MasterAwesome

Seeing Maher succumb to the yips makes me appreciate Piñeiro more, who bounced back to make every kick (including some clutch ones) since that dreaded Falcons game.

But....you're the one who is spinning that narrative lol.

I heard an employee parked in a handicap space at BOA today. By itself, might not be much…but damn it’s just yet another brushstroke in the painting of a completely dysfunctional organization!!!

This sounds like the equivalent of some kind of minor nonconformance during a corporate audit. I work for a massively successful global automotive company and if we got even like 8 minor noncompliance findings during our IATF audit, we’d consider that a huge win.

I mean it absolutely has to do with the overall appeal of the head coaching job, which is what you’re talking about at the end of the day. The NFC South is there for the taking, while the Broncos have to contend with arguably the best team in the league within their own division (not to mention a much more stacked conference overall). Also, if I were a young rookie HC I’d be more wary of the owner who has precedent of firing a rookie HC part-way through his first season as opposed to the owner who gave his rookie HC roughly a very generous 2-and-a-half years to try and fulfill his vision before ultimately firing him. A reasonable person would obviously want a look at him in a better offense, but the same reasonable person would also obviously be factoring that risk into his decision to take the job. If Wilson doesn’t pan out, their QB situation is extremely dire with pretty poor draft position over the next few years to have the opportunity to draft one. While a team like the Panthers is sitting pretty with a top 10 pick and loaded up with a bevy of additional draft picks to be positioned to move up and take one.

Denver has a gigantic bright red $240 million red flag. And shares a division with Mahomes. That's arguably the worst gig for a first-time young HC considering he's going to have to also deal with a reportedly divisive locker room because of said $240 million red flag.

You guys know Ben Johnson interviewed for other head coach vacancies too, right? It's pretty unlikely that his decision to stay with Detroit (i.e. not pursue any head coach opportunities with any team) was tied to whether or not we favor Payton. Unless coaching the Panthers specifically is his dream job and he wouldn't want to coach any other team, in which case he probably wouldn't be taking all these other interviews.

It’s funny seeing Huddlers who are consistently pro-tank, also simultaneously outraged at the prospect of waiting another year to draft a franchise QB. Like isn’t this your guiding principle? Sacrificing short term success for the increased chance at sustained long term success? So if there’s a 20% chance that one of these QBs are going to pan out and become a franchise QB, while next year’s crop has a 40-50% chance, then you should be rooting for BPA at #9 (maybe a top WR) and starting Corral or Darnold and then taking Williams or Maye next year. Seems like statistically speaking, that’s the best odds for the long-term success that you guys are supposedly yearning for.

I’d agree with that generally speaking, but with Levis specifically, is that even his game? Is his mental maturity what has given him the edge over his competition in college? Maybe I’m thinking of “mental maturity” in a different way, but I’m assuming you essentially mean his QB intelligence. And if I’m thinking “man amongst boys” with regards to QB intelligence, I’m picturing a tactical assassin who sits back in the pocket, dissects and exploits defensive coverages, picks apart soft spots in zone, looks off safeties to get them to bite, etc. With Levis, I thought he’s kinda more your prototypical extremely raw prospect with arm talent through the roof. At least I hear him being compared to guys like Josh Allen, but I’ve admitted to not watching a ton of college football so maybe I’m wrong about him.

Is the insinuation that 23-year-old college athletes are considerably physically superior to 20-22 year old college athletes? I'd say Anthony Richardson, physically speaking, looks way more like a man amongst boys and he's only 21.

I think it's essentially a measure of a QB's ability to avoid taking sacks. QBs that are high on the X axis had a high percentage of pressures leading to sacks in college (i.e. struggling to evade the pass rush). QBs that are high on the Y axis had a high percentage of pressures leading to sacks in the NFL. Based on this chart and Levis' 26.8% pressure-to-sack rate, he'd essentially be off the charts in a bad way. It's also suggesting a pretty linear correlation from college to the pros, so if you struggled with taking sacks when pressured in college, then chances are you're going to struggle with it in the NFL. It has nothing to do with each QB's o-line because the pre-condition for each data point is that the QB is already being pressured. So once the pressure has already taken place, which QBs take sacks at a higher rate vs. able to elude the sack.

You're like 10 weeks late on this thread....are you just clearing up your DVR queue and catching up on the season or something? If so, no one spoil the rest of the season for him.

There's a reason why he was considered the 'face of the franchise'...he was the closest thing to a superstar we had, and the most universally respected player across the league, media, etc. So looking at a team coached by Matt Rhule and quarterbacked by guys like Sam Darnold, Baker Mayfield, PJ Walker, and Teddy Bridgewater, and singling out CMC like "that's the guy who shoulders the blame for our 5-win seasons" is just odd to me. Whether intentional or not, you and frank are deflecting blame from the real culprits like Rhule who do warrant the brunt of criticism for these 5 win seasons. It's interesting to see the shifting narrative about certain players. If you like the player, then it's "we failed ________ and didn't put a good team around him". If you dislike the player, then it's "look, we only won X number of games with _______ - he couldn't even put the entire team on his back and will the team to the playoffs by himself".

