kungfoodude

I think the OL is the position we should be in the best overall and really are. That's our best group outside of RB, although that will soon fall off dramatically with Dowdle likely leaving. That said, it's a group that should ALWAYS be adding assets in the draft to upgrade. IMO, I would rank our position groups(worst at the top): 1. ILB 2. QB 3. EDGE 4. TE 5. WR 6. DL 7. S 8. CB 9. K/P 10. OL 11. RB

IDK about what Bryce needs, per se. I posted up a thread with some utilization rates for Canales specifically, so I think there is legitimately a hard ceiling for TE impact in his offense. You think that WR grouping is? I think you forgot to finish your thought on the sidebar.

He is very much in line with his career averages almost across the board. He hasn't seen the endzone much but that is also probably a reflection of the fact that their overall passing TD's are down quite a bit(Baker at his lowest Passing TD's/GM in his Tampa career). I don't think he is gonna break the bank but it's probably going to be more than I would want to personally pay.

I think he would just end up in a crowded TE room without the ability to really stand out. Tremble is a decent enough roster guy that makes sense for us because we have such heavy multiple TE utilization rates but realistically he is a JAG. Sanders is trending bust and Evans I still have some hope for, although he has fallen off recently. I don't think there is a single guy on the roster that cannot be upgraded over. I just don't think Mayer is an upgrade over really any of them. Probably a lateral movement at the very best.

TBH, I think we might have something in Coker as a decent possession WR but outside TMac, it's largely JAGs. It's a moderate potential and probably the lowest floor of any NFL roster outside of those two guys. Arguably even with those two guys. It's easily the worst WR room just in the NFC South alone. So, I do think it's still an extreme need. Perhaps behind other extreme needs but it's a position in pretty sad shape overall.

Otton will be in line for a payday but I don't know if I would love paying top dollar for a guy that we would use but likely never get our monies worth because of the offense in general that we run. I would rather attempt that in the draft for a couple of reasons, it's cheap and if we DO land an elite TE, he should outlast the HC/OC that we have and it's possible to see him flourish eventually.

Evero is a very mixed bag. His scheme is capable of hiding some personnel deficiencies while dramatically amplifying others. The one thing I will fully admit is that we can actually do far worse than Evero, although I would like to make a change there. My personal expectation would be that we would immediately make a very bad DC hire when/if he leaves. I don't believe that Canales/Tepper will be able to get a high caliber coordinator to be interested for several reasons. Not the least of which being this defense is constructed very, very poorly(for which Evero deserves at least some of the blame). One thing that seems to be a small positive is that DC does appear to let Evero basically completely run that defense without a ton of input. So that level of autonomy might be attractive to a few candidates.

BPA comes with the caveat of positional value and roster need included. Never let the latter two completely overwhelm the first, however. Our FO seems to lean heavily into "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE POTENTIALZ!!!" as a fourth category and often it seems as the #1 overall pursuit. With as many needs as this roster has, I am not going to get upset over a real roster upgrade at WR versus some reach at EDGE or whatever other extreme needs we have. Overall, I want to see the roster get better. There is far, far, FAR more than one offseason of work left to get this roster into the top 10-12 in the NFL. That should be the goal.

I would say we are more likely to get smoked by Tampa, blast Seattle and then perplexingly lose to Tampa again.

In general, Dave Canales tends to target his TE's the least frequently of any position group(WR/RB/TE) during his three years of running an NFL offense. However, if you notice this percentage has crept up over time. 2025 is the first year that TE has eclipsed RB in target percentage. Production has also gone up in 2025. This is a percentage of total output in each category. Canales has always used a very TE heavy offense. In fact, on average his offensive formations are 2 or 3 TE sets roughly 80% of all offensive formations. So, the question may be, with this uptick in total TE output, could an elite or top tier TE make a significant impact? I believe there is some evidence this may be the case. Here are a look at TE snaps and Cade Otten specifically. These are the snap percentages for all rostered TE's in every Dave Canales offense. The bolded cell is Cade Otten's whopping 96.46% of total snap counts in the single year he was in the Dave Canales offense in Tampa. This was overwhelmingly his career high. His production was higher with less utilization in 2024, however. In conclusion, while I don't anticipate ever seeing a top 5 producing/Pro Bowl caliber TE performance in a Dave Canales offense, there does appear to be some evidence that an actual upgrade in our TE room would actually lead to increasing overall offensive efficiency. I think Otten's utilization rate does indicate that the splitting of time between our relatively even TE group would cede significant snaps if a far superior option were available. I believe this is an area we could(and should have this past offseason/draft) made a more concerted effort to get a dynamic TE threat, after the apparent failure that J. Sanders appears to have been.

Finally, some non-AI content. Thanks for the post! I suspect that Tampa's differential might get a boost after two games against us.

I am down with this. I genuinely dislike him as a head coach. He needs as much development as Bryce does.

His first condition of considering a new NFL job will be being established as Team President with a minority ownership stake and also be allowed to be on the sidelines listening to plays like Carly-Isray Gordon. Wait....not listening. No, just a microphone like a pop star would wear, so they can hear her. Which, I assume that will be debuted next Tarheel football season. @LinvilleGorge you guys installed that system for her yet??

Sam Darnold is a "pretty good QB" on the Bryce Young QB Scale. On the regular NFL Starting QB scale, he is bottom half to bottom third.

I could only imagine how bad Sam Darnold would be in a Dave Canales offense. I am gonna guess it would look a lot like when Sam Darnold was here the first time.

Trading XL will be tough. Late round conditional pick, maybe. Elite TE would be great. Again, BPA. If it makes the team better, I am all for it.

FTFY

This was the guy that was so petty about where he wanted to go then has established himself as a fraudster and complete joke in college. It would be very funny to see him go from being super selective about his NFL destination to just begging to get back in. I don't see it, though. Although he has fallen, I think his Pride is still a cup that runneth over. That arrogant old fug will stubbornly believe that some ultra premium NFL position has to be available for him to be interested.

Unfortunately the progression under Tepper has been: 1. Tearing Down NFL Franchise 2. Establishing College Program in the NFL 3. Descending to National Laughingstock 4. Establishing the Structure of an NFL Franchise 5. Improvement to Bad NFL Franchise

The amount of mocks showing us take a WR is startling. Not good resources at the moment, for sure, but it does seem like the general opinion is that we are going to go all in on the current offense. Which, I mean.....let's say we hit a HR at WR again in the upcoming first. Now you have TMac, Drafted WR, Coker and pick whomever of Horn, Tremayne, XL, etc. Especially if we locked in a good C, this now becomes a potentially attractive spot for an NFL QB. Well, minus Canales, I suppose. I wouldn't be super against it provided we aren't reaching for a WR or dramatically ignoring BPA.

It would be fitting.

Yeah, they really crapped their pants pretty hard when the momentum flipped.

Wow. That has to be the first time in Darnold's career he didn't choke. Not even joking. I think that is the only one, right? Insane comeback.

WOW

Ball game. Zero chance Darnold is able to overcome that.