kungfoodude

Well, pick your measure? By Football Outsiders DVOA, our best pass defense ranking ever was.....1995 and 2015. We were ranked #2 in the NFL. But do you want to measure it by opponent completion percentage? Opponent passing yards per game? Interceptions? Opponent QB Rating?

Yeah but we have to build something they want to go to. Right now, that is far from the case. Especially for veterans that want to win titles and win them now. Neither our rosters nor our coaching staff is going to attract that caliber of talent. Both of those guys have won titles and they are going to be able to find excellent spots IF they decide to even leave(which I genuinely doubt).

I don't disagree that a draft prospect is the preference but the problem with QB draft roulette for bad franchises(which we definitively are) is that it can end up in a multi-year search. That's why I compared our 2018 to current span to the Browns 1999-2017 span. It looks very similar to that at the moment. It isn't uncommon for the bottom of the league to look that way for many years as they flounder trying to get a QB. This is another issue I had back in 2019 with the "rebuild" idea. Very few successful NFL franchises ever attempt a rebuild of the scale that we were attempting. Of the few that did, most spent a decade or more in the cellar of the NFL. The issue is that in the NFL, windows are short. Rebuilding is never a good idea, you have to constantly retool as you go to stay competitive. Now, on the positive side, we do suddenly have a pretty good and very young roster. We do need to keep retooling and keep improving, because this roster isn't that far from being competitive. In fact, it could compete right now if we just fixed two issues, OL and QB. But, we can't really afford to flounder in the cellar of the NFL for another 1-2 seasons or we won't be retooling, we'll be rebuilding again. That's how you become the Browns, Bengals, Raiders, etc, etc.

That has been my suspicion the entire season, TBH. I see them pulling up short on routes that Darnold is leading them into big hits and I see some frustration when guys are streaking wide open. Plus, the ball placement and timing is so obviously bad. IMO, they have zero confidence in Darnold. They know who he is and they aren't playing hard for him as a result.

Players chase money but winning players also chase opportunity. It's the reason players like Matt Stafford didn't chose us or the Jags or any of the rest of the bad franchises in the NFL. I don't see much in the way of immediate help in the draft, hence why I would rather pursue a competent veteran QB. If we just start the process of getting the OL fixed and then let our strengths(defense, running game) carry us in 2022, perhaps we can attract a top tier QB talent or go for broke in the 2023 draft to get The Guy. We will see what happens.

Yep. I would love to have kept Heineke or Cam or have signed Tyrod Taylor or Trubisky or traded for Minshew or gotten any number of other veterans that could help us just be at least average at the position. I think we are having a completely different discussion about this season had that been the case, poo OL or not.

I agree. This is a team that could have won immediately. All we had to do was take the OL seriously and not assemble the worst QB unit in the NFL. That was it.

The only real measure you can use is statistical to compare our history. The "on paper" measure is harder to agree on. Too subjective. We are a top 10 passing defense(probably top 5 after the stats update for this week). But we have been a top 5 passing defense before in our history.

Statistically, not yet.

I don't know that even I would roll with Sam in 2022 even thinking rebuild. I am very sure they will not, because Tepper seems impatient and Rhule is gonna be feeling the heat. They have all bought in on the "win now" mentality. I would start Sam again simply because you risk flatly losing the team and losing talent that just wants out of here. It's hard to keep competitive people around on a losing franchise. That is at least part of what keeps bad franchises bad for a long time.

He is either getting released or getting moved or gonna be a backup. If you bring him back as a starter, you are just asking to be fired. He will not improve and he will cost you games. I agree on the focusing on winning. It's a very strange thing to say but they sort of got caught up in the moment and forgot this was a rebuilding effort. The sad part is that we aren't that terribly far away from being a good team. They just need to stick with the ORIGINAL plan and build effectively. Fix the OL and get a real NFL QB.

Eh....I tend to think that Dillard might just be a bust. Not sure I would send a talented player for him. Perhaps some minor draft capital.

What? Taylor is a rookie. He has a three year cheap deal. We'd be nuts to trade him.

Agreed and he might develop further if he gets a lot more reps and experience with various teams. Backup could work out for him. Or he could just simply not have it at all and be out of the league in 2-3 years.

I think he cares about winning, he just doesn't know how to accomplish it is the issue. I think the staff knows they can't bring him back as a starter. That is essentially signing their own pink slips.

Yeah, I completely disagree and I don't think Tepper cares about that at all. He cares about winning because he knows that is what puts asses in seats, not gimmick home players.

Yeah, I am really concerned about that outcome as well. We don't have the luxury of being able to miss on our 1st round pick, because almost all of our picks are Day 3 picks. If we don't see "The Guy" at QB in this class, get the best OL available. Fix a problem that you can, not create a new problem by wasting draft capital on a reach at QB. fug me, we've basically done that in free agency two years in a row, let's not have Version 3.0 of that.

I don't think Tepper cares at all about the home state thing. That was a JR trait. Not to mention, Howell isn't going to bring many new fans to the fanbase, if any at all. I agree on Fields, though. If he somehow turns it on over the last half of the season, Tepper is going to get "aggressively involved" in the 2022 QB decision, IMO. For better or worse.

This basically nails the bulk of the issue. Key mistakes basically put us in an untenable situation this season. The extremely poor decisions at QB and OL have basically crippled our offense. Add in some predictable and ill-advised offensive playcalling, some questionable preparation and questionable in game coaching as a whole and you end up where we are currently. But, on the positive side, the personnel issues are far fewer than we had in 2020. Even as bad as this seems now, we aren't THAT far away from being a contending/competitive team.

Oof. If we go on in on Howell, it will all just end in tears again, IMO. Howell has some talent but he is a big project with a lot of flaws that need to be coached out. Not anything near a day one starter, IMO. I don't like much of this 2022 QB draft class, which makes the future at QB seem so much more bleak for us. IMO, it will be journeyman QB in 2022. Just because that will be all that is reasonably available and overdrafting a QB is a path to the ultimate failure. The real fun is going to be how involved Tepper becomes in forcing a QB on the team.

Yeah, I am trending that way too. He just seems so lost on the field for most of the game and then there will be a handful of plays that make you scratch your head and say, "Why the fug can't he just do that all the time?" That really screams NFL backup and not starting QB. Honestly, it probably would help him to be holding a clipboard for a few years. He might eventually become a halfway decent backup QB if he has the time to learn and develop without any of the actual pressure to play regularly.

It's going to take a tremendous defensive effort to best New England and luckily we have a rookie QB we are facing. Think about all the talking heads and analysts that keep saying how predictable we are on offense. Boy if that isn't tailor made for Belichick to roast us.

He'd be a starting QB here because of how terrible our situation currently is. But, hypothetically, going into 2022 with Cam as a starter wouldn't be much different than 2020 or 2021 was. It's again just not addressing the issue. But, it would be a HELL of a lot more fun to watch than what we are currently watching at QB.

That is some of the problem but Darnold historically and this year has also struggled even more with a clean pocket. TBH, that is the most damning thing about him and it was something that was highlighted by a lot of us when we traded for him initially. It's easy to lay his struggles in the lap of a bad OL but he has proven time and time again that he struggles even more when he does have time to throw from a clean pocket. Hence why so many(here, in the sports media, players, etc) have said his biggest struggle is just seeing the field. The WR's......I will see what happens when we have a new QB. I suspect the drops will decrease but we need them to DRAMATICALLY decrease. It will be something to look at in 2022 for sure.