AU-panther

The number of players started is irrelevant in regards to which position is more important. A QB is exponentially more important than any single position on the field and it’s not even close. Doesn’t matter if they have a lower chance to succeed, they aren’t even money bets.

I agree that at some point we should have spent a first round pick on a olineman, namely when we had a franchise QB, Cam. Now that we don’t have a franchise QB it’s the second most important position.

Only if you are wrong

Same can be said about QBs, you have to spend high draft capital and donor organically. That’s the problem, we need the two hardest positions to fix. People just keep acting like it’s easy to find the QB later. How many franchise QBs in the league? How many years do some of them play? 10-15? So in the last 15 years how many truly elite QBs have there been? But you are magically going to have one waiting on you when you finally decide the rest of the team is ready.

Finding the QB is the hard part. I'm not saying spending the 6th pick on a QB is definitely what I would do but this idea that any single OL spot will help the team as much as a QB is ludicrous.

Then we have the same problem. We need to find a QB.

Were the browns bad because they had a bad LT or bad QB?

I agree that a team might evaluate this QB class and feel like none have a good enough chance to be great to warrant a pick, but the Browns are a terrible example. They weren't bad because they kept drafting QBs, they were bad because they were bad at drafting QBs. They had one of the best LTs of all time and it did them no good.

Burrow is playing like one of the best QBs in the league this year so far, I would happily take that "class" of starter. Fans get caught up in this idea of "floor" and "ceiling", Tom Brady could be in the draft and half this fan base would say his "ceiling" is too low. All things being equal everybody wants the bigger arm or better mobility but there is another aspect of "ceiling" that is hard to define. What does that QB do on 3rd and long when his first read is covered, does he automatically know where his second read is going to come open? It's so hard to quantify a QB's thinking process, hence the reason QB evaluation is so difficult. Personally, I feel better about Pickett and Howell, Corrall and Willis make me more nervous. Also, I would feel better about trading down and drafting one. That extra pick would help mitigate the risk somewhat. For example, I might take Howell and a 2nd over Pickett at 8. Having that 2nd would really be good right now, you could stay put and take a LT and then try and package the 2nd to move back into the back half of the first round if you were determined to take a QB.

I don't expect a GM to be correct all of the time but it would be a bit naive to think all of the bad decisions were only attributed to Rhule.

If you have a quality QB a prospective coach could care less about the OL when deciding to take the job. but if you have great OL and no QB you might get turned down. Most coaches probably feel confident they can fix an Oline. Either with draft picks and/or FA dollars. You can't say the same about QBs, there is some luck in getting a franchise QB.

What if Darnold isn't the QB? Maybe we sign some midlevel FA QB. Here again no guarantees you will be drafting in the top 10. But we can do what KC did, trade up next year. So spend one pick on an OL this year and multiple picks on a QB next? Is that much better than spending one pick on a QB this year and multiple picks on OL next year? Speaking of KC, everyone likes to reference them but in reality, that was a terrible QB class also. Trubisky was the first QB off the board, think about that. He might not even be the top QB in this class. If anything what KC did with Mahomes would be more like us falling in love with someone like Howell, not waiting for a loading class with some can't miss prospect. As far as LT go, I do agree though they are dang near impossible to find in free agency, but that doesn't mean that you can't improve the OL without spending a first round pick. Unfortunately for us, our two biggest needs, QB and LT, are the positions that like you said are best found "organically" by spending high draft picks on. QB just happens to be exponentially more important. I'm not opposed to drafting an OT, in reality I'm often on the OT bandwagon but you have to at least do your due diligence on the QBs. This idea that you can just wait until next year and find one is dangerous.

If a coach turns us down it going to be because we don't have a QB, not because of the OL.

People need to stop thinking in terms of ranking, teams look at grades. I don't care if the next available OT is the 2nd or 5th one, does he have a similar grade as the center. Once you factor positional value and need you might even take the OT if he has a slightly lower grade. Think of grades on a 100 point scale. If OT3 is a 90 and Center1 is a 90 I take the OT. If OT3 is a 90 and Center1 is a 92 I might still take the OT, because of need and positional value. If OT3 is a 84 and Center1 is a 92 Im taking the center or trying to trade down because that is a huge reach.

depending on how far you trade back you might still get one of the top 3 OTs.

like what? There is no way to guarantee you are going to be in position to draft a better QB prospect in 2023 as 2022. It might be more likely but not 100%.

