SmokinwithWilly

If we go all in and sell out with Bryce as our QB, it will even more entrench the idea that Tepper is at minimum running the QB room for me. Now i could be wrong and Dan really is that confident in Bryce all by himself, but nothing this team has done in the past 3 offseasons leads me to believe that there hasnt been some noise from big T. He's admitted that he walks through the office making his opinion known. To me, Bryce's output has just not generated that kind of confidence that we are playoff worthy other than against the Rams. Against the SB champs, just damn.

I hope we're not going all in this year. We couldn't outright win our own division with a losing record. We had 2 anomalous wins. Typically you aren't going to win scoring 13 and have your opponent have an absolute train wreck offense. Also, a team scoring 16 on 6 trips to the red zone is not normal either. I'm not trying to be a pessimist. We're not there. Bryce isn't there. Most of the year our offense legitimately struggled and the missing piece wasn't a TE. Keep building through the draft and reasonable FA. When we have a team that's on the edge of being able to make a legitimate SB run, then go all in. Otherwise, going all in right now feels like another Bryce situation. Sell out and pray. That's not how consistent winners are built.

I don't see it as drafting a premium player to sit and wait if Walker gets hurt. We need a legitimate swing T. Unless you have a Sewell or Slater type tackle that is pretty much a sure thing, these guys can need some time to develop year 1 just like a QB ideally should. They all haven't played the elite 5 star talent on the edge. If we think another franchise tackle has dropped to us at 19, you have to pull the trigger. The position is just too damn hard to find. If it's just a "we need a tackle and this guy has a T on the board", yeah, move on, take one in the later rounds. But if that guy is there, let him back up and learn a year, then slide him into LT on year 2 of his rookie deal. I don't see us being able to offer Walker a multi year contract after a prove it year, pay Moton his final almost fully guaranteed year, Hunt, Lewis a center and do a 50-60m extension for Bryce. The 3 most important positions on the field are QB, blindside tackle (usually LT), and edge rusher. Those are the premium positions that cost the most and are hardest to come by. If a starting caliber talent is there at 19 you have to pull the trigger. I understand the need for a DT and S. I've been on the C and FS train for years. If we weren't staring at a potential Bryce extension, it'd make the decision a lot easier I think. It's just with all these huge contracts I don't see how we can hedge our bets on being able or even wanting to re-sign Walker, especially if he has a bad year. Icky and BC's injuries really hurt our long term plans. If no blue chip talent at those 3 key positions are available at 19, by all means pass and draft another position. But I think it's pretty safe to say we don't have a guaranteed lock at any of them right now beyond Phillips, and they have to be somewhat of a priority.

If we could without breaking the bank in picks I would love to. He's been in Peyton's dog house for whatever reason. He's not a bad receiver from what I've seen in game, he just doesn't make the field a lot on game day.

Icky is no guarantee to ever return to football, plus his salary is already 100% guaranteed. He's on the books no matter what. BC is coming off an Achilles injury and played much better at guard than he ever did at tackle, not to mention, Achilles is usually a 2 year recovery to full performance level. BC would be on a very low cost prove it deal. He only made 2.8m last year anyway. You really want to put a tackle with a busted wheel, one coming off a major knee injury, or a guy that can't crack the Raiders roster on Bryce's blind side if Walker gets injured?

Right now our only depth at T was cut from the worst offensive line in the NFL and we have nothing for next year except 1 year left on Moton, who already admittedly has knee concerns, though he minimizes them, which I would too for over 40m bucks. You have to draft for the future as well as the present. Being short sighted is why we ended up paying 2 guards 150m instead of drafting them when they were sitting right in front of us to take. If we end up paying Bryce 50-60M per season, we're going to need some guys on rookie contracts.

Taking a 6'8" tackle with a 5'9" QB just seems like a bad idea

Now if we could only get a punt/kickoff return specialist. I've never forgotten the impact Devin Hester made as a returner. Every time he lined up, you had to wonder was he taking it to the house. Having a feared return guy is better than a WR6 that only sees the field during practice.

"I feel like I can work with anybody. I feel like winning is the ultimate goal and I — just like our team — have got to be willing to adjust and adapt to things that are going on." When one of the conditions is Bryce has to be your ride or die, you can't adjust and adapt. Bryce being the guy was a condition from the get go.

Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. We just gave an extension to a QB that couldn't even significantly best Howell's only season as a starter. Our bar for QB is so low it's laying on the ground and everyone is tip toeing around it afraid to actually do anything to raise the standards even a little fugging bit.

All of this plus, even after you find your first, you still need to keep looking for the next, just not as aggressively. One injury changes everything, as we've just seen with Icky. We thought we were set and now we aren't. Just the nature of this sport.

Dalton is ancient by NFL standards. Howell is only 25. Howell's only year as a starter he put up almost 4k yards, 21/21 with a 43.2 QBR while being sacked 65 times. This past year and the 3rd starting, which many would consider to be Bryce's best, he barely put up 3k yards 23/11 with a QBR of 47.6 while being sacked 27 times. Pickett 4 years in the league, with 27 starts, he's amassed 4900 yards, 16/16 with a 53.6 QBR. Now if Bryce were injured for a season, which QB would you say has more potential to step in and run an offense? I'd say Howell only because in a single season he threw for 1k yards less, more tds and granted more ints in 11 less games as a starter than Pickett's whole career. Everyone is saying Pickett sucks, Howell sucks, but what I'm seeing is Bryce is right on par with them. Howell is on his 5th team, so is KP, yet Bryce just got a 5th year extension putting up pretty much similar numbers. The bar for QB on this organization is really low. Did I want Howell? I didn't care. I wanted someone, anyone, who can potentially be better than what we've had the past 3 years or who we signed as a backup. We do not have even a mid tier NFL QB on the roster right now. If Howell was brought in as camp fodder and didn't make the cut, wouldn't hurt my feelings at all. If we bring in another QB via the draft, I hope it's someone who could have the potential to be a starting QB with some development because that's the whole point. We can't be afraid to bring in anyone who might have the potential to unseat Bryce or take his job if he's injured. The goal is to get winning seasons and make SB runs with hopefully a victory or 2. Pickett doesn't accomplish that. Dalton hasn't been able to even be in consideration for that role in over 2 years.

You could just as easily turn that around. Imagine drafting a guy number 1 overall, because he surrounded by more talent than 95% of the opposition that he played in college, put him on a bad team facing opposition that is at least equal to or better than his offensive talent, and believing he is going to not only excel from day 1, but that he is going to be able to lead an offense at a top NFL level at playoff contender level. I don't think the expectations are too high. The top QB prospect should be able to at least have back to back games where he looks like a NFL QB. We haven't seen that in 3 years.

I genuinely do not care who is our QB as long as they are producing at a mid to upper starting NFL QB level. If we do not have that, we should be looking for it. I care about one thing, winning. And it's been 8 damn years and counting since we've had a winning season. For those saying we did some amazing fleece job by selling off Dalton for a 7th, we had to buy that god awful QB contract first to even be able to sell him off. And it's not like it was ever a good signing anyway, because Dalton had already proved his time as a viable backup was over the year before. For all the good things Dan has done this and last off season, the moves regarding the QB room make zero sense at all.

He doesn't have to say it. We already knew it.