Joe Person: Ickey is expected to be extended, Mays is someone we want to keep long term, TE, LB and OLB are our biggest needs heading into the offseason

[DaveThePanther2008]

TE is going to have to be first round talent.  We're going to keep diving in on one dimensional TEs hoping they can become multi-dimensional.  

Evans IMO is probably the closest thing to dual threat TE.  He's a good blocker and catches well.  

Sad part is we have too many other needs to grab for the best TE in the draft.  

[strato]

54 minutes ago, csx said:

I will believe in him when he strings together good performances. I want it to happen. Im skeptical.

No Bryce lover wanted any part of the question “what would we say if our defense allowed those two 4th down TDs?”.

We would have been really pissed. Calling for heads. 
Rams were derelict, honestly. Even if you want to excuse the first time, what about the second one? You don’t account for a ball thrown over people’s heads? 
 

They were very well executed plays by the entire offense, Bryce certainly included. But I don’t expect that poo to continue, meaning that defenses are not just gonna continue to ignorantly allow that to happen. 
 

edit: and that is the purpose of doing those kinds of plays whether you hit them or not. Okay on 4th down you have to hit them but otherwise it isn’t mandatory. The effect hopefully is that the defense has to account for them and you get a little slack elsewhere to work with. 

Edited 3 hours ago by strato

[Mr. Scot]

18 hours ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

How many teams coddle their QB the way Bryce has been coddled? I have never seen any other team in the NFL EVER baby a QB the way that Bryce has been. 

Bryce was named day 1 starter his first year. It was obvious he didnt deserve it. He wasnt ready as evidenced by the worst rookie year in NFL history. 

So let's move to year 2. He's named starter again with no competition in TC and is benched 2 games later. We have the ghost of a backup in Dalton who is so bad he can only beat Vegas and let's remember, the only reason he lost his starting job was a car accident, not because Bryce actually beat him out in practice. 

And year 3. We sign Dalton again, who already proved he couldn't be depended on to put an even remotely passable performance on the field, and bring back Jack Plummer, who was even worse than last year. It was obvious he was nothing more than a pretend body in an attempt to create an illusion of some type of attempt to find a backup. 

Then we start again with garbage play again and Bryce gets benched with a phantom injury, and the ghost of the ghost of Dalton breaks his thumb on the first drive and craps the field all over again. If we had actually made an attempt to find a legitimate QB2, it's possible Bryce doesn't step on the field again. Bryce is not agood QB and if we had any other mediocre QB, our record would be the same or better. 

Bryce is not entrenched. He's been placed, protected and sheltered from ever having to face a  real QB competition in TC. Richardson and Levis both were ass and both were benched and eventually replaced. 

Do I expect Baker to face competition in camp? Sure. I expect Tampa to find the best QB2 they can at price that fits their cap and resources and system and get him up to speed. If he's better than Baker, and if he's better by a significant margin, that's best for the team. The ultimate goal is a Super Bowl. Bellichek was constantly getting QB2s with the GOAT as his starter. He knew the value and that was realized when Cassell led them to an 11-5 record as a backup. 

You and I may think differently than the people that matter but I will say it again. If you're afraid to bring in a capable backup, especially after the debacle of last year. The starting role wasn't earned, it was given, and that's loser mentality.

Most, if not all of them.

It isn't "coddling" either. It's standard practice. When a team names a starter, he's the guy. 

Like I said previously, the Bucs aren't going to go into next year telling Baker Mayfield he has to win the starting role again. He keeps it by default. That's how NFL teams operate.

Our feelings don't matter.

[Mr. Scot]

20 hours ago, Sup said:

But the thing is, Bryce is so mediocre/bad that anyone they bring in will be competition. 

Not if the team doesn't see it that way.

[Mr. Scot]

12 hours ago, mrcompletely11 said:

If you think Bryce is an "established starter" then that probably would be the place to begin

Not about what I think. 

Can you find any sources suggesting the team wants to bring competition for Bryce?

(I haven't seen any, just the opposite)

That situation could change but right now, I'd be surprised. 

[Mr. Scot]

12 hours ago, mrcompletely11 said:

Thats not true, thats what Brandt said about him in the off season.  Then he has continued to play "meh".   We simply dont know how the staff feels about him now.  There are no reports that they like him or not

Graziano, Fowler and Person all basically see the fifth year option as a no brainer.

That doesn't exactly scream "looking for an upgrade".

[Mr. Scot]

12 hours ago, MHS831 said:

I think the best way to make Bryce better is to make everyone around him better.  This is why I advocate for a stud (top 5, eventually) TE.  I mean, when we have been a good franchise, we have had a stud TE (Walls, Olsen) and ILB (Beason, Mills, Morgan, Luke, etc) so it is in our DNA.  Expect us to address these areas this year.  (An Olsen or Walls would help Bryce a lot).  In terms of productivity, I think we are going to work with XL for one more season and ride the TMac / Coker momentum.  Where else could we find a position to improve productivity?  TE.  A position that caters to Bryce's style and shortcomings, a stud TE gives him another weapon he has not had.

The Panthers run a lot of 2-TE sets (I have seen 3) and they have a blocker (Tremble) who is great in the run game, a balanced TE (Evans), and Sanders is supposed to be the pass-catching TE. He had 340 yards last season and he has about 170 this year.  If we are going to play around with XL for another season, it only makes up to add to Bryce's weapons in a way that does not put XL on the bench, basically ending his development. It makes sense to bring in a pass-catching dawg.  The way the offense is designed, I see carrying 4, but its not ideal.

