Peon Awesome

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.

If the Giants hold on to win tonight, it's funny to think our 2 losses were to teams that should be a combined 6-0 if not for one of the most improbable comebacks possible (Cleveland against the Jets)

Evan Neal does not look good tonight. Dallas is feasting rushing the right side of the line.

Yeah there aren't many bigger mismatches than McCaffrey in space against a linebacker in coverage. Throw that wrinkle into our offense with the addition of Shenault and maybe our offense has a chance to at least not look like the worst offense in the NFL.

It really depends on what your expectations are. If you treat Henderson like the 3rd round pick we gave up for him, he's been fine. If you're expecting a shutdown corner worthy of the top 10 slot he was originally drafted, he's not that. The one long pass to Olave he gave up was actually solid coverage with a perfect throw by Winston and great catch by Olave. Henderson timed the hit perfectly and if Olave had lost control from the hit, we'd be applauding Henderson for the timely hit. He had the boneheaded PI in week 1 and he lays off defenders a little more than ideal. But I still think we're clearly better off with him than without him

Shenault on offense of course. McCaffrey also still looks explosive with 100+ yards rushing for the 2nd straight week and another long run called back with the hold. Lots of possible candidates on defense. Chinn looked good overall between his sack and a tipped ball. Horn with the tip that led to the interception plus an interception himself. Obviously the combo of Luvu on the forced fumble and Haynes with the return td was the play of the game. Hell Pineiro deserves kudos remaining perfect for the year including two from 40+. Truly a team win.

Lemme tell you guys a secret... it's possible to be happy we won and still think we can do much better than Rhule.

Another positive: this is the best punter we've had in years

No outcome would surprise me at this point. Win by 30, lose by 30, lose on a last minute 55 yard fg for the 3rd week in a row. I'm not writing off the season after week 2 so I'm still hoping we win and figure things out, regardless of how likely/unlikely that is. But there's no question it's a winnable game.

#7 and a 3rd for the #3 pick? In what world do you think there's precedent for that? Has there ever been a comparable trade in NFL history? I doubt it. If so, please share. Unless you mean 7, our 3rd plus a future 1st. That's probably more likely. The closest recent comp I can think of is the Jets trading the 6th pick and THREE 2nd round picks (including 37 and 49 from that year) for the 3rd pick to take Darnold. But going from 7 to 3 only takes a 3rd? Sure...