Maybe he means "Five wins" as in Fields' career win total, over two seasons.

CMC for whatever reason is the only player I continuously see whose metric for value is tied to team wins. Unless you also think players like Burns and DJ Moore are ineffective because "five wins". I agree that RB is a devalued position and I still stand by the decision to trade CMC, but that's a pretty awful argument. Quarterback is the one position where I could maybe rationalize factoring in team record because it's the most impactful position by far. If there's one position that can single-handedly win or lose a game for the team, it's quarterback.

I dunno...reading between the lines, it sounds like they're saying if they were actually sold on any of these QBs, that they would take them. If they're simply unimpressed with this crop of QBs and are opting to therefore stick with Fields, that doesn't exactly sound like a glowing endorsement unless you're looking through it with Fields-colored glasses. Could you imagine any other team truly sold on their young, presumably franchise QB, even giving a caveat like that? Jags with Trevor Lawrence? Herbert with the Chargers? Burrow? Hurts? The fact that it's even a question is pretty damn telling. They didn't say no, they said they "would have to be completely blown away" which is pretty ambiguous considering we're not in the offseason and the evaluation process hasn't even truly begun.

Maybe if we won one more game and picked one spot later, we could've had him /s

"Part of the process" is about the most vague and meaningless characterization to freak out about. I was technically "part of the process" during our Super Bowl run in 2015, since I attended some games and yelled any time the opposing offense took the field. For all we know, she's sitting in on interviews in an observer role.

That Hard Knocks clip of Jamaal Williams epitomizes why fans arguing about tanking is a futile endeavor. Imagine expecting a guy like that to roll over and quit lol.

To people saying Fields is being held back by his lack of receivers: is there no consideration that these receivers are being held back by a QB who struggles to throw the football? Darnell Mooney for one, looked like a very promising up-and-coming receiver last season and magically seems to have significantly regressed this year. If you look at last year where he caught passes from both Fields and Dalton, here was the split between the two QBs: Mooney catching passes from Fields in 2021: averaged 3.45 catches and 49.8 yards per game (extrapolates to a 847 yard season) Mooney catching passes from Dalton in 2021: averaged 6.14 catches and 72.4 yards per game (extrapolates to a 1231 yard season) Now Mooney catching passes from Fields in 2022: averaged 3.3 catches and 41.1 yards per game (extrapolates to a 699 yard season) That's a huge increase in production catching passes from just a meh QB like Dalton. That production is the difference between a WR2 and a WR1. So is a guy like Mooney really the problem here? Same thing with Claypool. He's supposedly a horrible weapon yet somehow fetched a 2nd round pick in his 3rd season. His production has regressed significantly when catching passes from Fields even if you only look at this season pre-trade and post-trade. 2022 Claypool w/ Steelers: averaged 4 catches and 38.9 yards per game (extrapolates to a 661 yard season) 2022 Claypool w/ Bears: averaged 2 catches and 20.0 yards per game (extrapolates to a 340 yard season) Basically doubled his production catching passes from bad QBs like Trubisky and Pickett. So depending on who is throwing them the football, Mooney/Claypool either look like a legit WR1/2 duo or a meh WR2/3 duo. To be all "poor Justin Fields" without considering his impact on their production is pretty short-sighted.

You're not looking big-picture enough man...they tanked enough to get their franchise QB, now they just need to tank the next 5 seasons to get their franchise LT, franchise WR1, franchise CB, franchise DE, and franchise DT and then the wins will start coming.

Thank you for explaining tanking to me. I'm clearly talking about things from the perspective of the kids, unless you're advocating putting the fathers' self-interests over those of young kids who have little to no concept of tanking for draft position and just want to cheer on their team in the moment.

It's a bit ironic because it was you, @TheBigKat, posting photos of you and your sons traveling to away games, that personally felt like one of the most compelling and inspiring arguments against tanking. Seeing your kids smiling and hyped up to cheer on their favorite team made me think about things from a kid's perspective back when things were simple and pure. But now all I'll be able to picture is you shushing them at games when we score touchdowns like "Don't you understand?!?! Our draft positioning is going to suffer now!!". Smh.

Anybody who thinks losing to a hated divisional rival at home under any circumstances isn't embarrassing, has probably never played a sport in their life. "Shoot guys we almost had them! Great effort, we should all be proud of ourselves!" Remember the Matt Ryan "Get the f@#% off my field!" after a last-second game-winning FG? Yeah I bet there was a lot of pride in our locker room after that game. Posturing about the semantics of the word "embarrassing" is a pretty weak deflection.

Barely limping into the playoffs as the winner of an awful division…I thought we were against that here lol. I do genuinely wonder if Jags fans are upset about getting in or if that’s a uniquely Huddle thing.