Having said that, I mentioned Oregon's Sadiq in another thread, but I am starting to warm up to Vanderbilt's Stowers and, in the Olsen/Walls mold, I kinda like Endries from Texas.  Of course, Stowers is probably going in round 2 and Endries in 3 or later.

I still say, 5 months before the draft, that I would not be surprised if we take a TE very early.

I expect them to take the "build around him" approach.

[Mr. Scot]

11 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

I mean, but there is ample evidence that exists currently in the NFL and historically that if you have a talented or moderately talented team then one of the biggest upgrades you can make is at QB. It yields the biggest returns.

I don't think even Prime Greg Olsen is going to make Bryce suddenly look like a stud QB. We have invested immense amounts of money on the OL and tremendous amounts of draft resources on WR's. And have added an additional extremely capable RB.

At some point, the main problem is Bryce. We are at that point. 

That being said, we don't need to go "Full Bryce" again and sell the farm to upgrade at QB. Be intelligent and patient. Try to get better by whatever means become available WHILE continuing to make the roster better. At the bare minimum, you slowly build an upper half of the NFL talented roster that is at least a potential draw for some free agent QB's.

IMO, Bryce is clearly not the answer. I don't think anyone in our organization thinks that way but if they do, it's not the end of the world. Throw as many reasonable darts as you can through free agency and the draft until either you get a bullseye or a top 10-15 option becomes available in free agency.

I share your opinion, but there's pretty much no indication the team does.

[Mr. Scot]

9 hours ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

I think the reason we immediately picked up Darnold's 5th was what we traded to get him and it wasn't reasonable to expect him to reach his potential on a new team in a new offense in a single season given where he was at in his career. I think 2 seasons was a reasonable expectation, especially given the fact he had been coached by Gase. 

I've read a lot of BTS stuff from NFL front offices, and what I've seen doesn't reflect this kind of thinking. 

The reason they picked up Darnold's fifth was the same reason they traded for him, because they believed he could be the guy. When they pick up Young's option it'll be for the same reason.

Fans rationalize stuff like this because they can't imagine team decision makers not seeing players differently than how they see them.

But they do.

Hell, we spend entire offseasons complaining because teams being back guys like Ian Thomas.

[Sup]

7 minutes ago, Mr. Scot said:

I share your opinion, but there's pretty much no indication the team does.

They are not going to poo on him in pressers during the season, but they are not stupid and they see just how much he is holding this team back.

[Mr. Scot]

5 hours ago, strato said:

It is time to accept that we casual fans are simply inferior to the big brained Bryce believers. 
They have been telling us this for three years. 

Ryan Grigson was a lousy GM.

That said, he had training, experience, access to information that none of us do, and the responsibility to craft a full roster, not just sit back and snipe about individual decisions.

He was better equipped than even the smartest people on this or any other internet forum to run an NFL team...

...but he failed.

Why?

Because he wasn't competing against us. He was competing against Brett Veach, Brad Holmes, Les Snead and 28 other professional talent evaluators and roster builders.

Being better than us is relatively easy given the advantages he has, but that's not his job. His job is to be better than those other guys, and he wasn't.

On a personal level, I could frame that as Marty Hurney was better equipped than me. He made mistakes I might not have made, but in the real world I probably couldn't have done his job.

I always try to keep that in perspective.

They're human, they're gonna fail, but it doesn't necessarily make me superior to them. 

Edited 55 minutes ago by Mr. Scot

[Mr. Scot]

3 hours ago, SmokinwithWilly said:

Its also time to accept the fact if the powers that be had listened to the Huddle we'd have made the correct choice on major decisions more often than not. 

Yeah...no. See above. 

[Mr. Scot]

3 hours ago, strato said:

No Bryce lover wanted any part of the question “what would we say if our defense allowed those two 4th down TDs?”.

We would have been really pissed. Calling for heads. 
Rams were derelict, honestly. Even if you want to excuse the first time, what about the second one? You don’t account for a ball thrown over people’s heads? 
 

They were very well executed plays by the entire offense, Bryce certainly included. But I don’t expect that poo to continue, meaning that defenses are not just gonna continue to ignorantly allow that to happen. 
 

edit: and that is the purpose of doing those kinds of plays whether you hit them or not. Okay on 4th down you have to hit them but otherwise it isn’t mandatory. The effect hopefully is that the defense has to account for them and you get a little slack elsewhere to work with. 

And if Matthew Stafford has a historically awful day, Tet McMillan didn't drop a pass, Rico Dowdle was fully healthy and Xavier Legette was contributing, we might have won by even more.

You can use those sorts of "what if" scenarios to support any kind of point you want. I prefer not to even bother with them.

[Mr. Scot]

40 minutes ago, Sup said:

They are not going to poo on him in pressers during the season, but they are not stupid and they see just how much he is holding this team back.

Not talking about pressers. Guys like Dan Graziano, Joe Person and others talk to people behind the scenes. 

Team officials don't automatically think the way we do. They make decisions we disagree with. Sometimes they're right. Sometimes they're wrong.

Either way, you can't ever assume that their evaluations and conclusions are gonna be the same as ours.