MasterAwesome

Teddy was showing resistance and pushback in season how? Do you have any examples? I really think you're misremembering the Teddy situation. How would you characterize Rhule's willingness to throw others (and the team) under the bus to advance his own career interests, if not "sinister"?

Are you referring to Teddy's criticisms of our lack of red zone offense drills in practice? Cause that came a month after we traded him to the Broncos. I think you're misremembering the Teddy situation - he wasn't critical of the coaching staff leading up to his trading, it was more the coaching staff who clearly started to sour on Teddy and distance themselves from him in their language leading up to the trade. I'd argue that Rhule firing Brady was also him admitting a mistake and moving on, but I know you'll argue that Rhule was scapegoating Brady. Even though I think you agree that firing Brady was ultimately the right move and that Brady was not ready to be an OC. Any example I give you though, I think you are going to discount due to your speculation of some kind of sinister motive behind everything.

Except Rhule did admit his mistake and move on from Teddy last year...? You seem to correctly identify the similarities in the Teddy situation last year vs. the Darnold situation this year except your conclusion seems to be that the exact opposite outcome will occur. Ironically, I would use your exact same premises to argue why Rhule will move on from Darnold this year. Rhule's actions so far suggest, if anything, that he's a "cut ties quickly and move on" type coach who will keep taking shots over and over again until he finds a franchise QB. That leads to frustration if he keeps swinging and missing, but it's the smart play in the long run.

Why does this read like an SAT prompt lol.

Oh relax lol it was a satirical post that was tbh only slightly hyperbolic, inspired by my very own muse @frankw who I can only assume you two have on your ignore list if you think he isn't the aggressor in every interaction with a Huddler who says something benign in the mold of what Jimmy said above. Like hoping Darnold could become a serviceable backup if he has a strong o-line or about hoping Rhule learns from his mistakes and becomes a half-way decent coach. Or simply correcting an inaccurate claim about Rhule, like how you correct people who say Rhule doesn't play rookies (which I commend you for and doesn't make you a "Rhule lover" contrary to what these people think). Those are the types of comments that are met with pretty crass remarks about slurping balls and bootlicking and "here comes X's delusional fan club!!". Regardless, if "blind hope" pisses you off ("you" in the general, broader sense) then I think you need to do a little introspection? I might roll my eyes at blind hope...but piss me off? I have no idea what rational reason there is to be pissed off by someone who is blindly hopeful about their favorite football team being successful. There's an endearing childlike quality about it. Like someone naive who hasn't yet become jaded by the depressing reality. I think it's almost admirable in a way.

My guess is Guy 1 is a random Panthers' fan who casually watches the games every year who probably quietly uttered something like "I'm excited about our team this year" and Guy 2 is a Huddler from the other side of the stadium who somehow heard him and SPRINTED across the entire field to spit in his face and blast him for being a bootlicking POS who gargles the FO's nutsack.

The GOAT CJ Saunders. NFL comp: Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, Julian Edelman, Cole Beasley, Hunter Renfrow.

The prophecy has come full circle.

Really? How are you arriving to that interpretation? Yes he has mismanaged the QB situation every year, but I think his mismanagement is a lot simpler and straightforward than you're making it out to be. His mismanagement has been a result of him bringing in a bad QB to lead this team in back-to-back years. What is some of this variability you're referring to? What are some of the other ways he's mismanaged the QB situation beyond simply bringing a bad one in? I'm the only one here looking at Rhule's history with the QB position and extrapolating that to predict how he handles it this year. I told you he brought in Teddy in 2020 and started him Week 1, he brought in Sam Darnold in 2021 and started him Week 1, and he brought in Baker Mayfield and is likely to start him Week 1 based on his pattern of behavior thus far. He consistently brings in a new QB every year when the previous one fails. Regardless of how much variability you think there is in his mismanagement, that is the one consistent theme with Rhule year after year. You on the other hand are suggesting Rhule this year is going to do the exact opposite of what he has done the last two years.

"Continuing to do what he does" would mean he would start Baker Week 1. He brought in Teddy in 2020 -> Teddy started Week 1. He brought in Sam Darnold 2021 -> Darnold started Week 1. He brought in Baker 2022 -> he...doesn't...start Week 1? Huh? That directly contradicts what Rhule has done thus far. Continuing to vaguely allude to "the Matt Rhule effect" just seems like carte blanche to propose whatever wildly irrational scenario your imagination can conjure up. Trading 9 1st round picks for Jacoby Brissett? I could totally see it, because "Matt Rhule effect". Cutting Brian Burns and replacing him with the waterboy? Oh for sure...Matt Rhule effect!!!

