort in not relocating your whole life. I feel like that's a win win.

I'm not counting on any qbs being able to come in this year and demonstrate they can be our franchise QB. I think it's pretty much a foregone conclusion we are drafting a QB in the first. So I'm only suggesting Darnold with the hope he makes our offense semi-watchable so I have a reason to turn on the TV on Sundays. I'm still counting on the team spiraling to the #1 pick and sending Darnold packing to free agency.

Half of McCaffrey's "salary" is money we already paid him whether he's on the team or not. Plus he's more than a rb; he's our leading receiver by a comfortable amount. Let's say we get those 2 2nds (probably late 2nds since only contending teams will want him). You could use the two 2nds to try to draft a new starting rb and WR 2 to replace his production. The combined salaries will probably be like 7 million. CMC's salary that we save in a trade is like $11.8 million. So we save $4 million and change. You want to replace CMC with a couple unproven rookies to have an extra $4 million; basically the amount of money it takes to pay Cam Erving? Is that really a worthwhile gamble? Even a late 1st, we're talking players like Clyde Edwards Helaire or Josh Jacobs and 1st round salaries are more, so probably saving $7 million. You'd rather have Edwards-Helaire + $7 million or McCaffrey? $7 million nets you a decent starter at a less valued position like safety or linebacker. Probably a lot easier to have a smaller drop-off at those positions with a cheap veteran or mid round draft pick than replacing McCaffrey with even a 1st. To me, I see a route to contention quickly with a top rookie qb, good new coach and McCaffrey. I have a much tougher time seeing that with the above minus CMC plus Donta Foreman or a rookie rb.

Yeah I forgot about Eason. I think that goes to point 4. Just keep swapping qbs until you've thrown everything out there. I still want to see Sam play at least one game mostly cause he at least had that good stretch to start last year so maybe there's a chance he'll be better and we're paying him a bunch anyway, but I'd have a short leash and switch to Eason if he continues to show his poor play. We could start Eason next week at this point and keep playing him if he's any good and make Sam a moot point. But I figure he's going to have his lumps especially in this system.

As I look ahead to 2023, my goal is to optimize our chances for the #1 pick without compromising the opportunity to build a perennial contender and still make the 2022 season watchable. How? 1. Don't trade good players away without a ransom. We need the foundations of a team for the future. Unless the player has no future with us, hold onto them. It will make this year more watchable too. Imagine how horrible this team would be without McCaffrey. 2. Play some of the young guys especially in places without a clear cut veteran presence. I'm looking at you, Terrace Marshall Jr. Or even players like Cade Mays or Brandon Smith especially as first man up with any injuries. We have to see what we have and develop them into future assets or figure out sooner that they're unlikely to be in our long term plans. It's a shame Corral is injured or this would be a great time to roll the dice with him. 3. Play aggressive as hell (basically the opposite of the Rams game). I'm talking fake punts left and right, go for every 4th and short, suicide blitzes, let it fly downfield. Probably more likely to make us lose but be way more fun to watch in the process. A win-win. 4. Keep the QB carousel going. Get Darnold on the field the moment he's healthy. It will at least add intrigue to see if he can do anything with a decent offensive line and healthy McCaffrey. What do you say? Anything you hope to see or that would make watching our games worth your precious time on Sundays?

Here's the problem with that explanation. There aren't only two options here of force PJ to play aggressively or roll over and give up. The obvious decision was use the first time out to get the ball back with a minute left, see if you get decent field position on the punt return and then start with a conservative play call like a quick screen or run with McCaffrey. If you get 6+ yards, we're past the 40 and only need 25 yards to get into fg range. You're telling me with 1-2 timeouts (depending on whether we needed to use one on 1st down) and close to 1 minute on the clock, PJ couldn't handle that? And if 1st and/or 2nd down go poorly, you can run/kneel it and let the clock run out then. Rams didn't even have any timeouts. Just an indefensible decision and if you're the offense and that didn't piss you off that the coach had so little confidence in you he was worried, despite the Rams having zero timeouts, that you were more likely to turn it over and give up points than get in fg range, you need to have some basic self respect or get out of the league.

