SmokinwithWilly

We won. But why did we win? Did we win because Bryce led a commanding offense all day? Or, did we win because of 3 extremely well timed turnovers that resulted in a huge swing in points? I'm going with the latter. Bryce did his part, but he did not dominate this game the way you are trying to make it sound. We beat the Rams on this given Sunday. He beat a 4-8 Atlanta team. Put up his best game statistically against them aided by 250 YAC. Wouldn't exactly call that a great team, even though they had the best passing D at that time. We beat GB. He was forgettable and the defense held GB to 13 points with 6 trips into the red zone We beat the Jets. Very good team? 13 points. Offensive juggernaut performance there Dallas and Miami - Rico does something not seen in the NFL in 14 years. 500 yards of offense by a RB. Our offense ran through him. More rushing yards than passing. Bryce was riding his coat tails against the 2 worst defenses in the NFL. 1st ATL win 30-0 - Again, forgettable Bryce performance. Defense destroyed Penix and he imploded. We won't agree on this at all. We've beaten the Rams with 3 key defensive turnovers resulting in a huge point swing on Stafford's worst performance of the year and GB with our defense making huge defensive stands in the red zone in really bad weather. Nothing he's done I wouldn't expect from a mid level starting QB in the NFL. But remember. The highs got higher last year and then he went swimming in the sewer to start this year. Insert another mid tier QB behind this line with our RBs and our record is the same if not better.

If you tell another QB you're being brought in but Bryce is the starter no matter what, Dave is being forced. Hypothetically, we trade for Howell and in camp he looks like prime Tom Brady. He's riding the pines because Bryce is the starter and that's just the way it's gonna be. Dave's checking out. Why? Because that's not what's best for him or his team. If Dave is the one doing the forcing, then that is a symptom of an even bigger problem which is what many of us have been saying, no one knows what the hell Bryce is as a QB. You only lock in your QB when you have to evaluate him at all costs. If we still need to evaluate in year 4, then the QB competition needs to be wide open.

Just because I shoot an 80 on the golf course one day doesn't mean that's what I'm capable of on a regular basis. That's just the day everything came together perfectly. That's an outlier. 250 YAC is most definitely an outlier. The best way to evaluate is to remove his best outlier and his worst and evaluate everything that remains. That gives a more accurate picture of the season as a whole.

Then I would expect Dave Canales to take the path of Frank. You cannot force a coach to be tied to a QB no matter the results. Frank checked out because of this. Dave will too.

Or letting desperate teams trade up and give you day 2 picks and you still draft the guy you wanted anyway.

God if only anyone could have seen this coming last year and brought in real camp competition this off season. If only this were foreseeable. Right now I think we are in the driver's seat in the NFCS if Brissett had been brought in instead of Dalton. JMO, but for 2m more per season a legit NFL backup who given the opportunity has shown he can throw the ball this season and would have competed for the starting job this year. It feels like this off season we're going to make the dumbest decision no matter what so I fully expect the ghost of QBs past and Jack Plummer back at training camp.

Jake was not the 1st overall pick either. There's a level of expected readiness that comes from being drafted at that position. Pre draft, Bryce was the most NFL ready QB in a decade according to experts, top QB across multiple draft boards. That was never Jake. So comparing him to Jake's career path is disingenuous. I don't see legitimate significant improvement. I see an outlier game in Atl and good plays dropped here and there, but overall, the bulk product hasn't been anything that has made me think we need to extend him, or option him. Matt Flynn had a 400 yard outlier game, got a huge contract, and disappeared into obscurity. Take away Bryce's best and worst game each season as the outliers and analyze the rest. It all looks the same. Never a complete QB driven game start to finish. A lot of poor placement. Some good throws. Same bad mechanics and bad footwork. Not enough to say give me 2 more years of this

Keep getting guys on a 1 year prove it deal and let someone else pay the big money contract. A strong offensive line will get you good RB production.

Tepper probably has an algorithm for that

I was trying to joke a little. Everyone has been so serious lately.

Hearing this reminded me of this song on Bob and Tom

We could always bring back Plummer. I think i just threw up a little.

Stats have to be used as a piece in interpretation of the whole which is what I was saying. There's lots of different stats that can be used to evaluate players besides the stat line at the end of the game. T2G had a high completion % because he constantly checked down for short passes. A QB passing 0-5 yards is likely going to have a higher completion than one making passes 10-15 yards regularly. They're higher % passes. How far is RB1 getting beyond the line of scrimmage before contact? Rico is averaging 6 ypc. Jeantry has 3 ypc but is getting contacted often behind the line. What if Dowdle were getting less than a yard after contact but Jeantry was getting 2.5? Who's the better runner then? Bryce keeps getting credited with all these games winning drives. The final drive vs Atl, Bryce get credit for a 54 yard pass when in reality, he completed a basic 5 yard pass and Tremble ran over multiple defenders for nearly 50 yards. Then he hands off 3 times to set up the field goal. Now did he put the team on his back and lead the drive, or is he the beneficiary of a statistic? Does handing the ball off once after a fumbles recovery followed by a field goal count as leading a drive? Multiple stats tell different parts of the story from different angles. You have to use them together to wisely interpret what it means. No one said solely depend on the stats. But if you analyze them, use them as the tools that they are, you can learn a lot and create advantages for yourself and your team. Take what's available and determine what's worth using and what's not. But don't just ignore stats because you're scared you might be wrong.