People probably said the same thing about Mahomes and Rodgers. Who says we are picking in the top 10 next year. What if we improve the line and go 10-7 and are picking 17th. At 17 next year we might get a worse QB than 8 this year even though it might be a better overall class. I'm not saying there is a perfect answer. QBs are hard to find. People just need to realize, unless you happen to have a #1 overall pick in a rare year a generation QB is available, there will almost always be a safer non QB pick. Sooner or later you have to gamble. The irony in all of this is you can probably say the same thing about LTs. More times than not they are overdrafted so you almost have to reach for them, or the rare year value meats draft position you need to take them.

I don't agree. Those are #1 overall picks, and not even normal #1 overall picks. They might only happen once a decade and that year you might win 5 games and not have the top pick. Thats the problem, everyone is waiting for that type of prospect and you can't, a franchise can go 20 years without the opportunity to draft that type of prospect. Most of the time you have to gamble on a QB.

but does Tepper buy it?

not having a QB sets your team back more than anything. Team A and B are both bad and neither have a QB. Team A uses a 1st round pick on a QB for three straight years and goes 1/3 in finding a pro bowl QB. Team B uses a 1st round pick on a non QB for three straight years and goes 3/3 in finding pro bowl non QBs. Team A is in better shape and it's not even close. This idea of fixing the line and finding the QB next year sounds good in theory but there are no guarantees. What if we fix the line and go 10-7 or 9-8, there might not be a better QB prospect next year where we are picking compared to this year in the top 10. I'm not saying force a QB pick this year, I just think you have to do honest evaluations and you can't plan multiple years out when you are going to find your QB. If you like one and think he has a realistic chance of being good, you take him.

When things go bad you usually have to explain to your boss how you are going to fix it. Here is the pitch by Rhule I can imagine: Defense played good at times. Defense is young, should get better. Horn, a 1st round pick, will be back. CMC will be healthy. Sam will be healthy. Showed some promise early in the season before getting hurt. Extra year in system. All we have to do is fix the offensive line and we have a top 10 pick in a draft that looks really good for OTs, plus some cap space that could also address the line. I'm not saying this is the best route, I can just see this happening. Long term it might not be the worse outcome. If it doesn't work out Rhule and Sam are probably gone. The next coach can come in and hopefully will have some pieces to build around, maybe a better offensive line. Worst case is we spend a bunch of resources on another QB that doesn't work out and then Rhule gets fired and the next coach comes into a depleted situation. Like I said earlier, I definitely don't think this is the best outcome, just one that is possible

I'm not saying not to draft a QB, my response was to someone saying that Rhule will try to save his job by drafting a QB. Rookie QBs don't save jobs. I actually agree with you, all this talk about building a line first is stupid. QBs are too hard to find, you get one when you can and you build around him after. The line is the easy part.

and again you deflect, you know good and well the biggest knock during the draft process concerning his ability to play LT at the NFL level was his physical traits. I'm not saying that is smart its just the way it was. Slater had the same issue, some teams saw him more of a guard, a lot of people look stupid now. It was doopey the way Rhule said it, the fact he specifically referenced just the arm length. I seriously doubt that's the only reason they don't think he is suited for LT, fans hear statements like that and take it very literal and run with it. The fact he signed Erving and Elflein the first week of free agency actually gives me more concern, but I actually said that when it happened.

you get so literal. Arm length is part of a players physical traits. Are you saying his physical traits aren't the main reason he fell? You are quick to criticize but you never ever give an opinion unless its after the fact and you know the results. What was the biggest knock in league circles concerning BC about playing LT during the draft???? You know the answer but you won't say it because it backs up everything I just said.

I thought you meant yards allowed was the best measure for a defense. I might have misread you. I think you were trying to say that was was people consider the best defense, which I don't' get either. I don't know if I've seen a universally accepted best defense ranking. In reality the best would probably be some situation and/or opponent adjusted ranking. Here is the problem with fans, they think in a vacuum. Good and bad are relative terms, fans though tend to create artificial benchmarks that they assign to good and bad. A good defense is the 85 Bears or 2000 Ravens, anything else is bad. For most of the year we have been an above average defense relative to the rest of the league, which is somewhat impressive considering how bad our offense is. Our defense isn't elite by any stretch, there are probably only three teams I would consider that way, Pats, Bills, and Broncos. The next 10-12 teams are probably pretty close and all of those fan bases probably complaining about their defenses being bad since they aren't elite but in reality, they are above average.