Mike2.0

Let’s say we had the quarterback - Justin Herbert, Trevor Lawrence (etc) - then sending two firsts wouldn’t be a huge problem if we believed that Payton would take that QB to the next level and take us towards Super Bowl contention. Obviously losing the chance to add first round talent and giving our rivals that chance hurts, but if the upside is Super Bowl contention it could be a worthwhile short term pain worth enduring. However, we don’t have the quarterback and can’t afford to trade away our firsts because we are still rebuilding. So like you, it’s too much to give up.

Is Sean Payton a significant upgrade over Mike McCarthy or would they basically be making a sideways move? Both coached hall of fame caliber quarterbacks at the Saints and Packers. Both coached in and won 1 Super Bowl and never returned. McCarthy lost three other NFC championship games and Payton lost two NFC championship games. McCarthy got 6 division titles to Payton’s 7 division titles. McCarthy’s record with the Packers was 125-77-2 .618, with a record in the play offs of 10-8 .556. Payton’s record with the Saint’s was 152-89 .631 and 9-8 .529 in the play offs. Seasons with 10+ wins is 8 to McCarthy and 9 to Payton. - - - Their resumes are nearly identical. Some will obviously give Payton’s offense the edge and call McCarthy’s archaic and question some of his play calling, but realistically there isn’t a great deal in it between them to say one is a significant upgrade over the other. It would be a sideways move in many ways.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we went after Gus Bradley to coach the defense if he’s not retained in Indy.

Frank Reich is a good hire. He faced adversity with the QB position after Andrew Luck did the dirty by retiring on the eve of preseason week 1. Their future looked bright before that juncture and after that it was stop gaps and some reclamation projects. Hopefully Reich gets a better deal here by getting a long term QB to work with. As for Wilks, I feel for the guy. He did a good job turning this team around as the interim head coach. However, did the ownership and front office believe he could put together the offensive staff to support and develop our next franchise QB? If they did, they would have hired him. They didn’t. So that suggests to me they felt Reich would be better suited to that role. I see racism has come up again. I don’t think race played a part here. Most interim head coaches don’t get made permanent. The last ones made permanent were Doug Marrone (Jacksonville, took over from Gus Bradley) and Mike Mularkey (Tennessee, took over from Ken Whisenhunt), and aart from one AFC championship game for Marrone, neither had long term success. So was us not hiring Wilks a surprise? Not really. The same probably would have happened for a different interim head coach from the staff.

Is the Titans ceiling tied to their head coach or their quarterback? Ryan Tannehill is a middle of the pack quarterback. There’s only so much you can do with that caliber of quarterback. It’s up to their GM to upgrade their QB position and he decided to draft Malik Willis who, well, looked terrible and got outplayed by Dobbs. Vrabel is a good head coach. He’s not Sean McVay or Kyle Shanahan. So he’s not a sexy offensive guru, but he’s a solid head coach like the Ravens coach Harbaugh. We could do worse than hire someone that gives us the same stability and competitiveness. What the GM needs to do is ensure the team has its answer at quarterback. At that point, you can compete for a championship.

How many head coaches faced what Reich did in Indy? After year one they were optimistic because they had Andrew Luck and had made the play offs. What does Luck do? Retire in preseason. Not the off-season when it gives the team a chance to draft, trade for, or sign a replacement quarterback - but retire in the preseason. So in year two he gets stuck with Hoyer and Brissett, good luck winning big with one of those guys as your quarterback. Year three? They sign Rivers and return to the play offs. Once again Reich is kick down low because his quarterback retires. At least Rivers did it in January. So three years into the job he’s had two quarterbacks retire on him. What does his GM decide to do? Trade for a reclamation project in Carson Wentz… when that failed what did their GM decide to do? Trade for another short term fix in Matt Ryan. It honestly bewilders me how their GM has kept his job and Reich has been fired. I don’t recall any other coaches having to deal with five different starting quarterbacks in consecutive seasons. If anyone failed Indy it is their GM by not fixing the QB position, and that’s before his hit and miss drafting and free agency signings are considered. All of that aside, I do agree that we need to stay with the times and not get stuck in the old ways, but at the same time we can’t rule out experience like Reich. He’s a good coach and has done a good job as an OC in the past. I think he’d be a good appointment as OC under Wilks.

