strato

I understand that some people want WR. I am solidly against using yet another high pick there. Coker is pretty good and we used No picks on him. What I think we really need at WR is a little bit of a Smitty lite. It is ridiculous to say let’s get a Smitty because you just can’t do that, but someone not tall and long striding but more in his mold. I think we’d have a pretty well rounded group. Looking at tackle, with replacing Moton looming, it just seems like the no brainer. You fill in Icky short term. Depending on how he recovers, and how the new guy plays, you go from there. A tackle at 19 is most likely either a LOT, a ROT, or a big talented guard, at worst. We will need all three in the next couple of years. I would love to have a stud ILB be there at 19 but the OL is the responsible thing to do I believe.

Bevell has been an interim HC for a few games in two different places, and that is the extent of his HC experience. But OC experience, play calling, scheming, he has that unquestionably. And that is where Canales has arguably been the weakest. The Seattle thing is what it is at this point. I am sure there is a downside and maybe that is, it might be a stale philosophy. The upside of it is the fit should be relatively seamless with them all drawing from the same well, terminology and philosophy wise. This is reminiscent of the Reich all star staff thing, except it isn’t a hodge podge of people drawn from diverse influences it has that ‘alignment’ thing going for it. (except lol, the little detail that they aren’t exactly all stars). I admit to being a fan of alignment, with everyone on the same page. It make a lot of sense to me. Whatever page you pick, get everyone on that same page.

I don’t know what the team is thinking but I tend to agree on LOT. I have said before that it pushes the upgrades we hoped to make all down a rung on the priority ladder. It feels like… you have this great vacation planned and right before you are about to go, you lose your job. You still gonna take that vacation or are you going to pay bills?

That’s why Bevell is a good move. Idzik might not be chopped liver, he is just inexperienced and even less ready to be the play caller than Canales. I still say the playbook is limited which is a hinderance to calling plays, I would imagine. Anyway Beavis lol… no Bevell, got to consecutive SBs as an OC and won one with 48 points or something. Should have won the second one. And had several more good years there. They were the team we had to learn how to beat it took us til the third year I think before we could go into Seattle and successfully compete. That is glass half full thinking, yep, but that is head and shoulders over what we have had here for a while. Certainly now. In addition.. It was Canales’ boss. He knew more then , I would bet he knows more now. I can’t look at this as anything but a potential positive thing. Hell he might be the guy that can look at Dave and say what the fug are you doing? And Dave will listen. I think I can hope for that. Maybe not.

What was three? I!m saying LOT. Stud or stopgap, you have to address it.

Yeah man. Here it is you are in January 2024. One coach run off over Bryce. Job is now open. You are a coach with interest from multiple teams. You look at Bryce’s 2023 performance, and maybe note Tepper’s volatility, what are you thinking? Scary situation or great opportunity? People should not lose sight of why we have a Dave Canales here. Getting any iind of decent results from him is a win.

I think you might be selling Bevell a little short. He was with Miami working for one of the better offensive minds in the league which isn’t nothing. He is a better sounding board than Idzik I would bet. not arguing about the rest of it or Canales, just saying.

Foxy looking kind of anorexic.

It would be a shame if Canales’ HC opportunity was tied solely to Bryce’s success or failure. It’s like summiting Everest with an asthma inhaler in place of oxygen. Or something. At the same time, I was thinking the other day about all the people talking about how Seattle got the great young coach, and the same for Jacksonville, or Ben Johnson, and thinking well you folks are not considering why we ended up with a Dave Canales in the first place. It was not all because they didn’t want to work for Tepper.

Your last sentence…. if you watched that McAfee interview with Tepper - that seat is safe. Safer than with the fans.

Doesn’t have to be a player they draft in 2027. Could be someone that gets put on the roster this year. Whether later round or a reclamation project, current backup. A 2027 FA even. I just mean, it wouldn’t have to be a three year proposition.

I am not thinking he has that in the best order. O’Connell should be in front of Canales, I think for sure. Maybe Lafleur, Packers underperformed a bit. Maybe Quinn. Redskins had a rough year. Schottenheimer? Don’t see it absent some sort of collapse. Not sure there is a need to put ten names down, really. Re Canales, if it goes bad early, it is likely Bryce doing his annual ritual. Which is one of the big subplots we will be looking at next year.

