Peon Awesome

Based on the chart it's anytime one team has over an 80% win probability. I don't think this is how people conventionally think of "garbage time" but I assume the writer used the term to simplify the tweet. Your suggestion is too extreme for that definition; that's gotta be easily over 95% win probability. But it does give flexibility in that it's not limited to any specific part of the game. I bet midway through the 2nd quarter of the Bengals game qualified by that metric which may be why we score so well.

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This seems quite reactionary for Baker basically having one incredible drive and otherwise an OK game for him. Tremendously impressive for him to do it with less than 2 days of having the playbook. But to then extrapolate that to ask why players do so much better elsewhere than here is a stretch. Teddy Bridgewater got a couple starts in Miami, a team with a juggernaut offense and a fantastic new offensive minded coach, and in that time massively elevated Tua's MVP case with his underwhelming performance. Robbie Anderson somehow went to Kyler and the Cardinals and became even more of a minus. Meanwhile, we have Luvu turning into a legit force after being a special teamer his entire career. Eddie Pineiro was nearly run out of the league with his crappy fill in performances elsewhere before turning into an arguably above average kicker for us, following Zane Gonzalez who also revitalized his career with us. Our defense and special teams are actually pretty solid and at least decently coached. Our offense leaves a lot to be desired although is definitely better than the embarrassingly abysmal crapshow we had with Rhule.

The idea that this is an IOU for San Francisco seems pretty silly. What would that even look Iike? You really think whatever they might do to help us, with zero obligation whatsoever, would help us more than them losing a couple extra games starting Purdy and increasing the value of the picks we got from McCaffrey? Be real. Instead it's far more likely that the team realized San Francisco would be desperate for a qb in their playoff pursuit, there'd be a good chance they'd claim him off waivers, which would push his salary onto their cap and save us nearly 2 million dollars for a player that we had no more use for. You could make the argument for holding onto him for a comp pick, but a) that requires Fitterer to stay out of free agency which he hasn't shown a tendency for. Especially since we will have so few free agents that anyone would want, meaning we'd almost have to sit out of free agency completely to net a pick. And b) Baker’s value has tanked so much that at best maybe we're looking at a 6th even if we play the comp rules perfectly. Probably more useful to have an extra $1.7 million or whatever it is then a best case scenario of a 2024 6th round comp (effectively a 7th).

If he plays really good, some team is going to offer him at least fringe starter money (like Mariota or Trubisky this past year) and I have no interest in getting into that kind of bidding war for him. Take the comp pick. If he plays awful, he'll come dirt cheap but why would we want an awful backup? Maybe we hit a sweet spot where he has his ups and downs, but mostly turns into a decent but unspectacular game manager. In that situation, sure I'd offer him like a 2 year, $8 million contract if he's willing to take that. But again, if it turns into a bidding war, best wishes Sam.

I want to win the division but the frustrating thing is the team can't decide if they're really competing for a division title or a top 3 draft pick. They seem to follow up an impressive performance with a stinker. Still can't get the rancidness of the Bengals loss off us. Win at Seattle with another good performance by Darnold and I'll be all in. If they get their asses handed to them, I'm back to looking at the draft standings.

We have the benefit of getting the rest of the season to evaluate Wilks before we have to make that decision. I'm not sold right now but I am willing to keep an open mind based on how he does the rest of the year. I did really like his decision to go for it on 4th down and it showed growth; never expected to see him fake a punt in our own territory in the 1st quarter against a team with a struggling offense. If he keeps showing a willingness to evolve like that, I could be persuaded. I suspect his ceiling is peak Ron Rivera, a coach who can get his players to play hard for him and steer a team loaded with talent to some playoff success but struggles to give us tactical advantages that could help us upend teams that are clearly more talented on paper. I mean you could obviously do a lot worse but at the very minimum we better do an exhaustive head coaching search that includes interviewing several offensive coordinators.

Really? You wouldn't care if we traded multiple picks to take Zach Wilson because it means "we tried"? I definitely care if we try and fail. Also your definition of "trying" must be very restrictive. It's arguable that very few teams have tried harder over the last 3 years to find a qb. We signed Teddy Bridgewater to the biggest free agent contract for a qb that year, traded multiple picks for Darnold in 2021, traded for Baker, and traded up in the 3rd to draft Corral. I mean, you could point to teams that really didn't try to upgrade qb like the Lions or even the Seahawks, although they managed to coax a career year out of Geno Smith. But it's pretty disingenuous to say the Panthers haven't tried just because they didn't trade a ransom to draft a first round qb last year especially when those qbs are looking pretty underwhelming for the most part.

I literally said I wasn't going to waste my time scrolling through pages of threads from a year and a half ago to post a bunch examples to make you happy. I figured me immediately finding a couple on the first page of threads in my search at least gave the hint they were easy enough to find. But if you don't remember or just weren't active enough on this thread to see that several people were pushing for us trade up for Zach Wilson and the examples I posted aren't enough to change your mind, I guess I'm just going to have to figure out how to go to sleep tonight knowing Mr. Krovvy isn't convinced.