Gruden cost the Bucs two first and two second round picks. There’s been talk of what it would cost for teams to get Sean Payton in 2023, some say it could be a similar package or slightly less. What would Sean McVay cost and is it worth it? I suspect the cost would be considerable and potentially it might not be worth it if the TV analyst question mark followed him here. You can’t trade for a guy that might retire after a season to pursue a TV career. For me, look at other options. As good as McVay is, I think he’ll follow the Gruden route to TV.

Agreed, they do kinda grow on trees, but the difficulty can be finding the right one because for every successful offspring, there are plenty of ones that don’t make the grade. Will Kafka be the next top head coach or the next guy to not make the step up? Hard to predict. The advantage he’s got over Matt Nagy, another coach boosted by Mahomes and Reid, is Kafka has helped Daniel Jones. It would certainly be interesting to see if he makes the step up or not.

Caldwell and Reich did have three winning seasons and one losing season with two play off appearances in four full seasons as the head coaches of Detroit and Indianapolis. Caldwell had QB stability with Stafford, while Reich had to deal with QB instability. Reich had a hard time with the Colts. Year one be worked with Andrew Luck and after going 1-1 in the play offs, their future looked fairly bright, then Luck decided to retire in August leaving him with Hoyer/Brissett for year two. In year three they went out and go Philip Rivers, he last one year before calling it a day. Who came next? Carson Wenz, no need to say much more. Then this season they went for Matt Ryan hoping he’d do for them what Rivers did, he didn’t, and it cost Reich his job (not their GM). During all of this QB instability and some questionable drafting, their Gm has held onto his job. I have to give Reich credit for having to deal with this QB situation. Things could have worked out differently for him had Luck continued to play. In his next chance, he needs QB stability.

It’s interesting that the AFC South have two teams that went for head coaches with zero NFL coaching experience. The Texans pulled the plug on the idea, while the Colts went for Jeff Saturday. I wonder if McCown will get another interview this time around?

I can’t say that I am surprised he’s been fired. If David Culley only got one season with a 4-13 record, then Lovie Smith with a 3-13-1 record was always going to be in trouble. Granted it shows no stability or commitment to a head coach, but the NFL isn’t always a patient place. Remember the 49ers did the same post-Harbaugh. Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly only got one year each in the job before they hired Kyle Shanahan. All the Texans need to do is pick the right person for their head coaching position because their GM won’t survive another one and done head coach, or at least they shouldn’t…

In regard to the Vikings, they decide to go with the latest offensive guru from the Sean McVay tree. Some teams love to go for young offensively minded head coaches now rather retreads or defensive side of the ball coaches. Plus there’s probably a very good chance Harbaugh wanted more control than they were willing to give, whereas a first time head coach would not. I suspect teams have shied away from him due to the cost and the likelihood he’d want significant control in the front office. Also, as you rightly say, his tenure in San Francisco didn’t end well. So perhaps teams have been hesitant to bring him back to the NFL. Whatever the reason, if he returns it will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.

This team does have a lot going for it to tempt a coach like Harbaugh. There’s talent on both sides of the ball and our GM has done a good job. The missing piece is at quarterback and Harbaugh would get his pick of who to go for, be it a veteran or someone from the draft. Another plus is our division and it being open for the taking. It will be interesting to see if he bites and makes an NFL return, but it does make me wonder whether this could be a similar situation to what the Raiders went through. Their interim head coach got them playing well and loved him by all accounts, even made the playoffs. A lot of times that would have sealed that coach the job, instead they went for the flashy hire and it’s back fired. Could the same happen here after the players have come together under Wilks? The main difference is Harbaugh has had head coaching success whereas McDaniels had none, but still, it does make me wonder what the best option for next season is.

Still amazes me that he never topped 4,000 pass yards again in his career. Came close a few times but never truly developed into a prolific passer. Had he developed that trait I think he would have still been our quarterback or at least won a Super Bowl with us.

In recent drafts we’ve seen people pick apart Josh Allen (example, he’ll never have the accuracy to be a top NFL QB) and Justin Herbert (example, he’s not a leader or the system he played in won’t translate). There are other quarterbacks we’ve seen picked apart and ultimately proved people wrong. So while Levis wouldn’t necessarily be my preference, I wouldn’t discount him because he does have a lot of talent and upside.

