Bear Hands

I imagine it will start 0-0 and go from there. It is what it is.

Not necessarily. Happens with QB classes because people dissect these guys so much until they dislike them all, but this is arguably the least top heavy draft since like 2013.

We had a completely green Joe Brady under Matt Rhule for Darnold who managed to look good for a minute, starting off 3-0. If we could've set that up with a better coaching situation, I think he'd still be our QB. For Baker, we gave him a hot seated Matt Rhule testing out McAdoo as his first refuge outside of Cleveland. Complete disaster of an environment. All stems back to the Matt Rhule hiring...

It's a very good combination of factors. O'Connell is proving to be one of the best coaches in the league, JJ and Addison the best duo, and Darnold is starting to avoid the dummy throws. It's coming together there.

Yes, at the end of the day, once players are on the field, they're playing and showing up. NFL is difficult to orchestrate an intentional losing effort from 25ish guys getting the snaps. But poorly coached teams aren't suddenly better than the best teams backups. They still suck.

General thing to consider for the tanking teams playing resting playoff locks: The backups want to look good/boost their stock/potential new/FA contracts. The sh*tty teams are still sh*t and want the high picks. This is why I see most bad teams still losing next week. We're probably at 5 or 6.

I think the Bills backups could still roll NE lol.

1 is going to be hard to lose for NE. TEN now on track to 2 playing HOU. 3 CLE who lose the tiebreaker to NYG. Realistically, we’re looking at 5-7. Tmac, Graham, Johnson and the LTs are very much still in play. Maybe even Starks.

Yeah I’m really disappointed. I thought he would show some strides to negate the slippage we saw but he has just continued to regress and this is besides strong interior play. And Njiman has performed badly too. Can’t rely on swing linemen like BC either. LT is a need that could align in R1-3. Or maybe we identify a vet this offseason.

Icky is just a huge liability. Really dislike what I’ve seen this year.

The AFS had the Cincy beat guy on the other week and were talking how the Bengals can actually afford him and Chase. They have like nothing allocated defensively and Burrow wants him back. That entire team has no one to pay outside Burrow and Chase. Logan Wilson? There’s no one. And the Pats will be going hard after him with an ungodly amount of cap.

Random takeaways: McCord is solid. He’s not some sure fire 1st but if Derek Carr and Kirk Cousins can carve out careers, I think he could too. Not on the stat sheet tonight, but Pena is really good for Cuse. This Arkansas kid Taylen Green is someone to watch the next few years if he develops well.

EDGE is definitely deep, not so much high end talent you want to see annually, but a good amount of talent overall. A lot of guys that could be in that JJ Jr, Byron Young, Tuli, Bonitto bracket that could blossom pretty quickly. A lot of interesting R2-3 targets - Jack Sawyer, Donavon Ez, Mike Green. Bradyn Swinson is a mid to late rounder that intrigues me too.

People upset we've won too many games at 4-11 and talking about wiping butts. Good on you huddle. Happy Christmukkah

Thanks for getting more names out there and actually fixed 3-4 DLs, not an edge who won’t be a 3-downer, flexing out in our sub packages. There’s some good talent on the DL.

Are we forgetting Piniero missed the game winning 32 yard field goal in OT too? That was shorter than the penalized XP.

Of course. He was killing it. But the playcalling down the stretch was so bad that year coming off the wildcard loss season to the Saints. That was the most frustrated I was with Ron’s staff outside of pre-Riverboat days. It was obvious he was a goner. Then, the following year though, we just carried through with a lot of assumptions that we had enough talent and Cam was fine (which he wasn’t). Then we had to be thrown for the Kyle Allen whirl. Honestly, going into that 2019 team, it was a great core and a good one to hand off to a new coach. Problem was, Cam was done, CMC just blossoming and the defense was closing its window. 2018 was the year to can Rivera and Hurney at the same time and for Tepper to start his thing..