We should probably review the data on offensive-minded coaches since McVay was hired and kicked off this obsession. 2018 1. Pat Shurmur 2. Frank Reich 3. Matt Nagy 2019 1. Kliff Kingsbury 2. Freddie Kitchens 3. Matt LaFleur 4. Adam Gase 5. Zac Taylor 2020 Kevin Stefanski 2021 1. Nick Sirianni 2. Arthur Smith 2022 1. Brian Daboll 2. Kevin O'Connell 3. Mike McDaniel 4. Nathaniel Hackett 5. Josh McDaniels I didn't include coaches with an offensive background that had solidified themselves as head coaches more recently since that doesn't seem to be exactly the theme (e.g. Jon Gruden, Bruce Arians, Doug Pedersen) although you could argue for that. Or Dan Campbell since he was a tight ends coach which is a bit different than the above. What are the trends? 1. Be wary of coaches who may have ridden the coattails of elite QBs (Hackett, Gase, +/- McDaniels) unless they were clearly involved in the growth of said QB (Daboll) Possible 2023 examples: Leftwich, Dorsey, Bienemy 2. Be wary of coaches who served under a historically good head coach that has their fingerprints on the whole team (McDaniels, Nagy) 3. Probably doesn't need to be said after the traumatic experience of Rhule, but just to really emphasize it, be wary of college coaches (Kingsbury, Rhule, Urban Meyer). Other than that, it's a mixed bag. Even coaches like Zac Taylor have looked pretty bad outside of his super bowl run; he's probably a Rivera level guy who isn't very good but can do enough not to completely impede elite play from his qb. Daboll looks the best on this list but it's so early only 6 games in. And he molded Josh Allen from a possible bust to the MVP frontrunner and possible hall of famer. How many candidates with that resume are you going to get? With that in mind, Steichen seems like the clear cut top choice. He oversaw the development of Herbert and Hurts. Then perhaps Kellen Moore depending on how the Cowboys play out the year, although they are really riding on the strength of their defense. Maybe Ben Johnson if the Lions keep up pace and the Pats game isn't the start of their descent back to Earth although that's a quick ascent from coordinator to coach. Guess it's good that we have the earliest jump start on the hiring

As an aside, the post-Rhule era is also looking bright for my McCaffrey-led fantasy football team

Mentioning for no real reason but if the Panthers win today, they'll only be 1 game back of the last wild card spot

Whoa... give the man some love. In a season with few bright spots, that's impressive as hell.

To clarify, I'm not attached to Fitterer. I'd hardly be devastated if they moved on from him. No one deserves much good will on this team. I just appreciate he didn't completely cripple our chances for a quick rebuild. Not exactly high praise but I'm willing to give him a longer leash if need be

Here's the reason I'm not going to give Fitterer too much crap for the loss of draft picks. He was trying to find a franchise QB. Teams give up way way more and usually still miss. He aggressively tried to do that and still left us with all of our top picks. Let's look at just the last year or 2. 1. San Francisco - 3 1st round picks to draft a project that could easily bust who at this point has been handily outplayed by Garrapolo (too early I know) 2. Denver - bunch of picks including 2 1sts and $250 million for a guy who looks worse than Teddy Bridgewater this year 3. Cleveland - 3 1sts and $250 million for a serial sexual deviant who hasn't played in 2 years and won't see the field till at least week 12. 4. Chicago - 2 1sts including what ended up being the 7th pick for a guy who competes with Baker for last in every objective QB metric. 5. Washington - what will probably be two 2nd round picks for a guy Rivera just threw under the bus. 6. Indianapolis - gave a 1st and 3rd for the same guy they jettisoned to Washington after 1 year, plus another 3rd for the corpse of Matt Ryan. You can even second guess other commitments like the $40+ million annually for Call of Duty Kyler, or even Dak Prescott when the Cowboys haven't skipped a beat with Cooper Rush. Heralded college QBs taken at the top of the draft like Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson have been disappointing thus far. So Fitterer at least making an effort is understandable and forgivable when you appreciate that he didn't mortgage our future by giving away premium picks and exorbitant cap space. Of course you hope for better results but with a dumpster fire of a coaching staff we didn't really create an environment where anyone could succeed anyway.

Yeah not to beat a dead horse, but the idea of eating a sh*t ton of dead cap and losing our best player for a late 2nd round pick is laughable. Buffalo would be getting a bargain at $36 million for the rest of this season and THREE MORE, with ZERO GUARANTEED. That's an f'in dream. Holy crap, if that's not worth a 1st and more, I don't know what is. Who could Buffalo get at the end of the 1st that would be 20% as valuable? Absolute no brainer for them. For us, we basically pay McCaffrey to not play for us, cripple ourselves offensively, save zero money, and get a draft slot later than where we took Terrace Marshall Jr. If you honestly want to do that, you immediately deserve to be banned from criticism of any and all NFL GM decisions. I can't think of a single realistic trade for McCaffrey that would be worth it. It's a non-starter. For the record I think this headline is complete BS because I don't think Fitterer could possibly be that idiotic.

