Where I'm at midseason

[SmokinwithWilly]

8 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Is Steve Reed checking the Huddle?

And to be clear, It's not necessarily that David Tepper made the pick himself, but that he influenced the pick in any way would still be unacceptable.

What on earth would qualify Tepper to choose BY? Therein lies my issue. Other than the interview, what could he possibly have in football knowledge to determine whether or not any QB prospect is a franchise player. 

[top dawg]

2 minutes ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

I'm not sure if that's impatience as much as delusion. We may have gotten close to a playoff berth last year, but it wasn't going to even be by "winning" the division. It was just a game of who sucked less. TB got obliterated in the WC game. Can't even imagine how bad we would have. This team wasn't ready to drop a QB in and make a playoff run. 

I'll give you that, but I do believe that impatience had a hand in that.

From some perspective, I think it's a good thing that now everyone is sober and knows that we are a long ways away from being contenders. I'm hoping that people take this as a lesson and learn it.  There is no shortcut or substitute of time to build a franchise that's a perennial contender. You gotta take all that fluff and coach-speak with a big grain of salt. You may have to gird yourself even more due to failings of ownership. I suspect that some are going to forget as soon as there's a hint of improvement, or when we make major changes. 

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, SmokinwithWilly said:

What on earth would qualify Tepper to choose BY? Therein lies my issue. Other than the interview, what could he possibly have in football knowledge to determine whether or not any QB prospect is a franchise player. 

When you go back to the draft videos, you'll hear Tepper talk about how crazy it was to hear Bryce Young breaking down a play that he was given during their dinner.

I think if there was a point where Tepper decided Young was the guy, that was probably it.

[Castavar]

16 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

Is Steve Reed checking the Huddle?

And to be clear, It's not necessarily that David Tepper made the pick himself, but that he influenced the pick in any way would still be unacceptable.

Overruled? No.

Nudged in a certain direction? 1000%.

Nobody is saying Tepper overruled everyone Steve Reed. But you got to be ignorant to think the Teppers did not sway opinions towards a certain somebody.

[SmokinwithWilly]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

If you ask a lot of GMs what the foundational pieces for a team are, they'll often say quarterback, left tackle and pass rusher.

The belief last year was that we had two of those three.

But if you watched the games you realized that those were only 3 pieces of 53 and we weren't close to being a playoff caliber team. We couldn't win the worst division in football. With a new coach, new offensive scheme, new OC and DC, normal player rotation, etc, thinking we were ready to make a serious run was wishful thinking. To get to 1 we had to hurt the ability to build around the brand new QB. It was just a terrible plan from the start with a low chance of success. 

[mrcompletely11]

Just now, SmokinwithWilly said:

But if you watched the games you realized that those were only 3 pieces of 53 and we weren't close to being a playoff caliber team. We couldn't win the worst division in football. With a new coach, new offensive scheme, new OC and DC, normal player rotation, etc, thinking we were ready to make a serious run was wishful thinking. To get to 1 we had to hurt the ability to build around the brand new QB. It was just a terrible plan from the start with a low chance of success. 

Has a trade up of that magnitude ever worked out?

[Mr. Scot]

3 minutes ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

But if you watched the games you realized that those were only 3 pieces of 53 and we weren't close to being a playoff caliber team. We couldn't win the worst division in football. With a new coach, new offensive scheme, new OC and DC, normal player rotation, etc, thinking we were ready to make a serious run was wishful thinking. To get to 1 we had to hurt the ability to build around the brand new QB. It was just a terrible plan from the start with a low chance of success. 

This time last year I'd have said that the offensive line was pretty well set, we had a lot of good players on defense and the biggest need outside of quarterback was to upgrade the skill positions.

What complicated things of course was that changing coordinators meant changing schemes, which meant that some of the players we had expected to keep no longer suited what we were doing.

Unfortunately, the OL scheme change just made it that much worse.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Mr. Scot

[CRA]

25 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

See I think we are doing a rebuild, even if it's not acknowledged to be so.

I know this is where people disagree with me, but that's still my belief.

I wish Mr. Scot was here today so he could call you a conspiracy theorist who refuses facts from the horses mouth over his own imagination. 

[SmokinwithWilly]

1 minute ago, Mr. Scot said:

This time last year I'd have said that the offensive line was pretty well set, we had a lot of good players on defense and the biggest need outside of quarterback was to upgrade the skill positions.

What complicated things of course was that changing coordinators meant changing schemes, which meant that some of the players we had expected to keep no longer suited what we were doing.

Which means you aren't plug and play ready for a rookie QB to lead a playoff run. Our line is built for running over people. That's not what this offense is. Frank's offense has never been that. But this is where we are now. It doesn't change the fact we've seriously hurt our ability to build around a QB that needs to be the best anomaly in NFL QB history to justify the trade. 

But all that aside, Tepper picked the coach with limited understanding of personnel and how coach selection would be influencing those players. The problem starts at the top. 

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

Which means you aren't plug and play ready for a rookie QB to lead a playoff run. Our line is built for running over people. That's not what this offense is. Frank's offense has never been that. But this is where we are now. It doesn't change the fact we've seriously hurt our ability to build around a QB that needs to be the best anomaly in NFL QB history to justify the trade. 

But all that aside, Tepper picked the coach with limited understanding of personnel and how coach selection would be influencing those players. The problem starts at the top. 

The guy who would have been in the best position to foresee that would have been Reich himself. Nobody was going to know his offense better than him.

I would like to know what his opinion of that was, but I doubt we ever will.

[ForJimmy]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

The guy who would have been in the best position to foresee that would have been Reich himself. Nobody was going to know his offense better than him.

I would like to know what his opinion of that was, but I doubt we ever will.

The guy that's having our OL playing the wrong scheme which is turning an actual strength to a weakness in an already depleted roster?

[SmokinwithWilly]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

The guy who would have been in the best position to foresee that would have been Reich himself. Nobody was going to know his offense better than him.

I would like to know what his opinion of that was, but I doubt we ever will.

Or a team president who's been in the business and could look at the roster and Frank's previous coaching style and roster builds to determine if he was the right coach for the pieces we already had. 

That's why I have said repeatedly Tepper is the problem. He's trying to hire people to do a job while lacking the knowledge to know if they're the right people for THIS job. You only know what you know and Dave knows hedge funds, not running a NFL front office. 

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, ForJimmy said:

The guy that's having our OL playing the wrong scheme which is turning an actual strength to a weakness in an already depleted roster?

Yeah, that guy.

My two big complaints about Reich so far are that and questionable depth chart decisions.

[Mr. Scot]

Just now, SmokinwithWilly said:

Or a team president who's been in the business and could look at the roster and Frank's previous coaching style and roster builds to determine if he was the right coach for the pieces we already had. 

That's why I have said repeatedly Tepper is the problem. He's trying to hire people to do a job while lacking the knowledge to know if they're the right people for THIS job. You only know what you know and Dave knows hedge funds, not running a NFL front office. 

One of my biggest complaints in the regular work world was when decisions were made by people who were ill-informed to make those decisions.

That's a problem no matter where it happens.