SetfreexX

Look at our QB...

If we got a LT, we could move Erving inside to LG, or RG, he's played both if memory serves. I'm of the mind to keep our defense as is, IF we can't retain Donte, we're looking at -- Gilmore / Horn outside, and Bouye as the nickel as he is on a 2 year deal, Henderson as additional outside depth, Pride returning, and Keith Taylor, with Hartsfield as the CB / S piece. We could definitely survive trading or losing Jackson, though I think they want to keep him, he has played well under Rhule's staff.

I doubt he plays honestly.

If you watched Shaq's presser he didn't come across as though he was 100%

An off-season and 7 games, versus 3 years of bad habits....Sam looked good early but he wasn't being hit / pressured too much. As soon as he started to take a few hits / sacks it was a slow decent ala Carr in HOU, I think Sam is shell-shocked and there is nothing to salvage, I think he is what he is, and the answer to that is ''not good''.

Good, gimme that higher pick, we could use a top five selection.

I will fault them for the QB decisions, I think that is obvious; IMO they tried to skip the develop franchise QB part using rookie QB success rates long term as the catalyst (50% bust rate). However with that same logic they should have known where Darnold stood, the NFL isn't ''another man's trash, is another man's treasure league''. People forget, Tannehill was good before Gase and even earned the extension, he regressed with Gase, too many people made the assumption Sam was the same, Sam was really never good. The OL acquisitions, well when you look at the OL FA landscape this past off-season it was BARREN. I can only hold them accountable so much in that regard given the lack of available quality guys. They chased traits thinking they could coach it up, same with Darnold. It hasn't worked.

TL;DR -- We are on schedule __________________________________________________________________________________________________ The 3-0 start had us all hype, happy, excited, and to me that is what has made the last 4 games more painful than they should be. However, most seasoned and realistic fans could see in the off-season / post Darnold trade / post draft that we were probably a 6-9 win team. We were coming off a 5-11 year and had just traded for a HUGE question mark at QB. With that in mind let's look at some changes considering we are 1 season and 7 games into the rebuild...more so on the offense... QB - Teddy Bridgewater >>> Sam Darnold -- This is a net negative IMO, Darnold has more talent, but he's a worse QB (TBF and I'm not a TB fan / apologist -- we probably beat PHI / MIN / NYG with Teddy - Darnold has proven to be inept at reading coverage) HB - CMC & Mike Davis >>> CMC is on IR, Chuba is not matching Davis' production but I can give him a bit of a pass as a 4th round rookie behind a bad OL who has still flashed on occasion; he just needs to work on his brick hands at the moment, as big as Freeman is, his pass pro is lacking but he is a competent runner. FB - Alex Armah >>> Giovanni Ricci -- Armah is the better pure blocker, Ricci is more versatile -- We should have kept Armah WR - DJ, Robbie, Curtis >>> DJ, Robbie - DJ has been for the most part what we were expecting, Robbie is ''trying'' too hard to live up to the money by pressing to make plays, and Darnold's terribly inconsistent accuracy isn't helping his receivers. TMJ due to Darnold's ineptitude has been limited & recently concussed, and Shi Smith just played his first 2 games of the season in weeks 6 & 7. TE - Ian Thomas, Chris Manhertz >>> Ian Thomas, Tommy Tremble -- I think we're clearly better here, Tommy already has a couple TD's on his young resume, his athleticism shows regularly. To me Joe Brady needs to call more plays to get them involved with CMC absent, and the attention on DJ / Robbie. Darnold needs to look to them more. OL - Okung (Trent Scott), Schofield (Chris Sneed) >> With Erving, & Elflein you could almost call it a wash due to how many games Okung missed, with Elflein out guys like Daley have been exposed so much so that we are down to the 3rd stringer in Jordan, Miller seems worse than last year as most of us were okay with his return. Paradis, and Moton are the only consistency we have, Christensen is a rookie and learning, and Brown is now on IR. Overall I think in time this will come together, we just have to improve the Guard play on both sides. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I think it is safe to say the defense is much better, a complete turnaround, gone is the 3-3-5 and in comes a more traditional 3-4 alignment from our base, and most of the guys from last year remain (Burns / Brown / Gross-Matos / Shaq / Jackson / Chinn / Burris) FA Additions: DaQuan Jones, Morgan Fox, Haason Reddick Trade acquisitions: Stephon Gilmore, C.J. Henderson ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I know this 4 game skid, and potentially one longer than that are beyond frustrating and take most of us back to 2007 - 2010, where we faltered around a bit back as we attempted to replace Delhomme -- Moore, Clausen, Pike, St. Pierre to now attempting to replace Cam with Bridgewater, and Darnold to date. I write this to say, honestly what was been done with the defense through a season was / is impressive, and with an active body at GM, it is likely we will continue to improve the roster as free agency and cap space for the first time in a long time will afford us some opportunities to upgrade the offensive line in free agency with more proven targets. I know a lot of you are concerned with our draft capitol, but we still have: 1st / 4th (HOU) / 5th (JAX) / 5th / 6th / 6th (LVR) / 7th (TEN) That is still 7 total picks, it is still to be determined if we stand pat with our first or look to trade down (my money is on trading down), if so we will make up for missing picks, but do not forget that ''we ADDED 11 rookies this past draft'', so we are not hurting in the youth / depth departments aside from a couple positions, the likely-hood of a rookie 2nd or 3rd rounder starting is low; they're usually contributors year one aside from the gems that fall (like Chinn). Point is, we have options, and we have a GM that seems capable, this was never supposed to be ''our season / time''. The expectation was always some steady improvement in S1 / S2 of the rebuild with us being in position to make some credible noise in S3. I do believe we are on pace for that, so keep your heads up, and #KeepPounding

Don't blame Rivera, blame this staff, we should have rested starters the last few weeks, I don't believe in that pointless wins bs ''winning culture'' bro this is your job you're paid millions; if you need a win for motivation you're in the wrong place. It does nothing, same crap when we got that pointless win versus NO in 17' and we dropped 9 spots to 16, and we got lucky Burns was still there.

