mav1234

I wanted him back, but not for that amount of money.

Your statement that "numbers are numbers, truth is truth" may be true, but that doesn't tell you how "well" drafting Watson worked out for them. In the 15 years before drafting Watson, the team had 2 total seasons at or above 10 wins. In the 4 seasons after drafting him - including 1 in which he played only 6 games - they had 2 seasons at or above 10 wins. edit: put another way, as the full time starter, the Texans had 2 seasons of at least 10 wins out of 3. That... is really good, especially given we're talking about *the Texans*, who were comically run for years.

Watson's record as a starter is 28-25 according to Pro-Football Reference (https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WatsDe00.htm) which includes 4-12 in 2020. edit: keep in mind he only started 6 games in 2017, where the Texans were 3-3. As a started, his year-by-year record is 3-3, 11-5, 10-5, and 4-12.

How long do you think Watson will be a Panther in this situation? We'll have time to build through free agency and with remaining picks. And we can only trade picks 3 years out, and Watson would be the equivalent of our 1st this year, anyway. So we'll see.

There's no real comparable situation to this, honestly. Hard to know the outcome. This is definitely a gamble. But I'm happy to have an owner and GM willing to gamble to win. Playing conservative hasn't gotten us a superbowl yet.

Our defense allowed 62 fewer points than the Texans... The Texans scored 34 more points than us, despite having a QB that accounted for twice the TDs... Our roster is more talented and/or better coached at many positions... but not the one that matters most. Even if our defense regresses *next year*, we have multiple years to build more talent around Watson and win it all.

We aren't 1 player away from the Superbowl but we arguably were from the playoffs. Watson literally doubles our touchdowns on offense. He had twice Teddy's TDs! How many games did we lose by 1-2 scores? Because you better believe that another ~15-20 TDs would have changed the outcome of a whole boatload of games.

I highly doubt it'll be *7* first round equivalent picks. But it may be 7 total draft picks, with 3 being first rounders and 1 or 2 starters being 1st or 2nd round talent level. But QBs are what runs this league. You need a QB to compete. If it is going to take us 2-3 first round equivalents AND 4-5 total draft picks just to move up to select the *3rd* QB in this draft class - which is what some are speculating - why not go just a little bit more and get a QB we know is already a superstar? We'll need to get very lucky to sit at 8 and get a QB that is truly worth building around as a franchise guy this year.

people are acting like he'll be gone in the next 2-3 years, lol. If we play this right he's our QB for the next decade... Last year we were a QB away from being in the playoffs. Imagine another year with Rhule, a superstar QB, some FAs... Maybe next year isn't it, but Watson is an enormous upgrade, and as long as Rhule is the coach some of us think he is, we're going to be competitive for the next 5-10 years.

There are plenty of ways to build a team that do not require great first round selections, anyway. If we assume that we lose 2 first rounders and a previous first round selection, we're basically out two first round picks the next couple years but have found our QB of the next ~decade. Seems like a good trade to me, but of course the devil is in the details.

I like Cam, but "good QB" is perhaps relative given the contract... They're paying him like a backup now... I don't think this contract is a huge endorsement, but it's certainly proof they don't think Cam is completely done. Hopefully that's all he will need.

I mean, think of how many fans of other teams are being trolled right now...

Its fake money to reduce his cap hit this year. It'll get reworked next year. It doesn't seem like crap like that should be possible, haha. Oh well.

If Cam was completely done, the Patriots wouldn't have brought him back. The contract is very team friendly, though. It does seem like they're giving him a shot to show he can be more than a meh backup, but not counting on more than that.

Cam's contract is heavily incentive laden. I think it makes sense for both sides, and it is VERY low risk for the Patriots. They desperately need to upgrade their offense (and that includes QB, tbqh - but maybe that comes with another year + better weapons). I'm rooting for Cam, but this contract is just barely more of a commitment than the last one in the grand scheme. None the less, it says that his coaching staff believes he can play, even if they aren't sold it'll be at a guaranteed high level.

Your post was good. He's talking about someone's poo reaction to the OP.

Love Cam and hope he hits whatever incentives are in the contract. I wasn't very positive about most of his season last year but I'm glad they saw enough to bring him back for another year.

It could harm us for years. It could also turn into the single greatest move in franchise history, depending on what Rhule & co can do with later round draft picks and others. It is a massive gamble, but how many first round picks is one of the top 3 QBs in the league worth, do you think? And how many first round picks are we willing to potentially "waste" before we land someone even close to that good?

definitely weird since, you know, the Texans have just been ignoring everything and anything related to trade offers

I don't believe anyone is off limits if we're talking about acquiring someone like Watson. But it better not be two of them.

I have been assured that the new coach and gm would gladly crater their opportunities in order to shove it to them greedy players!1!11!

That's what I thought but tbh I wasn't around a ton to follow last year's draft, so I thought perhaps I was mistaken.

I thought arm strength was one of Herberts strengths? Maybe I am misremembering...

My greater fear is that Mac Jones is a younger Teddy. Good enough to not lose some games, but not good enough to win any, putting us back into QB purgatory, and with one less first round talent on the team when we move on from him in 2 to 3 years. I don't think Jones is so bad he gets instantly replaced... in fact I could see him having quite a Dalton-like career.

Its easy as fans in March to say wed be fine with Grier or something worse, hoping we will tank our way to a QB. Asking a bunch of professionals to do so? Not so easy. Hell, it's easy to say it as fans in March and much harder in August haha.