emhoward

It's the first line of defense because it amazes me how people can be so confident in their assertion of Bryce's bustness knowing the reality of what he's working with. Which is the WORST SKILL TALENT in the league. For a rookie. Now to Dalton -- maybe it was a one game sample, maybe the Seattle Secondary was missing 2 of their 4 starters, maybe Dalton got the ball out quicker so the defensive line couldn't get to him while Bryce holds on to it too long, maybe his offensive output is exaggerated by the fact that he threw the ball 58 times, and the most Bryce has thrown it is 41, so maybe the coaching staff knew that Seattle was missing 2 of the 4 starters so part of the game plan was to throw the ball more, maybe one of his touchdowns was a 47yd TD on a busted coverage because seattle was missing 2 of the 4...you know the rest. Or yes, of course maybe Dalton is just plain better than Bryce, that is certainly possbile too. I don't know the exact reason for Dalton's performance, most likely a combination of the above. I do know that that performance doesn't mean that Bryce doesn't have the worst skill talent in the league as a rookie.

Can anyone name any team in the league with worse skill position talent than ours? Anyone? WR"s - TE - RB - is there anyone in the league who is worse than us? Name them. And that's not even talking about offensive line and coaching.

And those two QB's have better weapons. Barkley is in and out, but in the game you are referencing for Devito, he played, and played very well, my fantasy team thanks him. And the other quarterback is throwing to DJ Moore. A few times a year DJ Moore would take a screen pass to the house by himself. We don't have that guy.

And this is an example of the frustration on my part. As someone who sometimes defends Bryce. I'm not saying it's the offensive line. I'm not saying it's his weapons. I'm not saying it's the coaching. I'm saying it's ALL three combined. Yes the Giants have a trash offensive line. Now, do their weapons and coaching. Well their coach won coach of the year last year so let's assume he doesn't suck. Their weapons are average at best, and still notably better than ours. And the guy who caught 2 of Devito's touchdowns yesterday happens to be a an all pro Saquon Barkley. Having a weapon like that certainly helps. Go back and look at Barkley's first touchdown catch yesterday. Tell me you can see Miles Sanders doing that.

It seems to me that you are painting Trey Lance in the best possible light, and painting Bryce in the worst. Saying he was "passed by" is awfully kind of you. One could also say, that he lost his job to not only Brock Purdy, but to Purdy's backup, Sam Darnold, a guy we kicked out of town not to long ago, spending most of the off season as the 3rd string QB, to the degree that they traded him for a 4th round pick. You can say a lot about Bryce being a bust, but I'd guarantee you a team would trade more than a 4th for him right now. You trade what the 49ers did, you surround him with the best talent in the NFL, the best coaching in the NFL, you set him up to succeed expecting him to be the guy that finally gets you over the hump, and you get his level of play. It's safe to say he's blowing Bryce out of the water in terms of busting. Trey busted with gold around him, Bryce is busting with trash.

The entire nature of this debate with Bryce is to determine to what degree would he be playing the way he is right now if Christian Mccaffery was his running back - Aiyuk, Samuel, and Kittle were his weapons, Trent Williams was his blind side protector, and Kyle Shanahan was his coach. The point I'm making is Trey Lance poo'd the bed with all of that (minus Mccaffery) -- which is why it's reasonable to look at him as the bigger bust. I wasn't arguing Bryce being good, we were talking about why Lance should or should not be considered a bigger bust.

I doubt that. He might not do much when he got on the field, but he would get his shot as a top 5 pick vs a 7th rounder.

I don't mean to derail the thread OP. I'm curious about something... For those who think Bryce is a bust, but who also acknowledge that he has nothing around him, the main argument is that even with nothing around him, if he was "the guy" he'd show flashes of being "the guy". This is a credible argument. What I'm curious about is, if Bryce had league average weapons, league average coaching, league average protection, where do you think he rank amoung QB's in your opinion? Now he's bottom 5. Would he still be bottom 5? Would he be about Jordan Love level? Do you think he'd perform well enough that you wouldnt be calling him a bust?

I just disagree with this perspective. I think it's an argument for Lance being a bigger bust. You walked into a stacked situation, a team ready to compete now, some of the best coaching, and best talent in the entire NFL... and you can't even see the field and get beat out by a 7th rounder.

Threads like this give me whiplash. Just when I'm about to say that the Bryce skeptics are totally right, and everyone saying our failures are due to the issues around Bryce, are totally wrong...We get threads like these which are so obviously biased against Bryce that it makes the Bryce skeptics look silly.

That's certainly an interesting philosophy -- The guy who doesn't try, who doesn't prepare isn't as much of a bust as the guy who did. I would say Russell is the bigger bust because he DID have the talent to be great.