I dont know how to quote tweet from other threads but copying and pasting from the 2nd link: Same. If we can’t get Watson for three firsts and a couple players, then I’d love to try to use two firsts (and a couple players if necessary) to move up for Wilson From the 3rd link: personally I feel like we should be all in for the #2 pick like we were 5 mins ago for Watson.. Whatever it takes ... How much are we willing to give up for #2 pick in the draft? Tough question but I’d be willing to trade #8, #39, future 1st for the number #2 pick

Did you not click on the links I posted and scroll through the first page where multiple people say they want us to trade up for him or do you have problems with basic reading comprehension?

I'm not going to spend hours researching this but if you were active on the Huddle at the time, plenty of people were in love with him. Just a quick search I found a few threads where it's discussed and if spending more of my Sunday doing this research for you was worth my time, I could find a half dozen more.

The irony of this thread is that Wilson was the 2nd overall pick and the same guy multiple posters were slamming the table for us to trade multiple 1sts to move up and draft. It's almost like sucking into the consensus #2 rookie qb prospect isn't necessarily a surefire strategy. And yet one too many posters are getting pissed we're not doing that.

That's game. No way this putrid Broncos offense is coming back from a 3 score deficit in one quarter.

For those pissed we didn't trade Burns and still think we should, the price is only going up from here.

Wow, actually a great play by Darnold with pressure coming. A Darnold meltdown could easily come at any moment but it's still much more fun to watch this than Baker getting every 3rd pass batted at the line

I thought the same thing at first, but now seeing the details of the contract, I can definitely understand him taking the offer. He's getting almost $40 million more to coach Nebraska. For the 8 years, that is nearly $5 million per year in new money. You could decide to sit on your ass for 4 years and then see if you can get a coaching gig after the Panthers money dries up, but how certain are you that teams are going to be clamoring for someone who hasn't coached in any capacity for 4 years and is 7 years removed from college? So it basically boils down to whether you're comfortable retiring at age 47 and living off your previous earnings for the rest of your life. Obviously that's easy to do, but if you love coaching and can make $40 million to do it, it's almost an easy decision. And that's not even mentioning the chance to erase the stink of your last putrid coaching performance.

If Darnold, playing arguably the best pass defense in the NFL with less than one week of reps with the 1st team offense, has a great game, I'll be legit impressed. Do I think it'll happen? No. But if it somehow does, the man deserves some props.

For all the hate about us committing $18.9 million on a 1 year extension for Darnold without seeing him play for us, it's nothing compared to the $250 million the Broncos gave Wilson before he had barely stepped foot in Denver.

Not the worst but plenty bad enough that it's laughable we'd actually risk losing a 4th instead of the 5th to keep starting him.

I understand the sentiment of the thread but it's disingenuous to post this and act like their record would be identical with or without Burns. They lost on a last second TD against Tampa. You really think Burns feasting on the outside next to Aaron Donald wouldn't have been the difference? The game probably wouldn't have been that close, let alone a loss. I still don't think the Rams would be that good so being upset at the trade is still plenty reasonable. But quoting their record sans Burns is not totally valid.

Trying to simplify these decision-making processes to such a rudimentary level is stupid. Don't massively reach for a qb you're not sold on over a player at another position that you have graded at the top of your list. But don't bypass a QB when you desperately need one if you have a top grade on them just because you have a better grade on someone else. Look at our 2022 draft. Is anyone upset we took Ekwonu over Pickett? Are the QB or bust brigade looking back and thinking that was a stupid decision? Probably not. If our rankings end up as 1. Anderson 2. Young 3. Stroud, and we get our pick of qb or Anderson, the QB is the no-brainer. The real issue is if we have the same rankings plus 34. Levis 44. Hooker or something like that and we're picking 3 with Young and Stroud taken 1 and 2, you should probably take Anderson in that situation. These are all hypothetical of course. If we love one of those other qbs and think he's top 10 material, that's different.

Baker needs to sit for one more game to keep the 4th round pick but I'm not super worried about it. Either Baker will look like himself and get benched for Sam or PJ when healthy, which is by far the most likely outcome. Or he plays lights out, leads us to the playoffs and we get a home playoff game. Even if he's ok, we probably go back to PJ when he's healthy under the premise that PJ never lost the starting job but just got injured.

It may be more like top 20 or so but look back at the last several drafts. The majority of the best pass rushers were taken near the top of the first round. Myles Garrett, Bosa brothers, Chubb, Burns, Parsons, Chase Young and now Hutchinson looking like the cream of the crop in his draft year. Similar to QB, you can find later round picks making big impacts on many teams but if you look at the overall number, there's a high bust rate outside of the 1st (and even within the 1st). I admittedly might have overstated it but unlike many positions like guard, safety, linebacker, corner, tight end and so on, it's more the exception rather than the rule that you're day 2-3 rookie pass rusher has hopes of being an impact starter.

The problem is that good pass rushers are one of the toughest players to find. It's rare to get one outside of the top 10 in the draft, and they almost never make it to free agency unless they've got other red flags, get old or have major injury concerns. It's like having a good qb. It's why teams with an above average qb pretty much have no choice but to pay them $45+ million per year now even though probably only 3 or 4 qbs are truly worth that. Did Arizona really want to give that much to Kyler Murray? Unfortunately you're stuck overpaying your good pass rushers. I'm honestly not opposed to trading Burns next year before the deadline if we get another great offer. But you're doing it at a risk that you probably won't replace him and may waste valuable picks trying. Gotta have a lot of faith on your gm/scouring department.