Watch the NFL double down and fine Jarrett $10,000. That would be so on brand. Probably the most egregiously awful roughing call I've ever seen seen if you factor in game situation

There is only one logical reason to trade McCaffrey this year: you are going full on super tank mode, presumably because you are in love with a specific college QB and you want to make sure we don't win another game and clinch the 1st pick. Why do I say that? 1. Trading him now actually further cripples our cap situation. Huge dead hit. So you're losing money, not saving, at least not for a couple years. 2. The hit rate for draft picks outside of the top half of the 1st round is pretty sad. There's a reason proven talent garners such high draft picks, usually multiple 1sts for any valued position. So you are almost certainly getting a massive downgrade in production from whatever draft pick we'd get. Especially people talking about trading him for a 2nd (Terrace Marshall Jr ftw) 3. McCaffrey is basically our entire offense and our offense is historically abysmal. Figure it out. 4. We are almost certainly drafting a rookie QB. McCaffrey represents one of the best safety nets in the league. Put your rookie in the best chance to succeed. TLDR; trading McCaffrey is horrifically dumb.

Yeah let's trade DJ for a 2nd so we can draft another Terrace Marshall and simultaneously accrue like $20 million in dead cap.

Heck I'm all for trying Darnold for several reasons: 1) As noted, it improves the chances we lose a 5th instead of a 4th for Baker (assuming Darnold isn't that much more atrocious or gets injured and we have to go back to Baker) 2) Baker hasn't shown any signs of improvement. I'd be willing to cut him some slack that maybe he just needed time to learn the playbook better and gel with the receivers but I'd expect some trend towards that. Instead he's been as stagnant as it gets. 3) At least Darnold had a few good games as the starter. We haven't seen a single good game from Baker. 4) Darnold was crap with a horrible offensive line and no McCaffrey. At the very least, with us paying him $19 million, at least see if he can be a Teddy Bridgewater-esque game manager with a better line and CMC. Hell I'd kill for those days now. 5) At least with Darnold's height, you might expect not every other pass will get batted down. Anyhow, in no way am I expecting Darnold to lead us on a wildcard hunt. But is it possible this offense could go from completely nauseating to watch to just flat out mediocre? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe.

Actually that is the one complicating factor in all this. Because afib results in erratic heart contractions, sometimes blood can pool into one corner of the heart that's not contracting well and form a clot. The clot can eventually get dislodged and enter the circulation to the brain and cause a stroke. Since afib has a high chance of recurring even after a shock, many people are on blood thinners even if they fix the afib. Doubt Watt could play on blood thinners given higher risk of internal bleeding with collisions. My guess is the team decided since Watt can be monitored so frequently, they'll catch any afib recurrence early and preempt the need for blood thinners.

What Ericksen had was likely Vfib, not afib. Most people with afib have no symptoms. It can be an issue if the heart rate gets too high, where someone might feel palpitations, light-headedness, chest pain and/or shortness of breath, but more often than not, patients don't even know when they have it until it comes up incidentally on an EKG or heart monitor. Meanwhile, Vfib causes cardiac arrest and death if not treated immediately. While I'm surprised Watt is playing the same week as a cardioversion, it's not completely outlandish if the shocking reverted him to a normal rhythm. That being said patients often eventually jump back into afib again even after the shock. So there's a good chance this might not be the end of it for him.

On the one hand, I can watch the game in my warm, dry home, on my 85 inch 4k TV with my own supply of craft beer, or I can drive 3 hours, pay $20 for parking, pay $30 for nosebleed seats, another $10 for some crap beer, sit through intermittent rain showers at 50 degrees for 3+ hours to watch subpar Panthers football, then sit in traffic for over an hour to get out of downtown, followed by another 3 hours to get home. It's just such a tough decision. Now I'll admit, if I was still living in Charlotte, I'd be tempted. But even then tickets are a fraction of what you're going to ultimately pay and the sitting in traffic for eternity, especially God forbid after a painful loss, is just straight misery.

The interview with Rhule is included here. If anyone finds something in what Rhule said that sounds like it's throwing DJ under the bus, please let us know. It's obvious when you watch it, the reporter was just trying to instigate and create a headline. Basically Rhule said everyone needs to get on the same page and the passing game is more than just the QB. Line has to block, receivers have to get open. Nothing controversial.

I mean it was pretty clear the reporter was trying to stir things up and instigate a catchy sound bite out of DJ. To me he handled it really well. Making much more out of this is clearly what the reporter was going for. I think this is much ado about nothing.