SmokinwithWilly

I do. I met him and his GF right after he was drafted working on the house he had just purchased. Both were really nice to me and treated me like any other person. I remember thinking that this was a pretty ordinary house for a NFL player, a lot less fancy than I would have expected. Gotta admit I was shocked when that whole thing happened. It was kind of creepy because I still had to work in that neighborhood and drive by that house 6 days a week.

I see tools as a general term that doesn't really encompass a lot of specifics. Great QB mind but he lacks the physical tools. Why. He's 5'3. Arm strength, power, size, explosion. Some things to look at that you can put a check in the box and then move on to evaluation of skill. Arms are an inch too short so he doesn't have the tools but he was an elite level tackle in college. Yeah that's when skill matters and fug having all the 'tools". Tools are why we didn't draft Slater.

Walker is a 1 year signing. Stone is a 1 year. BC is coming back from an Achilles injury. Typically takes 2 years to get back to full health, but he's also better inside than at tackle. Yosh retired. Moton will have 1 year remaining on his contract and he's already admitted knee issues. That's banking on a whole lot of nothing at the end of this upcoming season. As far as challenging Bryce, a challenge can come from any round. It's about finding the right QB with the physical and mental talent that fits the system. Wilson, Dak, Purdy, Brady. Just a few examples of non 1st round QBs that were able to challenge the starters. Another QB doesn't necessarily have to beat out Bryce, but we should be looking for another starting caliber QB. It's not like Bryce has set the bar so high it's unattainable. The bar is low. The goal is playoffs. Do we throw away a season if Bryce gets hurt, because KP is taking us nowhere. Dan has made some great signings this FA period, I give him that. But replacing Dalton with KP is not aggressively improving our QB room. It's at best a lateral move. This is all about getting better. But this is yet another move that makes it even less conspiracy theory, and more reality, that Bryce is being protected from any real adversity in our QB room.

Oh I think it will be. My point was that we need to be trying to get better in the QB room. KP doesn't do that. He's not going to be a long term plan with a 1 year contract. He's just insurance. This "should" be a make or break year for Bryce. Either He's a guy worthy of an extension or not. Bringing in a rookie number 2 with potential may net us nothing, or it could get us something. The one thing we can be certain of is KP gets us nothing and that's not a good position to be in. I don't want to go into next year with no number 2, Bryce not having developed I to a real QB1, and sitting at 12 or 15 needing to move up to take a QB in the draft just like we did for Bryce. It's not an outcome I see going well for us.

But is it about letting Bryce develop or about winning games? Bryce has not been good enough to be an uncontested starter. He just hasn't. How many times has last drive Bryce shown up for 4 entire quarters? Once in 3 seasons? You aren't going to win 9 or 10 one score games every season year in and year out. You may want Bryce in the last 2 minutes. I want that Bryce the full 60. No one is saying you have to give up on him, but bringing in another QB that can do anything is not hindering Bryce. It helps the team and that's where the focus needs to be. If drafting Sadiq to plague the middle of the field would help out offense, but Bryce struggles to get pass into the middle of the field, is Sadiq a bad pick? Or could he be a good pick with a better option at QB? We can't be afraid to improve. QB, TE, OL, LB, DL, CB, S. It doesn't matter. The goal is SBs, not 5 to 8 years seeing waiting to see if Bryce can develop while the rest of the league keeps passing us by. Sadiq is a nice option, but I think we have to address tackle if one we like is there because we are painfully thin after this year, a LB to general the field, and a true ball hawking safety that can set the tone in the secondary. Those 3 positions are bigger game changers than a TE that will likely struggle to make a round 1 impact in this offense.

You don't draft a mid round Qb with potential to stick him on the practice squad. He needs reps and that's gonna come as QB2. It's Bryce and KP or bust. I feel like we're playing roulette trying to outsmart the house. Maybe we win big, but the odds aren't in our favor.

I'm not sure what metric most of these people are going by, but I damn sure wouldn't trust it. 16 games to barely pass 3k yards on a Stanford band pass. Yes he had 27TD passes but the offense was stagnant a lot of the time. He never had 2 games back to back of franchise QB level play. He had moments that were good but more that were bad. He was outplayed by a backup QB in Arizona. Compared to his rookie year, Bryce had a good season. Compared to the other franchise QBs in the NFL, Bryce barely made it to the finish line.

You just have to take the correct tackle. Obviously earlier just means you're guaranteed to get your guy. I'd like to see us invest in an OT. Moton's knees aren't going to last forever and we need a LT and likely a swing tackle next year. I'd like to see us drafting a tackle every 2 years somewhere in the draft, unless we hit on 2 bookends, then every 3. Quality tackles are hard to get and 2 of their contracts can be hard to manage. Between injuries, cap, and just the constant need to replenish depth, it's a position that I don't think can really be ignored because we think we're OK at the position.

Not always. LT was for the Giants. So was Ray Lewis. Von Miller was moreso than Manning his final year in the season that shall not be named. It's usually the QB, but not always.

Expect to see Icky extended to cover this deal and give him time to recover. Makes sense now, given that this is a 1 year deal.

I don't think it's about Bryce's ego. I think it's about Tepper's. Bryce was Tepper's draft pick. Everything that's been done has been to protect the image. New HC with a shiny contract fired after he loses interest immediately after he supposedly drafted his guy. He can't make an offense for him because he's the QB that fits his style of offense. Bryce's rookie season is one of the worst in history. It was obvious he wasn't ready. He was named starter without any real camp competition. No real preseason reps. Coach keeps playing him despite terrible play. A new coach and GM are hired on the condition that Bryce is the guy. No searching for a new QB. It's Bryce or else. Bryce is benched year 2 for multiple games, replaced by Dalton who stunk it up proving he's washed up, then Bryce comes back in after Dalton injures his thumb and finishes the season. Dalton's contract is up, plenty of younger, higher upside FAs available. Dalton is brought back 2 years guaranteed as a "mentor". Jack Plummer, so bad in 24', brought back to camp in 25' and lo and behold, he's still terrible and has no business being on a field. Other QBs brought in, the most recognizable being Hooker. All those brought in so bad even the PS can't hold them. And now, after 3 years of bottom tier QB performance, with Dan saying we need to improve our QB room, we bring in a QB that's not passed for over 2500 yards in either of his 2 seasons as a starter, before he's benched and sent to the life of being a backup. The common denominator in all of this is there's never been any real competition here, even when it was justified. After last year, it's debatable if he's starting QB material. Good moments and horrific moments. From one minute to the next, you don't know what you're gonna get. So if you ask yourself why some of us feel bringing in KP is a joke, it's because it looks how it's always looked. That everything being done is to prove that David Tepper was right when he made the choice to draft Bryce and everything done since has been to protect that decision. Bringing in another QB with even the potential to challenge Bryce was always out of the question.

Instead of a butt fumble we'll have a back pass.

And he had a week old roach coach sushi draft in 24'. Either one could be the norm and the other the anomaly. Let's not crown him as a draft god quite yet.

If we could somehow get Salyer and Decker I'd take both and trade Stone Forsyth for a barrel of trash can punch.