Khyber53

Good insights. Maybe he's not a fully realized safety yet, but he's getting his game into place. It's a danged hard job to be a professional football player.

We need Coker to step up no matter what. He's been a little below his capabilities since he got back from his injury. He was, at one time, supplanting XL on the field. We need that guy back.

Honestly, coming into this season, I'd never heard of him. Glad we grabbed him, seems to be a fantastic pick up!

Thanks, man! I really appreciate it! Writing can be a lonely and quiet career. And here's this week's story, run on our secondary channel. Editors really shortened it, but I just write the scripts.

Looks like Mays will be our C this week, ain't no one really shining as a TE yet, the XL thing may just be the old adage that you never see the real WR until the third season. And I'm not saying he's anti-Bryce, but just that he's a realist. Working with what he has. And a lot of the decisions as to who gets playing time are made based on stuff you and I will never see, because it's behind the scenes. Time will tell, but in the meantime, what a curious season this has been and one with more opportunity than we've seen in a while. I plan on enjoying the roller coaster ride for what it is and I'm looking forward to next season as well. I've said it before, and it bears repeating, something's being built here and it looks like it might be good if we're patient.

I agree whole-heartedly. Or perhaps Canales has already made his decision about the future and he's just minimalizing Bryce because, well, that's the only option. It's not like we can promote Dalton to starter (he's just spent), we don't have anyone else on the bench for real and we are past the trade deadline. And the few free agents that are out there are rusty and unreliable at this point. After writing that, I'm pretty sure that Canales has a change at QB already in his plans for next season. It would take miraculous play from Bryce to change that at this point.

I sure hope so. Everything seems to be pointing to the table being set for it. Really, as I've said before, Bryce is in the position to make his statement about what his future will be.

He's not trying to build a winner... yet. He's building a locker room. He's building a place where the players know they are part of a team and that they are valued. Now, if we all had a crystal ball and a genie with a wish, we could go back and have us a Tom Brady just waiting in the wings. But that was one team, one time. Not a viable strategy for building a team. Ask Belichick. He couldn't manufacture it again once the miracle moved on.

There's an old unwritten rule in the NFL that you don't lose your starting position due to injury. The guys in the locker room know it and live by it. Rico knew it coming in and he never said a word otherwise except for praise for Chuba. And when Chuba came back, the Coach put him back as the starter and gave him the lead job for the game. And now it seems like Rico is in the first chair and Chuba is the supporting running back. We may see it move back and forth. And that might not be based on prior game performance but because of injury or fatigue issues we have no knowledge of, or because one or the other can handle the game plan details better than the other. It could be something as simple as one of the guys being better at pass protection from the left or right side and they are comparing that with where they are seeing tendencies from the opposing team. More than anything, I think that it's much like our inactivity at the trade deadline, Canales is building a very solid, traditional pro football culture here. And it may sometimes deal with more of what the players expect than what their fantasy football stats are.

I'm seeing so many teams moving to a run heavy offensive style. It's a cyclical league and I'm here for it. I love smash mouth football. And we did a text book job of it against Green Bay.

Cowboys. Patriots. Couldn't ask for two bigger villains.

I think we're all struggling with what things are right now and what they have been. It's like getting ready to have bandages removed after a long period of injury. The healing, the new growth, they aren't going to be pretty, there's going to be some ongoing issues for a while at best and there's every chance that we're going to have to go back into the bandage situation all over again. And that sucks. But it's also a place where maybe, just maybe, the recovery is going to finally start happening. The bad days will be getting behind us. It's not going to happen this year, but I believe from what I see that this year is showing that improvement. We focus on the QB because that's what all the pundits focus on, because it's the flashiest and most heralded position on the field. No one wants to put out a tweet about how a center is holding down their job and anchoring a line. They rarely celebrate that blocking tight end or special teams gunner. That fourth CB on the depth chart? Not a mention. And yet, those guys are the kind that we've been building here, we're building the lunch pail guys AND finding some future stars. Is Bryce one of them? Might be a cornerstone of the team in the future as the second QB, might somehow just show out to end the season. Might flame out like many expect. But if that uncertainty is all we concentrate on, we're just going to miserably look at this team and maybe miss out on some solid green shoots that are finally beginning to poke through into the sunlight.

Hooker is a Greensboro native, so I was pulling for him to make it here. Sorry that it didn't work out. Of course, I'm not saying he's dead in the water. Baker Mayfield and Same Darnold were flameouts here, so maybe he finds a new home elsewhere and rises up from these ashes. Our QB room sucks, but it might be something about how it was built and how it is developed. Either way, he wore the uniform here so he deserves our respect and a good luck on the way out the door.

Ayup. No argument here. See above.

Oh I agree. I don't think we see the same QB room next season as we have this season. Dalton has reached the end of the line it appears. He's just not even got the staying power to come in for Bryce right now (talk about not setting the bar very high). I think we'll probably pick up a new QB in the draft and give Bryce the opportunity to stay on the bench here or be traded out on that fourth contract year. Long term, we need someone with more oomph. Bryce is tougher and more resilient than I thought he would ever be, but he needs to be able to regularly move that ball down the field more. There's no doubt about that.

