Ricky Spanish

Let's see: Giants - Barkley - Thicc boi in all the right ways for a RB. He will run a train on our defense NO - Kamara - Stud AZ - Connor, who is good but we always beat AZ for Jake's revenge so I am penciling this one in as a win regardless. SF - Kyle Shannahan's offense that could get paraplegics 1k yard seasons. This will be an issue. LA - Meh, nothing special here, we have a shot to stop the run TB - LOL doesn't even matter we will lose @ ATL - We have a shot Cincy - Joe Mixon is a stud. bad matchup ATL - We have a shot BAL - The best Rushing team in the NFL. No shot Denver - Dunno yet but they have a good 1-2 punch at RB, outlook not great Seattle - We have a shot Pitt - Harris went down, depending on the severity we have a shot Detroit - Swift is about to go beast mode on the NFL. He's this season's breakout RB. TB - Lol again, we lose NO - Kamara again So, looking at the schedule, I don't agree with you at all OP, and I am in fact, very pessimistic about our chances moving forward.

For real, there isn't a SINGLE COACH on the roster I would rather take the reigns after Matt is shown the door. Not one. They all suck as head coaches and are out of their depth in that position.

Oh totally. He still never beat either head to head, or any coach of quality for that matter. Zero wins against coaches that don't suck.

I wanted to see just how bad Matt stacked up head to head against the coaches that have been fired since he was hired back in 2020. The hot seat coaches I found were from various articles across the internet, with Matt Rhule being the number 1 candidate in all of them. I made a chart to better understand some things: Some Observations: While the victory against the saints still counts for his win total, it did not count in favor of his head to head matchups since Payton was out with the Rona in week 2 of last year. Of the 25 Coaches listed above, Matt Rhule has a worse win % (.294) than 22 of them. The two he played and beat were fired last season. There are 4 games this year against guys on this list (2 Falcons, Seahawks, Cardinals) so there are more opportunities to get worse (or better if your an optimist). Matt Rhule's only wins in his career have come against coaches who have either been fired, or are on the hot seat this season. Much like at Baylor, a Matt Rhule Coached team has never beaten a quality opponent (unless you want to count NO last year week 2, but they still didn't make the playoffs sooooo not really). If you lose to Matt Rhule, you will probably lose your job soon. Tepper has inexplicably held on to Rhule for yet another season and no one knows why. You would think a Hedge fund Manager is aware of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, but here we are. Looks like it's going to be another long season homies.

My Sunday afternoons will remain free just like last season.

Until they actually win a game, I won't think they're capable of it

This team fuging sucks

Way more things can go wrong on any given passing play (sack, QB fumble, tipped pass, interception, receiver fumble) than on a run play (RB fumble).

I do data analysis for a living (and I love it). Truthfully, I have like 6 requests lined up over the next week or so but it's football season so this became top priority. Also, my dream job would be to watch film, chart plays, and then crunch numbers in terms of success/failures against certain fronts, players, positions, teams, etc. If you or anyone knows anyone in the FO that wants someone to do said job, I am available.

That is a major takeaway (pun intended) I got from this. Our defense was if nothing else, completely solid, and that was without collecting turnovers through that entire process. If we can cause more turnovers, our defense will be downright scary moving forward.