I honestly think this illuminates a huge problem. Reich sincerely believes we dominated in the first half because we ran the ball well, but dominating at the line scrimmage also includes pass protection.

I guess my point is that the pick 6 is partially on Bryce because he shouldn't have went to Mingo in the first place.

Nah, I defend Bryce a lot, but he had open receivers on this route other than Mingo. Mingo was probably his 1st option and he locked on him instead of going to another option. He pre-determined where he wanted to go. Can't do that in this league.

I'm off the Bryce can be an elite QB train, or even worth what we paid, but I still believe he can be significantly better than what's he's shown. Too many people I respect talk about how evaluating Bryce under these conditions isn't fair and what we've surrounded him with, isn't fair. Some of those guys you can dismiss as favoring Bryce for whatever reason (Olsen for example), but some have no vested interest to favor him, and still have said the same thing; that a true evaluation is impossible.

I doubt it. Who's the second as of now?

Yeah it sucks because the few times in which Bryce isn't sacked and he gets time, if he misses a guy everyone runs to the keyboard to say "See, see". He may get 3 clean pockets a game so if he doesn't go 3/3 on those plays it's held against him.

I'm confused. Haven't all of us Bryce fans admitted Stroud is better already? Why all the "look at Stroud" commentary. Haven't we waived the white flag? Do I think Stroud would look as good as he does now with us? Of course not, but I think he would look better than Bryce...because I think he is better. I still believe that Bryce can be a good QB in this league though. I suppose even that isn't tenable to Bryce Bashers.

Never wanted Frank, but started to drink the kool-aid when he hired an "all-star coaching staff."

This is well written, and well reasoned, but flawed imo. No one is saying he needs stars around him, we're saying how about just not having trash. How about league average weapons, league average coaching and league average protection. If he can't make magic happen with that, then he's not the guy. But saddling a Quarterback with Trash and then saying if you're the guy then you make something happen with this, is insane imo. Even more insane when that Quarterback is a rookie. When was the last quarterback to "compete" with nothing? I guess it depends on your definition of compete. People often bring up Cam here, but I don't think you can call Olsen and Stewart, nothing or trash. I'm asking sincerely, what are some examples of QB's that competed with nothing or trash around them? I can't think of any. There are definitely QB's who have succeeded without stars, but I can't think of any with Trash. And any examples that I think of as I write this only succeeded because they have a dominant defense and/or running game. We have trash weapons. Trash offensive scheme And trash protection. For a rookie. Question: Is it the talent around Joe Burrow or is it Joe Burrow? All I know is no one hesitates to call him a top 5 QB in this league despite the fact that we've never seen him play any meaningful snaps without a whole bunch of weapons around him, except as a rookie before he got got hurt, and he wasn't exactly setting the world on the fire then. "The mark of a TRUE elite QB is being able to at least compete when you have nothing." Mahomes has the GOAT TE and GOAT Offensive play caller. He's never had nothing. Allen has Diggs. He's never had nothing. Burrow mentioned above. I wonder if these guys are truly elite.

If they let Jefferson walk for nothing, I might say that. But they wouldn't... because he's good. But nevermind any of that, just ask Minnesota fans. And I don't mean this as a diss to Thielin, at this point in his career he's supposed to be a #2/3. It's not his fault we're asking him to be our #1.

This is incredibly frustrating. Not only do we not have a #1 WR. We dont have a player whos been a number one in half a decade. Chark has never been more than a 3. Mingo's a rook. Marshall... just no. And Thelien was a number 2 last year. But the Vikings let him go and drafted his replacement in the 1st round. So our number 1 WR is a guy that Minnesota didnt think was good enough to be their #2. I mean if you can't get consistently open when Justin Jefferson is drawing double teams on the other side of the field, how often are you going to get open when your partner in crime is DJ Chark? There's been a lot said of Mahomes' pedestrian numbers because of not having #1WR and he plays with the greatest TE of all time. We basically have the Chiefs weapons without Kelce and I would still take their weapons because at least they have speed. And not only that but they also the greatest offensive mind of the last 20 yrs as his coach and we have Reich. Our weapons suck and how we didnt know this coming into the year is insane.

Possibly. I'd have to go back to look and confirm, but I think part of the reason Dalton had more success is because he was more willing to throw it up to a receiver who was "covered" and let them go "make a play". I think Bryce looks for them to either be open or anticipate for them to be open. Sometimes neither will present itself and the best you got is a receiver one on one with a defender... sometimes you have to toss it up. Granted with our receivers most of the time that 50/50 ball wont be caught, but taking those shots are still important for an offense.

Well unlike Bridgewater and Darnold, Bryce is, for the most part, going to be our QB for the next 3 years no matter what. Might as well believe until you can't, he ain't going nowhere.

Well we wanted him to go deep