AU-panther

I agree with that. I actually thought Winston would have been a really good option at the time. I'm not talking about tanking as in tearing down the entire roster, I just don't want spend considerable resources on some journeyman vet QB. I would prefer to use Darnold for another year, since he is already paid for then pay another Teddy type of deal just to try and be competitive for the short term. I'm all for building the OL and the rest of the roster, I'm just not worried about finding the decent QB like you, here again that mindset is what leads to the situation we are in. Maybe we should say a decent QB for less than $2m.

You don't happen to have Sam's accuracy numbers for the year do you? Not his completion percentage but his acutally accuracy numbers. Historically he has been bad in that department and it feels the same this year. Everyone gets caught up in this narrative that he can't process, and yet there is probably some truth to this but its not that simple. I think sometimes the accuracy just isn't there. QB A is accurate 6/10 on third down and QB B is accurate 5/10. That extra accurate throw can be the difference in the WR getting the 1st down or not. That one 3rd down conversion can be the difference between an extra series staying alive and a team scoring an extra 7 points. You give us an extra 7 points a game we have a top 10 offense. Fans think in absolutes, Tom brady isn't accurate on every 3rd pass and Sam isn't inaccurate on every 3rd pass but instead its small percentages difference between them. Even if Sam processes better he still has to make the throws. Sam has actually thrown some decent short range balls this year. He throws a good slant usually. I'm guessing that is helping the YAC considerable.

I'm not opposed to building the roster while you wait to find your franchise QB but this idea of retooling and trying to stay competitive is actually what gets teams into trouble. Signing Teddy was the team trying to be competitive while it retooled. Signing Sam was the team trying to be competive white it retooled. They felt like he was closet to being good than one of the rookies. Also by trading him that freed up the first round pick to use on the rest of the roster to "retool" the team. We got greedy. Everyone wants to win sooner than later. You can say we can't afford to flounder but you really don't have a choice. If it was a choice every team would choose to be good. You either find a good QB or you don't, sometimes it takes awhile, but wasting resources on average QBs while you look is a waste of resources that hurts you when you actually do find your guy. I have zero desire to spend resources again on an average or below average QB this offseason. Either draft a guy or go cheap at the QB position and draft a guy the following year.

be careful with facts around here. Here is what happened. Our WRs have dropped an unusually high amount of passes, might just be standard deviation. Steve Smith made a comment about hospital balls, and now every fan is trying to create some narrative that all of this is connected. The team isn't losing because it has quit. Its losing because it isn't playing well at some very important positions.

attract a top tier QB talent? how often does that really happen. We need to quit looking for shortcuts. Most franchise QBs follow the same path. They play for the team that drafted them and they are drafted early, anything else is an exception and is what has got us to this point already. We need to find our Mahomes or Herbert or Burrow. Its not easy but its the best chance for sustained, long term success. Making the rest of you team better actually works counter to making that happen. I'm not saying force a QB draft pick, maybe we have to wait until the following year, but looking for a competent veteran can work against you. A lot of people thought Teddy was a competent veteran. Also people need to quit expecting immediate help in the draft at the QB position, unless you are picking first and there is a prospect like Manning or Luck there is always question marks about QBs. Of course Horn was safer than Fields, or Chase Young before Herbert, or all the players before Mahomes. You gamble and hope, and if it doesn't work you try again in a few years. I'm not saying pass on a great OT prospect for a terrible QB prospect but if that QB prospect is anywhere close you have to consider them because they are that important.

"losing a team" is overplayed by fans. Players go where they get paid for the most part. If we draft a QB this offseason we are probably losing anyway next year. What keeps franchises bad is not finding a QB and wasting resources on players that don't make you better. Lets say we get rid of Sam and draft a QB and sign a vet like Minshew, are we really accomplishing anything. Maybe we win a few more games and have worst draft picks to add talent around the rookie QB we just drafted? Not to mention the cap space we use on Minshew, which could actually be allocated to helping said rookie QB in the future. Good thing we didn't keep Grier and not sign Teddy and/or Darnold, competitive people would have wanted to leave. Give me that $50m and three draft picks and I replace the people who probably aren't going to leave anyway. I agree though that ultimately Tepper will play a huge role in this. He might be tired of waiting and at this point the staff will probably look for a another quick fix.

The problem though, is that even if that is our plan, there might not be a good QB to draft next year. Some years there just aren't any.

So what if he cost games, if you draft a rookie QB who needs a year, losing next season wouldn't be that bad, better draft picks the following year. Why waste money on a different vet to be a place holder when you have a guy who is already paid? Even you, who believes in rebuilding is still thinking W/L, the organization has to decide to think long term, and that starts at the top.

exactly. All of this talk about O-line and play calling is rather pointless at this point. The QB position is exponentially more important than any other position on the filed. Think about it, you can have great everything else and if your QB play is bad its still hard to win. Conversely if you have you have a great QB you always have a chance.

