kungfoodude

Well, not all rookie linemen seem to be struggling with that. Let's hope he flashes in the preseason or the rest of camp.

I can't really buy into that "normal/fine" idea for a 3rd round draft pick when we so clearly had massive OL needs. For him to not even be close to challenging some pretty poor starters is a big disappointment.

I am not going to take any pleasure in the seemingly inevitable "I told you so's" for that OL group. That is honestly why I have been so massively down on the offseason we had. This was our opportunity to really improve that unit with another deep interior OL group and a deeper than normal OT group in the draft. Instead, we drafted a guy that they don't even seem to have a clear idea what to do with, a 6th rounder and a UDFA that has already been cut. And that isn't even mentioning those idiotic Erving and Elflein contracts. I was hesitant to call our OL offseason what I actually though but I am pretty close to it......a fuging disaster. I am just not going to be able to wrap my head around why you would take a bad offensive line from last year, arguably make it worse this season and then bring in a QB that was a huge bust, in no little part due to poor protection. Maybe this is just some 7D chess that I just can't understand.

So, from what you have seen so far, is there anyone on the roster that seems to be threatening to Miller, Erving and Elflein's starting spots? I guess they are hyping Daley as a key 6th man, so that seems to say a lot to me. That indicates there is some significant separation.

Frankly, not much we have heard or seen seems to indicate Christensen is near a starting spot. He seems to be another in a sizeable group fighting for a meaningful spot on the two deep. I really hope Erving and Elflein pan out. If not, I think the staff and FO should be getting some really hard questions from the press next offseason.

If he got booted before some of the guys on that list, it must have been pretty bad. He went before the obvious camp bodies. That's pretty rough.

In fairness, that is probably as close to a win against Donald as you will get.

This was a little bit of a different case because we have such a terrible situation on the OL and this was one of their supposed "key additions" to help possibly shore that up, despite being a UDFA. It is disappointing mainly because now we largely look like we will be starting mostly the same unit as last year, save for two lower end journeyman starters/higher quality journeyman backup offensive linemen that we seem to be starting. The depth guys don't exactly inspire thoughts of one of them winning a battle to start over Miller, Erving and Elflein. Certainly another hit to the hopes of the contingent of Daley/Brown/Moore/Christensen supporters that thought they would upgrade our OL. Seems like every day those guys just seem to solidify why they aren't the guy. I had lower hopes for that group of rookies and young guys than most but even I am pretty disappointed in the early showing.

Overall, better. Probably not leaps and bounds better but better. I think we should be in the 11-18 range defensively(Total Defense, Points Scored). Even if maybe our numbers are fairly close to last season, I don't think we will see the issues on third down be nearly as bad and I hope we overall improve our run defense numbers slightly, as well. It isn't as if I think we have a bad defense, I just think it's extremely young and needs a little experience before we are one of those consistent top 10 defenses.

I am not sure Perryman is much of a gain yet because, much like his rep was coming in, he hasn't been able to see the field yet. The potential for the LB's to be better is there, but so is the potential for it to be not much better at all. Horn I am expecting to be better at the schemes we want to run but he is going to be a rookie CB in the NFL. I expect ups and downs and I am not going to be even the slightest bit mad or upset at him if he has a little bit of a dicey rookie season. That wouldn't be even remotely out of the ordinary. So, I don't want to assume he is going to be a world beater.

I feel like this is what Chuck Norris says about a lot of life.

OL "excuses?" You mean you are sold on that unit??

All jokes aside, the starter quality is as bad or just slightly worse than last season but there might not be a huge drop off to our #2 OL unit this year. We definitely had an atrocious offseason attempting to improve that unit but we really did shore up our depth. But, just simply removing Little from the rotation automatically improves it pretty dramatically.

I think the top 10 stuff defense stuff is a little ridiculous. This is probably one of the least experienced defenses in the NFL and has a lot of obvious "yet to be determined" units(secondary and linebackers namely). We are chocked full of talent and potential on that side of the ball but pretty short on actual accomplishments. If I had to guess, we will be in the middle of the pack defensively with some stellar defensive showings scattered across the course of the season. I think we will be looking at being considered a top 10 unit in the next 2-3 seasons, when we keep improving the overall defense and our young pups start to get really polished. I don't really see a likely scenario where he is average and we win 10 games without one of the best defenses or offenses in the NFL. It's not impossible but I would consider it fairly unlikely. I'd say it's much more likely he either balls out and we win 10+ games or he is a fuging disaster and we win less than 6 games. Those seem like more likely scenarios to me.

Sure, but you also can't win with one of the worst QB's in the NFL and a bottom third OL, either. Ask the Chiefs how OL problems worked out last season. Ultimately, we need the bulk of the problems fixed to be where we want to be as a franchise. IMO, QB and LT were bigger needs. Obviously Rhule felt differently. We will see how it all ultimately works out. I just hope he turns out to be right.

You tryin' to kill this guy?????

That is the one benefit of Darnold. He has been such a disaster as a QB in the NFL, that if he just stays the course, we probably end up with another top 8 pick. If he finally achieves the lofty potential that he was supposed to have, we don't have to worry about QB for a long time. I just don't see a "mediocre" scenario being nearly as likely. He's either going to be a huge disaster or a big success.

One thing that impressed me was Graham mentioning Russell Wilson when he described him. I know that the bulk of Panther fans have a huge amount of butthurt about Wilson but that guy has built a very solid reputation for being a high work ethic/high achieving player. Not sure he will reach that kind of lofty praise but that is certainly a hell of a comparison. The truth is, we aren't going to know what Fields or "Darnold 2.0" are until the games start getting played. In a few months, these comparisons will have ample data to support each position that isn't anecdotal.

I tend to believe that although Darnold was largely set up to fail by a bad coaching staff, most of his issues are between his ears. If he struggles/fails here, I think that will end up firming up my belief that is the case. If he is the ultra rare case of a bust to success story, I will firmly believe, as many seem to, that the Jets staff and situation was historically bad. I tend to agree with Varking that I would have probably still drafted Fields(or Slater) at 8. Either of those situations probably helps us as a franchise more than Horn. That is nothing against Horn at all, just more what I value over CB.

I think they seem to not very much value the OL. It's odd because this is the same thing we dealt with Rivera and Hurney. Actually, this goes back to Gettleman. We have made so many poor OL decisions in the past decade.

Good point. Our scrimmages against other teams will give us some additional reps.

I would think we will be seeing some pretty vanilla stuff in the preseason, so I am not sure his reps will be that deep into the new system. Hopefully he has that fairly down after a full offseason. As an NFL veteran, I would hope he can digest that a lot more quickly than a rookie.

This is actually a tough one. Darnold needs as many live reps as possible to hopefully build his confidence up. On the other hand, this will be the longest regular season in NFL history and Darnold has never successfully completed an NFL season in his career due to injury or illness. Not to mention, it's highly likely he is going to be taking a fuging shelling behind that OL we have assembled currently. I guess we may as well play him a lot in the preseason. If he gets injured behind that line, it was likely bound to happen anyway. At least if he goes down in the first half of the season we might have enough info to decide to move on or keep him. With PJ Walker and Will Grier backing him up, we can be in prime position to draft an actual franchise QB again.

L O L Make it in a real game, bruh.