kungfoodude

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.

Yo, if you don't like talk about glistening loins and ample chests, then you can get fuged.

It's the preseason. You have to lower your general expectations. Vanilla schemes and lots of backups playing.

I always liked Peyton. Genuinely funny dude. He didn't have much of a part in our 2015 loss other than physically showing up.

Didn't even go far enough to speculate on that. Just throwing out a theoretical scenario in which it would be acceptable to make that kind of trade. Unless you are getting a quality LT starter, zero reason to be trading away a first for a middling LT. Especially for a team that needs those draft picks as desperately as ours.

The team is not even close to good enough. The only circumstance in which we are trading a 1st for a left tackle should be one that is our starter for the foreseeable future. And, in that scenario, one first may not be enough to get it done.

I believe you mean "don't."

Even if Darnold looked like trash in the preseason, it doesn't mean that much. The only thing that matters is when the bullets are real, that is when we are going to find out what we have.