I keep seeing everyone bring up the fact that we were "The #2 Defense in the NFL last season!!11" countered by those that say "No we sucked donkey balls" and I'm kind of over it. Truth is, we weren't as good as some say and we weren't as bad as some say. They were really good at some things and really bad at others. I'm going to break it down into three categories so we can understand what the team did well (top 10), what they didn't do well (bottom 10), and what we were kind of okay at (ranked 11-22 or so) and what was done this offseason that may affect these rankings for 2022. I'm not going to look at total yards or total TDs allowed because that would not paint a true picture of the Defense's capabilities due to the offense putting them in bad situations all year. Instead, I will look at the efficiency stats (the per play, per drive kind of stuff) as a better illustration of our teams true performance because we gave the opposing Teams a better starting position by nearly 2 full yards compared to the rest of the league: So having that context, let's take a deeper dive on whether or not the defense was actually good or not Things we were good at Yards/offensive play Net Yards gained per pass attempt: Rushing Yards/Attempt Penalties in general and limiting them Limiting YAC (#1!) Blitzing a lot Pressures per drop back Tackles for loss 3rd down conversion percentage Number of plays allowed per drive (surprisingly really good) Net yards per drive (heavy correlation to our bad offense) Things we were not good at Turnovers both total, and per drive: Percentage of plays we allowed a passing TD INT Percentage RZ TD Percentage Things we were just OK at QB Hurries per throw Knockdowns of the QB per pass attempt Missed Tackles QB Completion percentage Allowed Adjusted yards/pass attempt Yards per completion QB Rating allowed 4th down conversion percentage Scoring Drive Percentage (this stat has strong correlation to how bad our offense was) Avg points scored per drive Overall Defense DVOA 2021 Summary: Personally, I'm a bit surprised at how there was significantly more good/Average than bad. What the stats showed me is that we are a controlled aggressive defense that limits penalties and is overall pretty solid. There are definitely some concerns, mainly RZ defensive play calling if we are giving up that many TDs per trip, but there is a solid foundation to improve upon, and our Run defense wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was last year. PFO's overall defensive rating of 15 is pretty reasonable considering our strengths (aggressive, getting after the QB) and weaknesses (turnovers, and big plays allowed). It cannot be understated how BAD our offense was last year and how much their ineptitude really hurt our defense. They constantly gave opposing teams a short field to work with and could not sustain drives due to turnovers and overall sucking. 2022 Outlook Adding Baker Mayfield as our QB might be the single best offseason acquisition for our defense. If he is even remotely average than the Team improves dramatically. Truth be told, if we had Teddy as our QB last year, we had the potential to win way more games based on how the defense played. Other offseason acquisitions include bolstering the LB corp, adding a pass rushing DT, adding a solid vet safety, and hiring Steve Wilks and Paul Pasqualoni. Offseason losses include losing Reddick and Stephon Gilmore to FA. While I'm not sold on Pasqualoni as an upgrade, Wilks in the DB room is a huge boost as far as coaching goes. He helped make Josh Norman, Kurt Coleman, and James Bradberry pro bowl caliber players and he should be a great mentor for our young secondary. While we lost Reddick, he wasn't the best run stopper, and I understand why we just picked up Henry Anderson to help with run support. Brown will need to step up in a big way, but the LBers we signed, while not the best in coverage, are good run stoppers and should help bolster our average run defense. We seem to be banking on a lot of our young talent stepping up in YGM, and the secondary as a whole. Truth be told, our secondary looks pretty damn scary on paper and I think they are the true engine of our defense. We are built to lock down the receivers and allow the DL/LBers enough time to get to the QB. Snow loves to blitz, and he loves to do it exotically. This defense is giving me some real legion of boom vibes in terms of construction - not necessarily results just yet. I have come out of this deep dive surprisingly optimistic and actually excited to see what our defense can do this year with better coaching and a better offense to support them. Statistically speaking, they seem to be on the cusp of being a truly GOOD defense, especially if they can start getting turnovers.

I almost feel like I should lock this because OP got it in one. No need to discuss really.

Looking back, the 2013 draft is kind of underrated. There were only 5 picks which I think knocks the ranking down, but the talent in that draft was pretty damn good and all but one player has had some success in the NFL: 1st Star - Great run stopper, just not a pass rusher. Ate double teams and kept Luke Clean for years. Our Run D went to poo the moment we got rid of him. 2nd KK - Best DT we have had since Jenkins. Injuries derailed his career in the end but when healthy he's an all timer at the position for this franchise 4th Kubila - never did anything 5th AJ Klein - One of the best backup LBers in the NFL in his time with us and played great when Luke went down with concussions. Even earned a captain patch multiple years with us and eventually got paid in NO where he was an average starter. Great 5th round value. 6th Kenjon Barner - Didn't stick with us but he has won 3 SB rings and has made a career as a highly sought out ST player in the NFL. I think he was just recently released this offseason but the fact he has been able to play as long as he has as a 6th round RB is impressive. A great career ST player in the 6th round.

What's funny is that both those drafts were too little too late and the last things either actually did for the org. Great parting gifts. Both better than either of Hurney's.