I can't see anyone but Vabrel getting it. He turned that team around in a big damn hurry.

Nah. Seen quite a few more than that. The throws I'm talking about are the throws, usually long ones, the receiver has a DB draped on him like wet paper onto the hands without slowing down, in a window so small the ball is through as it slams shut. To me, that's just as amazing as the Beckham catch. Perfect placement, perfect timing, perfect arc, spin drift, Coriolis effect, everything. Those are what I consider darts.

I generally judge a dart to be the QB pass version of the Beckham Jr catch. I'm sitting there asking myself how the F did he make that throw.

If Rhule was still here this would be a landslide.

I've seen a few. Laser throw into triple coverage that misses the defender's hands by a hair and you ask yourself how did the receiver even see it much less catch it. Those are darts. Perfect placed pass on an insanely critical play for a first down or TD. There can be short yardage darts, but they've got a higher criteria to meet, IMO.

It all depends on what frustrates you. Bryce frustrates me more because as he goes, generally the team goes. For what he advertised to be, he just hasn't delivered. 2 1sts, 2 2nds and DJ Moore, and we jettisoned Darnold who was beginning to find his way, for the results we've gotten. We paid a fortune for a Lamborghini, and we've gotten a Ford Taurus. XL to me was always a college one hit wonder so my expectations were never high. What we're getting is actually along the lines of what I expected. Not as many boneheaded in game decisions obviously, but I didn't expect him to contribute much if at all really. We've seen too many of these projects too many times before. They are what they are.

I'm concerned with stats because they can show more than just numbers. They show trends. As an example, if Bryce went 20/25 for 250 yards but 200 of that was YAC, that means he only averaged about 2.5 yards per throw in the air before the receiver. As a defender, that means 2 things. Shitty tackling, and an extreme amount of short passing at or close to the line of scrimmage. It changes how you can play defense, and offense. It's the reason Bryce was able to complete those 2 passes on 4th down Sunday. Obvious running situation that the defense played based on the likelihood the play would be a run, based off the numbers. DC called the pass play because it was a higher chance of success given what the defense was likely playing. Bigger risk, bigger reward. If it works, you're a genius, if not, well, should have followed the numbers. Obviously this is a made up example, but it shows that stats matter, if applied the right way, at the right time. Just looking at a stat sheet doesn't tell the entire story. You have to look at everything. But ignoring stats when trying to analyze any player's performance is just making it harder on yourself.

True, but those aren't the guys getting the YAC. This was just in reference to that across the league.

That's why I've been pretty adamant I want Bryce to either really, really succeed and become the franchise QB we all hoped he would be after he was drafted, or really really fail and we could cut him and move on. Those numbers scare the bejebus out of me and with Tepper being involved in the big decisions, it makes it even more nerve wracking. This up and down, good week, bad week, winning in spite of a bad day for Bryce, is just about the worst thing we could have had happen. Seeing what Arizona paid Kyler and they're ready to walk away and be done feels like staring into the future right now if things continue along the same pattern of good week, bad week.

I think a lot has to do with a significant amount of injuries increasing as well. It seems like this year especially, there have just been a ridiculous number of injuries across the board. There's not really a 1 and 2 receiver because most teams have been lucky just to keep a number 1 on the field. If you go and look at the list of injuries to RB, WR and TE this year, it's pretty appalling how many guys have missed time.

Icky is exactly who he was coming out of college. Run mauling tackle but below average pass pro at the NFL level. Charles Cross was the pass pro ready tackle. It was always going to take a couple of years to get him up to the NFL level for pass blocking. Icky has earned his extension because he's right on pace with where he should be given where he started. The difference between Bryce and Icky is most drafted QBs still with their team don't play on their 5th year option. They get an extension after year 3. The exceptions to this are rare. That's not saying that Bryce wouldn't play on the remainder of his rookie deal, or the 5th year, if that's all we offered. I'm just pointing out that that hasn't been the trend, and it's something I'm sure his agent is well aware of when it comes to negotiation time. Trevor Lawrence: Jacksonville Jaguars, 5 years, $275 million Joe Burrow: Cincinnati Bengals, 5 years, $275 million Justin Herbert: Los Angeles Chargers, 5 years, $262.5 million Brock Purdy: San Francisco 49ers, 5 years, $265 million Jalen Hurts: Philadelphia Eagles, 5 years, $255 million Kyler Murray: Arizona Cardinals, 5 years, $230.5 million These are some of the recent extensions. Icky's contract would be around half of this. The question becomes then, if we plugged in an average QB behind a line of Icky, Lewis, Mayes, Hunt and Moton, would the results be similar, better or worse to Bryce with an extension behind ?, ? Mayes, Hunt and Moton? Icky, Corbett and Lewis would likely be cap casualties. That's why I question the Bryce option. It's whether or not we're stupid enough to pay an extension if it comes to that, because I definitely don't think it's warranted baring a SB appearance that Bryce drags the entire team with him based on his 3 years of Jekyll/Hyde performance and his still less than desirable mechanics, footwork, and other issues.

If they touched the ball and equal amount of times a game, I could see the argument. But Bryce, being the overall #1 and a QB savant, never having back to back complete games looking like a franchise QB is about as frustrating as you can get year 3. He does what he does in ATL and the week before did what he did vs NO. XL can be benched, Bryce can't. Dalton is worse by a country mile.