Khyber53

Something illegal and unethical happens in the world of gambling. Color me shocked and amazed. Gambling is always on the up and up, right? People who either get put in a bad position or in a lucrative position would never ever ever violate the sanctity of the game, right?

We catch 'em when we can. Glad we could be there for them on that particular day. Would love to see it happen again on next meeting. I think the Falcons are way overpriced right now.

Honestly, they've been playing at the level of their opponents. That can be maddening at times, but it's working for us now. We were better against Dallas than the score shows. Let's hope we can do the same with Buffalo, just do enough to stay one scoring opportunity ahead of them. Our best shot there is that the game becomes an ugly slugfest dictated by the running backs and that we somehow keep Josh Allen bottled up. This is probably our toughest test of the entire season. If we squeak out a win somehow, then Canales and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Evero deserve some serious kudos. Still, on that defensive ranking, we're buoyed greatly by playing the Jets last week.

Sorry, my memory may be getting wonky with age. I thought he had been. Or had it been a "mutual agreement to resign/retire?"

While he was here, Burns was more of a fan favorite than an actual force on the field. Glad he was able to find a home elsewhere, but it wasn't like we traded away prime Peppers. Still, would have been nicer to have gotten that package deal from the Rams, but we were stupid.

And it still got Cowher fired.

My prediction is that Buffalo and Carolina will become trade partners after the game. Both have needs and both have resources the other side could use. They won't do it, though, until, the game has been decided. Both may trot out a few guys that seem out of place for a play or two just to show off the goods, so to say.

I agree. All of these guys, and let's face it our coaches before Canales, too, were selected to be head coaches not because they had developed weak or underperforming teams during their previous stops. As a matter of fact, the only way to really move up in coaching is to start with a bad program, correct it, win and then move up when a vacancy arrives at yet another bad program, then do it again. Sometimes they are the HC, sometimes an assistant, whatever. But you've got to have some patience. And yeah, there's the Peter principal at work, too, sometimes. That states that people will eventually be promoted to their level of incompetence. It kind of waves its hand at the idea that sometimes people learn a lot from mistakes and grow. It's really hard to win at this level of competition, this is the HC final boss level for football, from Peewee Leagues and Pop Warner, through junior high, high school, college and pro levels. It's tough and there are only 32 spots per year for the gigs (give or take a couple of mid-season replacement jobs). We have to remember that Tomlin, Cowher and Knoll all inherited collapsed teams. And each rebuilt them and had them eventually wear out and fall down, too (okay, Tomlin is still holding strong, but entropy eventually catches everyone), but each took a time commitment and good management to rebuild. I wish we could snag onto the winning formula. But you're very right that we can't just change every two years and expect anything but the same restart difficulties each time.

Right now, I think any QB situation is a crap-shoot at this stage in the season. How fast can a guy get on the same page after no exposure to even a playbook here much less relationship building with teammates? Not saying it can't happen, but I don't think we're looking at a San Fran-type situation where the starter goes down and an off-the-street backup (because Mac Jones was really pretty much assigned washup status before the season) takes over and excels. I hope we hit on something. You never know. Baker was terrible here and went at midseason to LA and just blossomed. Then he went to Tampa Bay and Canales and grew into what he could have been. Maybe Canales can do that with Hooker or White. Sure would be something to see.

You said it! But really, it comes down to fixing your organization and the team before diving in for that new QB. Even then, you've really only got about two seasons to do it before the GM and HC seats get too hot. It's a remarkably tough job and it keeps things interesting. Quality organizations keep the ball rolling, sometimes for as much as 10 years of competitiveness. And bad organizations can have an even longer shelf life of hell for their fans.

We seem to play to the abilities of our opponent. Hopefully we can keep pace and eat the clock with a punishing run game and hope that our defense gets a couple of turnovers to give us a chance. Here's hoping Andy Dalton finds the fountain of youth this week.

Imagine being the valedictorian for your Ivy League university. Perfect grades, massively well done final projects, research grants and countless mentions in the newspapers and on TV for the strides you made. And there are only 32 employers out there that can hire you and make use of you. Now imagine that the worst businesses, the ones with the least resources and most chaotic workplaces get first dibs on you. Trumpian dystopia? Nope. The NFL draft. Killing young QBs since day 1.

You know, a lot is going to be made of it, but let's also be honest, the Jets defense is a helluva lot better than their offense. That's actually a modestly okay defense we faced. The rest of the Jets, phew.

You're right but not sure where we can find a QB for trade at the moment. Just looking at bottom dwellers that might be looking for draft capital... Dolphins have Tua, Raiders have Geno, Giants have Wilson and Winston (sounds like a really bad radio Zoo Crew team), is Arizona ready to give up on the Murray experiment? There are some second stringers floating around out there...

Don't get me wrong, I love Chuba, but Rico has been earning the starting job. Now they just need to properly game plan for using a double trouble set up.