LinvilleGorge

You don't have to be a fan of Minshew to understand that he's better than Sam Darnold. He's a stop gap/good backup type of player. That's a lot better than Sam Darnold who is a poo tier NFL QB.

I honestly didn't even notice Teddy's name on the list. Yes, Teddy is better than Darnold. By a decent margin. Teddy would actually be an ideal backup. He's not going to go out there and lose the game for you. He's definitely not gonna win it either, but he's the perfect kinda "hold the fort down" backup. Your team is going to be what your team is with Teddy. Bad roster, bad team. Good roster, good team. He's just the perfect vanilla QB. Him being your starter at QB adds more subtracts any expected wins from baseline. If you sucked before Teddy, you still suck. If you were good before Teddy, you're still good (unless your previous QB was carrying you).

No way Darnold should be ahead of Taylor, Minshew, or Mills. I wasn't big at all on Pickett as a prospect but he hasn't proven he sucks in the NFL and Darnold has so hell I'd have him over Darnold too.

Damn. Ademola Okulaja passes away yesterday at 46. Not sure of the cause but he did have a cancerous tumor removed from his spine in '08 that ended his European pro basketball career. RIP.

I hate it for the guy but there's no ignoring that he was really awful before the injury. I hate he had to go through ACL rehab because it sucks, but it may have bought him a few more NFL paychecks than he would've otherwise gotten. Just the harsh reality of the NFL.

Yes. Moose looked like a legit elite WR.

When people try to put Smitty on a pedestal by low key insinuating Jake was trash, they tend to overlook the reality that Jake's best statistical season was the year when Smitty broke his leg in week one and missed the whole season.

This is Matt Rhule we're talking about here. I wouldn't be so sure.

Sigh...

I don't recall anyone really having Adams as a 1st round prospect. Seems like most had him as a good prospect but pigeon holed into a possession type guy who would never evolve into an elite or game breaking type WR. A solid starter type.

That's what got us in trouble with evaluating Sam Darnold. He's a very good thrower of the football. Unfortunately, there's a LOT more to playing QB in the NFL than simply throwing a football.

It's an undoubted business model that's doomed to failure. Not my fault.

Agreed. By all accounts he looked like the best player on the field during the joint practices when he tore his ACL. Then his mom passed and it just all spiraled from there. The combo of the too was just too much for him to overcome and yeah, it would be a lot. I'd be a lot more sympathetic toward him if he hadn't tried to throw anyone and everyone under the bus in an effort to blame everyone but himself.

A handful of delusionally optimistic fans doesn't mean much. Honestly, if we field a defense in the top half of the league I'll consider it a decent performance. If we flirt with the top 10 I'll be very pleased with the D. Anything more would obviously be welcomed but would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO. As for the offense... hell, anything that isn't isn't bottom 10 in the league has to be considered decent considering last year. Approaching average would be wildly outperforming reasonable expectations IMO.

I honestly don't think our defense has been "hyped". It's just been better than we expected when we all pretty much anticipated an all-time terrible D in Rhule and Snow's first year and the D was just run of the mill below average. Then there's the juxtaposition with the offense which has just been an outright unmitigated disaster and while the D has made improvements the offense has just continued to get worse. Now I acknowledge that our D might actually be pretty bad in reality if teams actually had to go out there and try to put up points against us.

I don't think really good DBs with really good measurables are ever going to be obsolete.

Pretty low IMO. Once we start losing again nagging injuries will keep him on the shelf. No need to keep playing when you have all that guaranteed money if you're not competing. Gotta do it for the 'gram!

Because Rhule. He's been searching for that right veteran bandaid ever since he was hired. He still doesn't understand that these guys are available relatively cheaply for a reason.

When you've won 15 games over the past three seasons combined... yeah, the atmosphere is gonna be lacking.

The "Tepper Effect". I mean, it's kind of expected when a new owner immediately ushers in the worst period of losing in franchise history.

I'm mainly talking about the staff and the QB situation. You need two factors on the field to be competitive - a coach and a QB. Those are the two MUST HAVES. You can find elite teams with weaknesses at virtually every other position group but you gotta have a QB and if you aren't strong virtually everywhere else then you better have a HC too.

I just assumed they had Darnold out there actively throwing to DBs.

I hope you're right. I just very seriously doubt it. When you're coming off of three straight five win seasons it's hard to muster up much enthusiasm without an exciting new coaching staff and/or a new elite QB prospect or FA addition. We have neither. Same crew with some bandaids slapped on. Sorry, McAdoo doesn't excite me even a little bit. Probably gonna yield similar if not identical results.

It's Mike Shula all over again except worse. Just zero ability to make adjustments.

This is the big problem with both of Rhule's seasons. No one had super high expectations, but we looked pretty good early on in both but the more we played the worse we looked. That's the opposite of what you want to see out of a rebuilding team. Rhule just doesn't have the chops as an NFL coach. The rest of the league figures out what he's trying to do pretty quickly and he has nothing left once they do.