JawnyBlaze

For all we know he was telling Fitterer to go a different direction. The narrative is that Reich wanted Stroud and Mr Meddlesome said no take Young. Maybe Morgan was also team Bryce. For all we know Morgan wanted to shore up the line more but Fitterer either ignored him or didn’t have the means to make it happen. We have no idea what Morgan thinks or how he plans to turn the team around.

How tf do we know this?

Neither do any of the people here claiming he’s a yes man and a disaster of a hire.

That would require common decency. You clearly have unrealistic expectations for this place.

Just wondering where this yes man narrative came from? Keeping an open mind, I have no idea how he’ll do. Never do with these GM hires because we never have any clue how involved and what roles they actually played in their previous non-GM positions. Only exception I can think of is Hurney, because he had been a GM before and we KNEW he was horrible and hired him back anyway.

Unless they do something to replace him before the season, they’re going to ride with him all season long unless he gets injured. Gotta get every bit of evaluation in for the following year before pulling the plug on a guy that cost us two #1 overalls, two second rounders and a good WR. The side benefit will be tanking. Doesn’t have to have anything at all to do with Tepper.

Stand pat then look to draft his replacement in 2025 if he doesn’t take a huge leap in year two. If he doesn’t take that huge leap then 2024 is a wash anyway, let him noodle arm us straight to the #1 pick and his replacement.

Two metrics already listed here, pocket time and time to throw, have the OL ranked at 6th and 14th. Not that bad. Once you start buying into PFF’s subjective rankings then maybe it drops.

The trade up wasn’t the problem, it’s who we took. If the trade includes who we actually got in the trade then it’s an F ***** minus. Just the trade value on its own merits I’d still go with a B.

it is a VERY common argument. I was responding to you, but not everything I said was directed solely at you.

Kaep was just that bad. He was easy to figure out. He was bad at the throwing the football part. Harbaugh was just a wizard.

Most of the respected experts won’t admit they were way off about Bryce, and also cater their message to the simpler fans who think that sacks are all on the OL. I won’t deny the OL got blown up sometimes and took a huge step back this year but to my eyes that saw every snap we took this year the line gave average protection over the course of the year. Bryce was way below average in his processing speed and pocket awareness. There were as many times the OL gave him way over average time, sometimes 5+, occasionally over 10 seconds, to throw the ball and he just didn’t. Whether there were receivers open or not that’s way too long to make a decision. And there were receivers open a lot more than people admit too. Open isn’t no one within 5 yards. Open is a step. Open is leverage. Bryce was just too inaccurate to take advantage of those steps and leverages, sometimes wildly missing guys who actually didn’t have anyone within five or more yards. I’m not giving up on Bryce per se, I want him to succeed. It would be great if he took a HUGE leap next year and we don’t need to spend our ‘25 first on a QB. I just don’t expect it. I saw all the flaws I noticed from his college performances, and his supposed strengths also turned into flaws. His primary risk is the only thing that didn’t turn into much of a problem: durability.

‘24 is a wash, wasting one of our precious few picks on a project QB would be foolish unless the new coach has some insight that makes them absolutely certain the kid will be a stud. Load up on OL and playmakers on offense as best we can, then if Bryce doesn’t exponentially improve look to ‘25 to draft our new QB with our top few pick. And that’s why these huge trades don’t “set a team back ten years” and the other such bs hyperbole people like to spew. Even trading two firsts and two seconds plus a good WR for a colossal bust would only set us back two, maybe three years tops.

If you’re talking about the QB then yea, taking a long time is bad. We’re talking about the OL though and they’re giving him longer to throw. It’s not immediate pressure and a sack or throwaway like the narrative surrounding our OL says.

Chark showed he can be a playmaker when Bryce actually throws him the ball (or somewhere in his general vicinity as Bryce’s accuracy prevented him from actually throwing good passes very often). If we had Stroud I think people would be talking about our receiving corps being surprisingly good after low expectations (like the narrative about the Texans). Thielen would have been similar but Chark would have had a huge leap with someone competent throwing him the ball and maybe even Mingo would have had more production. The run game would have been better because the defenses would have actually had to defend the whole field. The OL wouldn’t have the narrative around it because when they did hold up most of the time, more often the play would have had a positive result and led to fewer 3rd and longs which allowed the defense to get sacks and stops at a higher rate. Everything trickles down into place better with better QB play. Same can be said of playcalling, but the former was worse than the latter for us this year.

Different stat than mine but helps paint a fuller picture. 6th best pocket time is actually pretty impressive by the OL.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#yards I mentioned it at one point recently, saw it mentioned on twitter or something. I couldn’t get the list to sort by “TT” when I pulled it up myself, but when I followed the link the first time I saw it it was sorted that way. 14th longest time to throw at 2.9s. I wasn’t surprised, watching the games most of his sacks came after he had 5+ seconds. It was actually rare for defenders to just blow through the line and get to him quickly, they mostly came from him being oblivious to edge defenders eventually working their way to him because he couldn’t read the field or make a decision. The OL wasn’t good, but nowhere near as bad as a lot want to make out because they just see Bryce on the ground again and mentally log it as another fail by the OL rather than analyze the situation enough to realize it was actually on Bryce.

Two things are almost certainly true: 1) The Texans did a better job last offseason preparing for a rookie QB and improving their team. 2) Stroud is a much better QB than Young (and always was.) If we had taken the right QB, we’d have probably gotten 6-9 wins this year and best case scenario squeaked into the playoffs instead of the Bucs and had the honor of bouncing the Eagles out before getting mashed by the Lions while the Texans would have gotten 4-7 wins and people would be saying they need a new line because of Young stepping into pressure, holding the ball too long and lacking any kind of pocket awareness. Nico Collins would still be a breakout candidate l, if only they would throw him the ball.

Yea a lot is put into these “good coaches wouldn’t want to come here” narratives but in the end money talks, as well as ego. Would be a helluva feather in the cap to turn this franchise and QB around. I don’t think anyone is turning their nose up at Carolina, and a report from one of the main “insiders”, I forget which, said as much a few weeks ago.

Andy Reid

If Hurts plays like he did last year for another six or seven years, he’s in the talk. Rushing records and the MVP aren’t the only thing that Cam has there. Carrying a barren offense for so many years with inept coaching is probably the bigger accomplishment and Hurts hasn’t had to face that yet.

Alabama was the OSU of QBs before OSU was. OSU had what, 2 or 3 guys who were good in college and didn’t pan out in the NFL? And those weren’t even drafted high if I recall correctly. Tua and Hurts are changing to perception of Bama QBs, but OSU’s perception was all media manufactured. If anything, the college that deserves that perception is USC.

The trade would have been a good one if we used the pick on Stroud. Fix the OL in the draft and FA (it’s not as bad as Bryce made them look, 14th longest time to pass in the league ain’t bad), find a solid WR and the team is ready. Defense is there.

There were some here I was sure were bipolar for how rabidly and aggressively they flipped from Stroud to Young before the draft.

I hope he can improve, and sure every QB misses open receivers occasionally but I can’t remember the another one that missed even close as consistently as Bryce. Even a lot of his balls that get caught are bad passes that receivers have to come back for or otherwise end what could have been a big play just to catch it. A stat I saw the other day, he had the 14th longest time to throw in the league, his OL wasn’t good but not as bad as a lot of people make out to be. He just had a habit of running toward pressure, absolutely no pocket presence and shockingly slow to process. I screamed “get rid of the ***** ball!” at the tv so many times this year my family thought I developed Tourette’s.