So you release him with all of that guaranteed money and bring in another reclamation project vet? At that point you are just throwing bad money at bad money. That might get you the pink slip also. Honestly if we draft a QB that isn't ready, and people have their doubts about this class, you just let Darnold start again and the rookie takes over later in the season or the following season. Maybe Darnold looks decent enough somebody signs him as a free agent to be a back up and you get a comp pick out of it. If you draft a rookie you might buy some time, you can sell fanbase on a plan. It sounds bad, but we don't' need to be focused on winning, we need to be focused on finding a QB, that is what has got us in this trouble to start with.

I agree. Nobody wants to hear it but Sam's contract is guaranteed, you go with him another year and draft someone in 2023. but do we have the patience?

Watch us force a QB this draft. 2020 was a OT class. 2021 was a QB class. Seems like we are always swimming upstream. We need some luck and actually it might be a good thing this QB isn't viewed as strong. With our defense we might be picking middle of the first round, if the QB class was viewed stronger they might be all gone by the time we pick. Maybe its one of those years that doesn't look good on paper but surprises everyone 2-3 years down the road. I'm trying to be positive here.

Atlanta has one of the worst defenses in the league and we only scored 19 points. Just think about that for a minute.

I thought the same, but I think Grier was a Hurney guy and PJ was a Rhule guy.

I think most of us would agree that most franchise QBs follow the same path. They play for the team they are drafted by and are usually drafted pretty high. Yes, it would be great to find a Prescott or Brady but I think the more likely goal should be a Burrow, Herbert, or Mahomes. How often do the Tannehills of the world work out? Sooner or later you need to draft some guys early and hope they work out. Very rarely is a QB a sure thing. Unless you are picking #1 in the draft and you have a Luck or Manning type prospect there are always questions marks. Was Fields a perfect prospect? No, but sooner or later you have to take your chances with someone. If you wait for a perfect QB prospect to fall to you you might never find it. The year before Love and Hurts were the next 2 QBs off the board after our first pick. In 2019 Lock and Grier were the next 2 QBs off the board after our pick. This year Fields and Jones were the next two. I give KC credit, they didn't need a QB but they recognized you don't get a chance to draft ones you like too often so they drafted Mahomes. At this points do we have the patience to follow this route? We already 3 years into this regime. Does the owner and coaches have the patience to build the team slowly? Or are we going to be a constant cycle of trying to resurect free agent QBs?

If BC had a run block grade of 78 and overall of just 62 his pass block grade must have been terrible.

None of those stats tell you how many are in the box. Watch the tape. For identical downs and distances are teams using different alignments for Hubbard as opposed to CMC taking in to account that teams tendencies for all RBs.

They saw tools. He is an above average athlete and he has some arm talent, although not the accuracy. If you look at our other free agency signings, and even our draft classes, you can see a theme with this staff, they definitely like players with tools, measurables, or positive traits. Cam Erving, Darnold, Henderson, all first rounders, you don't get drafted in the 1st round unless you have some good tools. Even Elflein was drafted relatively high for a center and was consider to have good "traits". I think this staff believes they can take talented players and make them better players. Honestly it might be their biggest downfall and might be leftover from them being college coaches. With high school kids you are looking for best athletes and then you turn them into football players. At this level, once a player has been in the league a few years, the chance of you getting more of them than other NFL staffs is rather slim.

That's a myth. Down and distance dictates a lot of that. 3rd and 10, passing situation, of course someone is going to watch him coming out of the backfield, same would be true with most RBs. 1st and 10, a lot of teams are going to play 8 men in the box, not because of CMC, but because its a running down and down and distance. I'm not saying he doesn't get more attention than Hubbard but it is severely overblown by this fanbase.

And how many more 8 man boxes does he face? Does anyone have real numbers on that?

All of these reports makes me think Houston is trying to pump up offers. My guess, one team has made a decent offer, another team is trying to low ball, and Houston is hoping for a great offer.

I’m saying on a large percentage of running down and distances they are seeing similar looks, and the tape says the same. Even if we do say he is seeing considerable more attention on running downs and we add .5 yard to his YPC over the course of a 20 carry game that is an extra 10 yards rushing, which isn’t much considering he is shaking off the initial arm tackle as often as you made it sound. This idea that you would have drastically different results with CMC rushing is overplayed, if carries are equalized.

Down and distance predicates number of defenders more so than who the actual running back is. For example, 1st and 10 they are probably seeing similar number of guys in the box. CMC is probably getting some different looks in the passing game but the majority of rushing attempts are probably more similar than you think.

Why is their YPC the same then? Fans severely overate the differences between RBs given similar circumstances .

Everyone likes to look for a singular person to blame when things go bad but that isn't how it works. Pass hits receiver in hands, should receiver be expected to catch it? Of course. but Over the course of a season an accurate QB is going to have less drops than an inaccurate QB ,if everything else is equal, because the accurate QB is making it easier on his receivers.