Yep, and I've said time and time again, it's up to Bryce to show us he can be the man or if he can be a career backup. Me, I think the body of work says he's going to be an excellent back up QB. But right now, we don't have anything else in the cupboard. Andy Dalton showed that he's just a dust-covered pack of cookies that was long ago emptied out. In the end, we may be looking at drafting another QB. And well, that may be the cheapest, best option. Until then, though, here's hoping we keep stacking wins, however we do it.

I get what you are saying. I'm just saying we made it to the win, we should have a bit of class and not dogpile on the QB because his stat line wasn't great. His stat lines weren't great for almost his entire pro career, but this time, we got a win. Give him a breather. The team cleared the bar. In the end, that's all that matters. Do it enough times and well, good things happen. We've shat the bed enough times with good-ish QB play. It's not like we've been regularly to the playoffs even with our best performing QBs over the years. Heck, Matt Stafford was a helluva QB in Detroit for a long time with nothing to show for it. Steve Bartowski was a great QB back in the day, but in 20 years of watching I saw one playoff game for the Falcons. Heck, even Dan Marino spent most of his illustrious career on a lousy Dolphins team. And yet, Tampa's first Superbowl ring was with the esteemed Trent Dilfer at the helm. Sometimes it goes like that.

Prior years don't matter right now. This season is all that matters at this moment in time. At this moment, we are strangely, very strangely competitive. If our QB isn't the main reason behind the win, that's okay in the moment. The W matters.

And sometimes, that's what you need to get the W. And we did. And as for Cam, Cam got too much of the responsibility for the wins and the losses. They, and we the fans, put way, way much more on that man's shoulders than anyone could bear. In time, that kind of pressure breaks even Superman. We had a team built fairly well, but we used it often times like it was just the one guy. Here, we seem to be building a team again, but we as the fans are screaming for a superhuman guy at QB again. We don't have that guy and I don't think we can make him into that guy. But we do seem to be playing the game to make the most of what we have with a realistic eye to what we are working with. And for that, Canales deserves some kudos, as does Bryce for handling his role.

There's only one stat that really matters, right? W-L ratio. Right now, he's on the right side of it. Like it or not. Am I a big fan of his performance? No, not at all. Am I looking at this realistically in the time frame we are living right now? Yeah. Is this sustainable? I don't know. And you don't either. But kicking the kid after the team wins a game just seems disingenuous and petty. He didn't lose us this game. Did he win it? That last drive to get to the field goal was pretty well run by him. He didn't shrink and just let the thing go to overtime. Don't take it away from him because for some reason you think that statistically he doesn't deserve it. After a loss? Sure if it's warranted. But that win was on everyone, including him. We were vast underdogs going into that game. And yet, here we are, one game behind the Bucs for the division lead and way out in front of the Falcons and Saints. Enjoy that. Even if it only lasts for a moment.

Okay, I'm going to take a controversial stance here... maybe. I think that we are told constantly that the QB is the most important player on a football team. And many times, that is true. They can make a team or break a team. But what if the QB is just one of the cogs that makes the team work. Like the computer in a car, it doesn't run the engine, it just sends the electricity/fuel/torque where it needs to go at that minute. It feeds this, then that, this, then that again as needed. If a team is run with this mindset, and the QB is just there to feed the ball to this RB, to make sure the play gets in to all the guys on the field, to make some last moment adjustments and make some throws to open receivers, then it all works. It's game management, it's playing point guard, it's the pivot point. And, well, Bryce has been doing that. He's mostly been trying to let others do their jobs and stay out of their way. And, like it or not, the kid has shown remarkable resilience when the game is on the line. He suddenly gets tough and focused. Nope, he's not turning in the stats to make the fans cheer. He's not throwing precision strike bombs every third play. But he's somehow there, making his contribution. He's not a star, but he's not bad either. And that makes it tough on the fanbase. It's hard to get behind him and cheer him on. Even though he's been behind center for one of our best seasons at the midpoint in a long time. Maybe he has a breakout game and passes for over 300 yards and 3 TDs. Maybe he completely collapses in a five turnover, seven sack game. Maybe he just keeps handing the ball off and making some decent mid-level throws when needed. Who knows? But I will say this. The kid that got just thrown into the bench from that sideline smash early in the Green Bay game got up like a helluva man and went back out and competed. Stats and stature aside, the guy ain't a pushover. And you've got to respect that.

You and me both, brother.

Rozeboom played like a man possessed yesterday. I hope this was the game that sets the tone for the rest of his career here.

It is an inevitability. There are 53 players per team, untold numbers of coaches and trainers and management people on each team, plus there are what like 20 teams of eight referees working the league... All it takes is a young player coming out of college who overspent and overborrowed on their NIL deal, then over-borrowed based on what they thought they could earn, then they are over a barrel. I can think of two examples of that (and famous ones to boot) already. Or a ref who has gotten behind in their mortgage or lost most everything in a divorce. Or a back-up QB or bottom of the roster guy who knows his time on the league's dime is running out who is willing to sell copies of a playbook or just pass on some real injury information that isn't public. Or how about a star player's personal pee provider just decides that yes, for $1 million they will make sure that guy's next pee test gets blown out of the water, crippling a team's chances right before the play-offs. Soooo many moving parts, so much money at play on an industrial level. And right now, we aren't even talking about the devastating impact this is having on the incomes of young college age and under 30 men in America right now. The numbers are being soft-pushed into the background because the ad revenue is so strong, but it's going to be terrible. They kinda sold their souls on this one. And that always comes back around to get you.