Yeah bad angle for her. I just watched something on this and I didn’t know so maybe someone else didn’t know either… NFL policy these days on this is they don’t hand out any discipline until the legal process is complete. The option mentioned was ‘paid leave’ in the interim. Falcons are likely going to have to pay him but not have him, and he will probably be able to afford his attorneys.

I held a similar opinion, ie he was gonna play how he wanted to play. So that’s the offense you end up with. Even if you would rather take a more traditional approach it would hard because, he was going to play how he wanted to play. I thought he saw himself as the number one weapon. Did I want a more diverse attack with more pocket passes and less running and option type plays? Yep. Chudzinski’s 2nd year here I thought he was getting too cute and chasing a HC job, which he got, but I would like to have seen him committed to running an offense he built around Cam. I think we missed out on that type of opportunity, getting Shula. But one thing about him, Ron didn’t have to worry about losing his OC every couple of years to a HC job. Lol.

That is interesting thanks.

I am kind of there. Without knowing what FA or the draft look like, just looking at what is there now? Hard to see where the two more wins are coming from. The Icky injury is a major setback. We are worse than the team that went 8-9 right now. Ask me in May, maybe I give a more optimistic take.

I would put Stafford in there for sure. If I eyeballed the best. It isn’t really something I follow league wide. It got my attention here because we were so downfield averse. And just off of my impressions from watching, that has been the case starting in 2023. It stood out like a sore thumb to me. As far as why Bryce rates so high, off so relatively few attempts? The simple intuitive answer would be something like, he throws them when they are wide ass open, coverage is blown, doesn’t take risks, that sort of thing. I have seen some nice throws but is very little wow in it outside of a handful. It is kind of a mystery.

That is counter to my logic processor. We talking footwork, leg drive, I get it. If he is just talking about arm motion, I don’t get it. I want to know more because we have a guy that needs to know about this more velocity patch. Counter intuitive to what I always thought. I can see making a more efficient motion to save wear and tear, get a quicker release, that kind of stuff. I wasn’t aware there was a way to get more velocity outside of having your base straight and in synch. I am not saying it’s wrong just that I am surprised. I don’t know enough to be a lot skeptical, but I’m maybe a little skeptical.

FWIW The Athletic just did power rankings. Seattle/Rams 1/2 Panthers 13th Bucs 18th Atlanta 20th Saints 24th

Lol Atlanta looks to have lost their young edge rusher, has no 1st round pick, a complete mess at QB, a new coaching staff… And we swept them this year. Says what they think of us.

I just read what I posted. I should have added that the fact that we didn’t have a WTF loss points to us learning how to win. It is evidence of that. Those really ugly wins, like vs NYJ and the Packers, they are losses with losers. I mean with a team hasn’t learned how to win. That is a thing we went through in 2002, and early 2003 to begin with. Instead of losing the tossup situations, we found a way to hold on and come out with a W. Most of the time. I don’t know if we can sustain it I guess we’ll see.

Running backs totally. But, if you don’t make a habit of giving RBs a second contract, does it matter if you pick one that is 24? What other positions might be treated similarly? Where you don’t regulary hand out second contracts? Anyone that maybe you don’t want to overpay on a second contract. I might say ROT. Guards. Might say CB in a scheme like Evero’s. Course, a lot of them will fall into the DJ Johnson/XL category of older rookies. You will lose players still good but then you probably get a comp pick and few cap issues. You have money for premium players’ second contracts, keep the team young. It is kind of interesting looking at it that way.

Well that’s the thing. Inconsistent. He will be horrible and then an hour later play much better. In his third season, he finally played well for 4 qtrs a couple of times. You could look at a drive from those games and be a believer. But keep watching…. you are like, that was a mirage.

That line about ‘above expectation’… the whole thing is so subjective. And unquantifiable due to the nature of it. Endless variables when the grader needs to make almost a split second determination of what the expectation should even be. They try, I know. I can even give them the benefit of assuming good faith. But that is so subjective and the name they gave it is pure hype. What about it is big time? Granted some throws are great but a plus one throw n September doesn’t seem to automatically deserve the label big time. Would look to rename it with less hyperbolic label. That is my biggest objection really. Big time were the throws on 4th down in the last qtr vs the Rams. Those, all day long. Excellent and for sure under big time pressure. Some other throws too. But that kind of throw seems to be a smaller fraction of what they use to calculate their grade.

Great. Meet me at BOA 6am Saturday morning and we’ll get you started.