backINblack28

excellent get right game, just sucks that we put ourselves in position for it to be a must win. I don't love building important roster spots in the stretch run, but if we gel now it's better than the alternative

as a day 1 PSL owner (thanks to my dad and uncle, I was 9 at the first game in ericcson) -- but i've been around for the entire history....this is what i'll say. I may go to less games than normal this year and quit on some earlier and I certainly would not blame anyone for not attending or watching at this point. For me, personally, remembering the 2015 NFC Championship game, one of the clearest most vivid memories I have is not having to make a peep. I just looked. I looked around, and thought of the fact that normally on Sundays at 1pm over the years I'm trying to get people up, get people loud, get people excited. And that day, all I had to do was shut the eff up and look around, and it was loud and raucous and shaking. And I thought of all those moments, walking out of the stadium with head down in shame when our teams were bad/bandwagon away fans were carrying chants out of there. It's those times I thought back to, and those times that made me truly realize and not take for granted the good. The good tastes much, much sweeter when you're able to remember days like yesterday. At the same time, we're approaching a level of apathy I wasn't sure I was capable of in the sense that even in down years I would wear gear, I would talk trash, I would have pride, etc. At this point I have no desire to defend anything, and no amount of trash talk would be worse than what we see our team do on the field at this point. These things are cyclical. Objectively, as an NFL GM, you're currently trying to succeed against the Mahomes juggernaut and the teams like Dallas who are paying 2 dudes 400m who will continuously fall short---that's not a great place to be either. If we're gonna be bad, be this bad. At least that will continue to inspire change, even if it's just Tepper looking in the mirror once ever. The cardinals did one of the craziest things ever drafting a QB in the first round with a new coach and then one year later they punted on both and re-drafted a QB. At the time I thought it was the most insane, self-indicting 'we're idiots' move a franchise could do. Yet here they are, having flipped the script. I hope to hell we can flip something at some point and at least get some lighting towards the end of the tunnel. Stay sane out there, folks.

my dad and I will be there--team performance hasn't really affected our attendance considering it's just our reunion / father son time. the difference is, for the first time in my life, i'm betting against my team in person -- and enough to pay for my season tickets (and then some. a lot of some)

I agree, they did their job other than not really being tested/having much of an opportunity to run block. It's not always going to be their fault if the sacks pile up if we're not adjusting to blitz or getting rid of the ball or able to sustain run game--my main point was just if we struggled against the Saints to the tune of 3 sacks from a CB, Mack and Bosa will feast, cause even without an extra man they will test any OL, and they're not matching up against the big money guards we paid.

Feels like to me the west to east coast trip matters less for a well coached team. Even though Harbaugh is in his first year, I think his team's game travels. They play hard nosed and we are extremely susceptible to that right now. Their running game will travel, and I just don't see a world where our offense operates cohesively enough to keep up. The Saints were mid at everything last year and brought back effectively the exact same lineup and blew us off the planet. People might want to say the Chargers roster is bad--but they struggled in pass protection and in the passing game and still ran away from the Raiders--who have a better offense than us right now. I'm just not seeing a path to where we stay in this game. Even when our offensive line holds up, we tend to give up one backbreaking strip sack etc that breaks the game open even for ball control teams. Anything negative that happens to us including being down 7 I think we're showing that we're entirely incapable of recovering from. I'll believe in positivity when I see any signs of it. For now, I'm taking the spread.

Yeah, I mean I wasn't specifically saying that the OL did--the offense did. 3 sacks for a CB / not being able to pick up extra rushers is to have trouble, even if individual blockers are doing their job. My main point there is if we give up 3 sacks to a Saints CB, we will have our hands full with Mack/Bosa etc

I'm a pretty positive fan. I even thought Bryce deserved this year to have a roster around him/was not sold on him being a bust. We're not betting on a player with Chargers -5.5, we're betting on their team plane not to crash traveling across the US. That hasn't happened in the US since 2009. I'm good with it. The Chargers struggled with pass protection and in the passing game and still beat the Raiders 22-10 and pressured Minshew all game. We're worse than the Raiders and we had trouble with the Saints pass rush which isn't as good as the Chargers. They'll have no issue running or throwing against us, as if us scoring or moving the ball was even a remote threat.

the chargers are -5.5 right now. we may be sad fans but we can double our net worth

right so proving my point by tying XL's success before he plays one real game to 7 years of evaluating someone who isn't XL

bust vibes before week one is outright insane, i agree with you there, and it screams not being around the game long--Steve Smith caught 10 passes his rookie year. this board/fanbase is not currently in the business of caring about rationality or patience