Definitely. A big concern with the unproven CEO type coaches like Rhule are that they are dependent on their coordinators to put together their offensive and defensive schemes in ways guys like Andy Reid, Sean McVay, or Bill Belichick are not. With those guys, you have a reasonable assumption that either the offense or defense will thrive/be solid regardless of who the actual coordinator is because they are the true architect of the scheme and their fingerprints are all over it. When their Coordinators move on and get new jobs, the team still continues to thrive under the HC because they are the true mastermind behind that one side of the ball, then they only need to worry about finding someone they trust to run the other side of things. Guys like Tomlin and Harbaugh are CEO style coaches that have proven time and time again that they can identify the talent/coordinators that can help the team win once someone moves on. There is minimal loss/dropoff when coordinators leave because they are working to groom the next guy up in the org, or identify the talent elsewhere and hire them. Rhule's lack of NFL experience and current track record of hires leaves me anxious that he has the skills to identify and replace the talent that is good enough to get better job opportunities in other orgs. Again, props are due for the fact that he is able to identify when things aren't working and move on from them quickly. I just worry it's a ton of scrambling and choosing the next successor with limited ability to identify actual talent.

Dude looked smoll to me. He was a 5th rounder last year, fell due to off the field concerns, then got injured. I don't really hold any draft pick against anyone if they were taken in the 5th and beyond. I can only be impressed if they pan out.

(One of) My biggest concerns with Rhule going forward is his lack of competency at identifying NFL level talent in terms of coaching. The fact that he is willing to move on quickly from something that is not working is a plus in my book, something he seems to do better than Rivera ever did in terms of accepting mediocrity from coaches he personally likes. Having said that, he has not shown that he is able to put together an NFL level staff just yet. Maybe things change this year, and that'd be fantastic. My concern comes up when the staff he has finally put together moves on to greener pastures when they get better opportunities and Rhule is then forced to replace them. Let's say McAdoo gets another HC offer, or Sean Ryan gets an OC offer, or Wilkes gets another DC offer. It would then be up to Rhule to find replacements for those guys and I don't have faith that he will be able to do it.

Worst - 09, 16, 11 09 was a shitshow of the highest proportions. We traded away the future first then traded another future first for Brown. The only saving grace was Captain Munnerlyn in the 7th 16 - The only saving grace is Bradberry, and he's really good. The rest are just bad. Worley and Butler seem to stick around NFL Rosters each year but neither were worthy of where they were drafted. If Cam wasn't in that 11 draft, it would hands down be the worst and he is the only saving grace. The fact we had the first pick in every round by default and produced such garbage should not be overlooked. Best - 01, 17, 07 In 01 our first three picks were Morgan, Jenkins, and Smitty respectively. Can't really beat that in terms of talent. 07 we got Beason, Kalil and Johnson all in one year, which was another great one. Say what you want about Gettleman, but 17 was his magnum opus where 3/7 are pro bowl caliber players (CMC, Moton, Butker) and all but 1 is still on an NFL roster and contributing 5+ years after the fact.

While you were out there earning a living wage he studied the blade Frisbee

Didn't you hear him? He's practicing the Theory of wins.

Not sure if Newton knows this but that is something that A LOT of kickers do. Kicking foot shoes are as small as possible.

Right? The panther logo alone is a dead giveaway that the product will be disappointing.

The ONLY way that happens is if we have some Tom Brady/Drew Bledsoe scenario where we re-sign baker to a major contract for next season, he then gets injured and Corral comes in and lights the world on fire in his absence in such a way the Rhule is forced to play the hot hand of Matt Corral into the post season. Again, not very likely. Matt will most likely waste away on the bench until his contract is up, unless a new regime comes in and cuts him much like what recently happened with Kellen Mond up in Minny.

That's the other variable in the whole thing - This coaching staff. The best hope for Matt Corral's future is that we win this season and make the playoffs. This would secure Rhule's job for next season, but we would most likely re-sign baker and keep Corral waiting in the wings for god knows how long. However if the team tanks, Rhule is potentially gone and every coach that believed in him along with him. We would most likely look to move on from Baker and move up in the draft (pending final position) in order to take a new franchise QB. This would mean the new staff would have "their" guy that will have played football more recently than Corral, even if it was college, and with a first round investment in the kid they wouldn't start Corral over him. There is really no clear cut path to him being a successful starting QB in the league any longer now that he got injured. The dominoes fell in all the wrong ways for him.