I found the following stats quite interesting. The raiders defense has typically ranked at the bottom end of the league. The best defense he played with was the 20th ranked unit of 16 and 17. A lot of better quarterbacks would struggle to overcome such an inconsistent and sometimes ineffective unit. 2022: 27th, 2021: 26th, 2020: 30th, 2019: 24th, 2018: 32nd, 2017: 20th, 2016: 20th, 2015: 22nd, 2014: 32nd By no means am I saying we should go for Carr, but if he’s placed on a team with a better defense and decent supporting cast and coaching staff, then there’s no reason why he couldn’t be a good quarterback for a team. As let’s face it, the Raiders have been dysfunctional at times over Carr’s time and that’s surely not helped.

Agreed, no real success without Brady and Bill by his side.

Question… if we want to make Wilks our next head coach and remove the interim tag, would we need to interview anyone else? Granted it was an article ranking the current vacancies on BleacherReport, but it said we need to interview two minority coaches for the position before we promote Wilks. Is that true? I could understand it if we had a white interim coach, but in our case we would be promoting a minority coach. Either way it would be a token interview, something Brian Flores and among others have been complaining about in the past year.

It’s possible, but is it realistic that a roster of players and coaches would want to be located in London full time?How are the league going to deal with the travel? They can’t give a London based team an advantage by grouping games to minimise travel otherwise the league would need to do the same for other teams in the league to minimise high air miles. There’s plenty of other questions that come along with a London based team. At least Toronto and Mexico City are easier to travel. There is demand in Europe, but is there enough to warrant a team full time? I’m not sure. If there was, surely the Jaguars would have relocated by now considering their owners own Fulham FC in London?

The question is, how many legitimate alternative locations are there for Tepper to relocate the team to if he doesn’t get what he wants? LA was the big one, that’s gone. Then there was Vegas, that’s gone. Those leverage points have gone and I don’t see other cities and markets having the same sway. I suppose St Louis, San Diego, and Oakland could all clamour for another opportunity, but frankly I don’t see them offering up big money to tempt a team. They all lost their teams for a reason. There’s candidates like Portland, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City that come up from time to time. But again, are they going to put up big money? I’m not convinced there’s the appetite for it. Dallas’ mayor has been talking about a second team in Dallas, but I doubt Jerry Jones lets that happen. Same goes for somewhere like Chicago adding a second team, I can’t see the Bears letting it happen. Only other option would be to look internationally like Toronto or Mexico City. Will they have the appetite to offer public money? I’m not sure. Personally I think the public money side of things needs to dry up. Teams should fund their stadiums privately with help from the league, not the taxpayer.

It makes sense to keep our options open. If we are starting our rookie then having Foles as his backup could a good option. If we are sitting our rookie to coach him up, then a short term option like Garoppolo might be on the cards.

Wilks stepping in as the interim for Rhule makes sense from the perspective that it keeps our coordinators in place focusing on their side of the ball, then leaving the rest up to Wilks. The only thing that makes me hesitant on Wilks taking over is the level of trust placed in McAdoo on the quarterback front. If the GM has deferred to him, then does it make McAdoo our next coach in waiting if Rhule is shown the door? Or is that irrelevant and our GM simply values McAdoo’s ability to evaluate QBs?

I’d tend to agree because we have a huge hole at LT. However, trades were flying in on draft night. So if Thibodeaux was available at #6 and a team offered us a boatload of picks to select him, then I could understand why we did it in order to stockpile draft picks to rebuild this team.

What if they drafted a tackle and some team that wanted Thibodeaux offered us a deal to move up ahead of the Giants? At that point they lose out on Thibodeaux because someone has traded up above them. Not worth the risk when there are three legitimate top five pick tackles available. Might as well guarantee Thibodeaux and pick one of the tackles left. Besides, they got the tackle that makes the most sense for them. Neal has experience at right tackle and they can pair him with their existing left tackle. Ekwonu and Cross mostly played left tackle, with Ekwonu playing some left guard.

Sign Cam to a team friendly deal, then let him, Darnold, Corral, and whoever else fight it out to start. Let the best man win. That said, I wouldn’t expect much from Cam. As a passer he’s looked finished these past two seasons with the Patriots and us. I wouldn’t count out Corral. The class has talent, it’s just not generational talent. Maybe one or more of this class can emerge as a legitimate starting quarterback and prove the doubters wrong. Alternatively, maybe this class lives alongside the EJ Manuel and Geno Smith class. Either way, we won’t know until they’ve been given a chance.