We are a solid OL, and legit QB away from being a playoff team, not playoff contender but team. The issue is those are the hardest positions to come by which is why I'm irritated we passed on Fields at #8, I think he'd be better here, and with the OL struggles he has the athleticism to save himself early, not to mention IF we truly wanted to run 30 times a game, having a run threat at QB to keep backside pursuit honest who has a great arm would've been nice.

I'm not sure how we win another game if we can't beat a 1-5 team without THREE OF THEIR BEST PLAYERS on offense. I mean, we scored THREE points in 60 minutes, that is UNHEARD OF even for BAD teams. We suck, it's not a surprise as anyone with a set of eyes should have had concerns about Sam, Gase or not, it's like when we lost Simien in 2016, there was no film to prepare for, now there is on us, same thing with Kyle Allen, and TB; teams got film and after that it was a wrap.

Someone who's been paying real attention, it's been reported several times that he is eligible to play, and since the ALLEGATIONS are not of a violent / felonious nature they can't place him on the exempt list.

The Clemson fans will pour in, and let the team start winning consistently, the ''virtue signal'' crowd will be back too. People still love Big Ben, so I don't wanna hear the hypocrisy, as it stands these are non-violent / non felonious allegations since he is yet to be convicted if he ever will be. Big Ben was accused of RAPE, not misconduct, harassments, assault but RAPE, Brett was sending eggplant pics, so let's not act like this is new territory for NFL QB's it's just a black one. https://www.sportscasting.com/revisiting-ben-roethlisbergers-sexual-assault-allegations-in-the-metoo-era/

That is what people need to understand, TB may not have connected deep often, but he was / is WAY more consistently accurate and that allowed DJ / Robbie / Curt to excel after the catch. Sam's accuracy is ALL OVER even on routes 15 and in, too far, behind, low, etc.

Sheena Quick on twitter, and I also want to say Rappoport made reference as well.

It's more absurd for draft picks because you don't have to account for their salaries as rookies, so teams are willing to give up more draft capitol. Watson, is 40M on the cap in 22' & 23' then down to Mid 30s in 24' if memory serves when I looked at his numbers the other day. The question here is how will the guarantees be handled, what will HOU be accountable for and what will we be accountable for. My surface understanding is they would pay his bonus money, and we would assume the base salary annually (see the T2G trade to DEN for reference) So that would drop the cost for us a bit financially. My estimate is two 1sts, a mid rounder in 23', and potentially a player or two, I saw D Jax / Thomas' names thrown around in a mock trade.

They already advised for him to have a longer career he can't take the constant beating as a LB'er. He needs to be moved around as he has been. That's how you get the most out of his ability.

He was let go because he was out all camp, and did not take the vaccine. Not excusing the cut, BUT there was a viable reason, the ONLY other non-vaccinated player was Miller, and guess what....he contracted COVID. Team health stand-point they made the smarter decision, Perryman went on to get vaccinated so THAT he COULD be signed, same as Cam recently.

Because we did not, and have not drafted a true LB'er since Rhule has arrived. Chinn doesn't count.

This ^^^ think about when Osweiler had that crazy contract from HOU I think, then was traded to CLE who later released him. I'm fuzzy on the full details, but that is the premise being explained here.

Sam is showing the same issues / concerns evaluators had when he came out of USC, he IS TURNOVER prone, point blank period. He'll wow you with some throws, and then he looks completely inept.

He's also MISSING OPEN reads, he holds the ball to long, the protection versus NYG was better overall. Joe Brady even mentioned it in the presser last week, and I paraphrase '' he's not SEEING it'' in regard to Sam. The INT to Bradberry the check down was open underneath and I am taking into consideration it was 2nd and 24, BUT we were also in scoring territory. Secondly on the backside dig Robby was open as well for likely the 1st. It ''feels'' like Sam does not grasp the concept of where we are in a game, he doesn't seem to have a ''feel'' for when to press the issue a little. It was 3-5 at the time and a FG gives us a lead, and forces NYG to do something to take it back. Two weeks in a row bone-headed mistakes by a guy that has plenty of starts / experience -- calls back to back timeouts last week, and throws for intentional grounding in the endzone, which I partially put on Brady, know your QB, call a run or a screen backed up and punt IF needed.

How could you say compromising our future when we don't have a QB, and this upcoming QB class is one of the weakest in comparison to others... We have no future to compromise at the moment.

To be fair they referenced his arm talent, not him as a player directly. The team got desperate once Stafford, and the initial items around Watson came up. Factor in draft buzz of Fields ALSO going before 8th overall, they pulled the trigger on a guy then could sell, former 3rd overall pick, only 23 at the time, and from a publicly faltering organization. Most people bit on that, anyone that watches the NFL and not just the Panthers was EXTREMELY skeptical of this move, I wanted Fields at #8 even after the trade, because IF Darnold sucks you already have someone in line to move forward with.

I would say there was a level of ego / naivety in the sense that AT THE HIGHEST level they could get by with JAG at the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN THE NFL. I will give them credit for rebuilding the defense as quickly as they have and I fully anticipated we'd start to add on the offense as it was in better shape than the defense. This coming off-season is that time; however I think the FINALLY understand that you can't do anything worthwhile without premium talent ala investing a high draft pick or signing / trading for a viable franchise QB which is a situation that basically never presents itself.