This all makes sense and I don't disagree with any of it, it's just frustrating that a 2 win team is essentially fronting that we can't use all the reps we can get (esp given new system, new staff, and OL/roster turnover). I have seen enough freak preseason/training camp injuries to know that health is paramount, but I do think young QBs getting reps is important no matter the situation. I say that to also say I'm not sure how much any rep last year helped Bryce considering we couldn't run for 3 yards, run block, pass block, run a route, catch a ball, or put all of those things together for more than like 15 plays in an entire season so I digress

Jeremy Shockey was pretty good Cam's rookie year/probably helped Greg in a lot of ways become what he became to the franchise

the game on 8/24 is a massive one with a team we're looking up at in the standings. Great time to go for anyone with any remote interest. It's time to make a big push, and this is a big one to kick it off. Hopeful that Ream has plenty left in the tank (and Privett being available to spell him/keep him fresh and learn from him is awesome), and it's sick to have a contributing US MNT player on our roster. As far as Biel--if he had been the first name we heard we probably would have been fine with it. Instead we spend entire transfer windows lauding fans with what ifs that never materialize. It's exhausting. But I trust Dean and I hope we can gel and have a nice stretch run here. Hosting a playoff MLS game would be an amazing atmosphere.

to a non contending team who can afford to find out if there's anything there. and as you said previously--it seems pretty likely that his next stop goes exactly how his last few have

retread selfish me first dudes dont tend to do well in Brindamour's system where you have to defend first

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/40733879/usmnt-tim-ream-move-charlotte-final-stages apparently this is very close to official. Topbin says he expects a departure. I'm not sure it will be on defense. I think maybe Brecht because of salary. Sounds like we are still looking for a 10.

I don't disagree with any of this. At the same time, I think he plays at odds with our system and you can see that sometimes it works out and is flashy (and therefore lends making it easier to say why don't we grant him a bigger role and/or more freedom) but sometimes, it lends to the exact things Rod tries to prevent (bad giveaways/odd man breaks/unnecessary turnovers). Necas is still very young in the sense that he still has improvement in him even in the facets of his game he's best at. I worry though here because it seems like he is putting us in a really tough place with negotiations which both lessens his value on open market and lessens his trade value. The early rumors of not wanting to sign here don't really match up with him just turning down a possible extension with several other playoff teams. If he doesn't know what he wants and can't be decisive about it then it gives no sides any leverage including teams trying to make calls about him. Guentz may have strung us along and screwed us, but at least it's done and over with. I just want this to end so we know exactly where we stand. I don't love including him in an Ehlers trade, but if we're losing him anyway it would make sense. Just hard to feel like at this point any side is going to get the best of any deal cause it rarely improves for all parties as time goes on.

in itself i didn't/don't have an issue with this. And our main point has always been that we didn't want to be one of the go for it all teams at the deadline because we have a window that has term with Slavin/Aho/Svech/Jarvy. however. keeping martinook above market value and not combining the youth influx with things like changing things at goalie and or signing a big name as a guentz replacement just feels like so far we're kind of sitting this out, and i really dont like the idea of taking a large step backwards from pre deadline roster last year. i understand we've given this a run with the same guys and it hasn't worked and changing some things there. but we also know exactly what our glaring issues are. so to not get better at those while also getting worse/losing big time names in other areas is pretty disheartening thus far. Hope there's more to come.

he turns 32 in a month. the reason we are letting TT, Skjei type guys go is because we're betting on youth to fill instead of overpaying guys who are probably not going to get better/faster etc at this point. Martinook has been on the top of his game, yes. But that's exactly what the complete ceiling looks like, and he's getting older and was never the fastest/most skilled guy regardless. We outbid ourselves.

I like Martinook, but this is an objective overpay for a dude who cleared waivers months ago

https://x.com/Canes/status/1803081577003438591 Think this was the right move. He was always the guy driving the analytics--hopefully he has learned the other parts of the trade under Waddell. It's worth seeing rather than losing him for sure. Let's get some dudes locked down!

I have both so I wouldnt need to trade, but I have 2 seats in 253 row 15, and I know my seat neighbors so 4 total available for some matches all that can be had at face value with no fees etc

idk. if they brought him here with the hope of re-signing him they knew it would take 8 at bare minumum. i'd go 8.5 with term easy. we can save some money letting skjei/pesce walk, trading necas and or kk. it's all about what Jake wants. if it's me in the twilight of my career i'm taking 8.5 over 10 to stay on a team this close and that seems like where his priorities are which makes a difference. I'm just hopeful

Guentz has said great things about being here and caring about winning over money. I think it's possible we can get both him and Jarvis on a slight discount

Fred had a terrible elimination game, but if our PK/PP was anything less than absolutely dog poo in games 1-3, game 6 would have been our closeout game based on his play. so....yeah. While I think this year Kotchetkov needs to get the majority of games and if things aren't going well we need to jump at trade deadline---it's easiest to blame Fred because of a couple mistakes directly in the elimination game that never should have been