This really feels like the embodiment of this GIF lol. The obvious answer is that Rhule is gonna start who he thinks gives the team the best chance to win. It's possible he could decide that's Darnold, which would be a testament to his poor player evaluation which I can believe. Your convoluted theory that he's deliberately withholding the better quarterback in order to enact a chapter out of "Scapegoating for Dummies" seems like such a wild departure from common sense. Winning is how Rhule keeps his job, bottom line. Occam's razor, bro.

According to you, Matt Rhule was clearly the one pushing hard for a Baker Mayfield trade out of desperation to save his job...but he has no intention of starting him? How does that make sense? How is Baker going to save his job from the bench?

If you say so much as “Matt Rhule actually looks like he showered this morning for once”, you get a swarm of certain obsessed weirdo Huddlers tripping over themselves to rush in and say “LoOkS LiKe ThE mAtT rHuLe FaN cLuB iS oUt In FuLl FoRcE”. It’s pretty hilarious.

False alarm...Matt was just inside rinsing off after his daily morning half-marathon before practice starts.

The guy you're responding to is arguing about the quality of our WR corps going into this season. So instead of whether or not you think Robby was the worst starting WR in the league last year, the more relevant question would be: do you think Robby genuinely is the worst starting WR in the league? Cause you can point to his performance last year, but the disconnect between your argument and his, is that I think it's safe to say that guy (as well as most of us) would expect Robby to bounce back this year. Robby's entire career's body of work puts him in solid WR2 territory outside of one pretty terrible year with Darnold throwing him the football. So if DJ is a stud WR1 and we suspect Robby will revert to the mean of being a solid WR2, then that would suggest at least an average receiving corps.

I hope so...that would have put us at 7th best rush defense last year.

Those tweets characterizing it as Robby "diving" and "laying out" for the catch make it seem like it was more of an amazing grab than a throw. But it was more like Robby just falling as he caught it lol. That throw was darn near perfect.

It seems so bizarre to be a fan of a team that you want less content from.

Age isn't really a part of the equation unless he's old enough to where he's physically limited. Just because he's a few years older doesn't mean he's further along in his development than a 23-year-old second-year player. It's about his experience and the level of coaching he has received, which are both on equal footing with NFL sophomores.

Kyler was legitimately an MVP candidate over the first half of the season, but he seemed to follow the Wentz trajectory of going from MVP candidate -> mediocre after injury. I think there's a decent chance he bounces back this year though.

No need to shame him man...that was a bit off-colour.

Meh I can't foresee any scenario where he'd be cut after the season. Even if we draft a QB in the top 5 next year with a brand new coaching staff, he'd still be easily worth one of our 2-3 roster spots at QB. I suspect this will largely be a redshirt year for him. I think the Baker signing essentially confirmed that he isn't expected to be an instant impact guy and that we're prioritizing his development this year (for better or worse, TBD).

Yeah right now on paper, our QB prospects over the next three seasons is basically on the shoulders of a 3rd round rookie QB lol. I'd argue Corral is a better prospect than your average 3rd round QB, but that's still what he is at the end of the day and what outsiders see when they evaluate the QBs on our roster.

Whoever the respective starter is in Pittsburgh/SF/Atlanta, Mayfield (as of right now) should be considered better than them. So joemac's original point would still stand, which is evaluating Mayfield against the rest of the league's starters. Things could very well change by the end of the year though; it's contingent upon the development of a lot of these young QBs (Lance, Fields, Lawrence, Wilson, Pickett, etc.). On that point, this article seems to be projecting "future" power rankings and upon looking up the article itself on ESPN, it's stated that this is a projection over the next three seasons. So I'm guessing they have most (if not all) of these young first/second-year QBs as ranked higher than Baker since they expect them to surpass him within the next 3 years. So viewing this article as saying Baker is currently the 28th best QB in the league isn't really what this article seems to be suggesting. It's saying we have the 28th best outlook at QB over the next three seasons which is probably fair. We don't even know that Baker is gonna be here beyond this season.

Nice.