People say Evans or Higgins, I'll go similar but he gives me heavy Drake London feel (after the catch movement) with a little bit of Michael Pittman (the way he high points and aggressively outduels defenders). Went to HS in SoCal...surprised he wasn't recruited by USC haha. He's a solid solid prospect. Would have no problem with him R1. It's not a top heavy draft so he's in play. Same goes for Burden honestly. Put those guys vs. Johnson vs. Graham, it's a tough call IMO.

The approach we took to build the WR room is one I will always be miffed by. I’ve never liked our draft choices and it always leaves me feeling uneasy (even back to LaFell/Gettis/Armanti). I loved Pearsall and Ladd, but those just aren’t types we target for some reason. RB wise - Just seeing what Bucky Irving has done this year with guys Canales built his offense around last year, is enough to really make the RB approach seem questionable. If we were unsure about Chuba preseason, then we should’ve gotten a guy who could’ve played immediately. If we were confident in Chuba, then we should’ve targeted a Ray Davis, Irving, Tracy, Guerendo etc. a bit later and reserve the R2 capital for a potential long term starter. The reasoning doesn’t entirely check out even though I love Brooks as a prospect. I dunno, just still feels off. Same taste I got with the Horn pick. Same with bringing back Hurney. Just a big old ick.

I liked Trevin, think his ceiling is high and he's got some grit. He was a bit further along than expected in a few respects from a development standpoint. Same goes for S-W and Sanders. And I consider our priority UDFA for Coker a late 7th (even though we waived and brought him back). The draft wasn't bad, but the top of it is just really frustrating yet again. We had some pretty glaring fits staring us in the face to pick at the top. I mean, imagine Ladd at 32 and Frazier/Sainristil at 46, this could've easily been a home run draft. But Xavier and Brooks rubbed people the wrong way, and seems to still be the case. Especially when one has a dropping problem and the other injured the same knee and now looks like a question mark as our future RB.

It’s been catchup/reactive mode ever since. We’ve been patient when we shouldn’t have been, and impatient when we should’ve kept our chill. Just no real feel for savvy decision making. First major hire should have been the guy to really be the architect of the team with a vision and plan in mind. Whether it was a Roseman, Gutekunst or DeCosta type. He should have at the least sought that person during 2018 as he got used to ownership. Tepper eventually thought he found his combo guy in Rhule and then Hurney could be his shoe-kissing lackey. So poor choices and timing with HC/GM moves, playing merri-go-round with QBs, waiting too long to grab an LT, the list goes on. I will say, this year, it felt a little bit different so I’ll give Tepper an inch of credit— but they’ve got a lot more to keep building. Even if it feels a bit dummied down with the “dawg” thing, it’s at least something — Morgan/Canales seem in sync.

Even after that, it could have been salvaged.. Tepper should have wiped the slate clean once buying, instead of delaying the inevitable. The whole "don't step on the org's toes year 1" approach killed us. The 2019 season should have never happened the way it did. Cam's shoulder was gone at that point, but we didn't know until he bowed out for the season after the first few. Kuechly was likely going to retire no matter what. But you end Rivera at the close of 2018, we would have been positioned for Burrow/Herbert/Tua accordingly. Simple as that.

Out of all the woulda-shouldas, that’s what you choose?

This is a fair assessment of the situation from my view. We got a glimpse of him at his near best, and saw what happens when he slips back. I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the right type of thinking, considering lows vs highs relative to ultimate goals. If his highs still can’t quite produce big wins, and everything needs to be damn near perfect, then you’re needing too much from him as a limited player. Get him in the right environment, sure, I guarantee there could be a coach+team combo where he could make a 10-7/11-6 type run with for a season or two. But that’s best case, and is all of this worth it to get there? I say we need to keep rolling the dice. Given our timeline, team around him, and what he needs to do, it doesn’t align and isn’t worth settling for, and at the least need competition. The ceiling is not a game changer. We can’t coddle him this offseason and not strongly consider other avenues.