BrianS

7-9 wins in the second year of a massive rebuild should give all of us hope for the future. I think we can get there. I can even get behind 4-6 wins if it makes the clear case that Darnold is not the answer. My only concern this year is that we get a definitive answer to the question: Is Sam Darnold a franchise QB?

He probably would make a decent FS if he put his mind to it. Probably would have been better if he realized that three or four years ago.

I don't see this as an issue. Chances are he's not going to actually "return" more than one or two. He might catch a few, but most kicks aren't even fielded - let alone returned - these days.

I dunno if the kid's any good, but with our depth and bottom roster quality, it wouldn't kill us to at least take a look. Third round pick from a quality college program who effectively hasn't really played and it costs us nothing.

I look at last year like this: Is CMC worth two wins a year? I believe he is. I may be right or wrong, but I think having CMC in your lineup for 16 games is worth a couple wins. In which case, we see last year as 7-9. Brand new coach and staff comes in. Takes over a very old team that completely gave up. cleans the roster out nearly completely. No offseason to speak of. No preseason. How many games did we lose by one score? 5-11? Without CMC? That's an amazing season. We're going to be even better this season. Yea, we have question marks. So do the other teams. This season was never slated to be a playoff year for us. This is the year we see the foundation of what we're building. That's all. If we win 9 games this year it would be way ahead of schedule. 7 or 8 is probably about right. Relax and enjoy the ride.

Cam is water under the bridge. I want to see Darnold make good decisions. That was always his problem in NY. We can talk about footwork all day - and I agree it's important - but his decision making is what got him in trouble.

Definitely not good company to be in, or something we should be excited about. While we certainly needed to trim the fat, it's sad to say but it looks like the team was mostly fat. Hopefully we've drafted well and can start retaining our talent at reasonable rates. That will help.

That is . . . not a good career from an NFL prospect point of view. The vast majority of college QB's see their completion percentage drop when coming to the NFL, and that guy doesn't have any room to drop. And it's not like he was airing it out. Not sure what we saw here other than a guy who might know the Jets playbook.

Seems like Fitts and Samir have this in hand. Having that kind of money available right now simply gives us a lot of options.

So pretty much our entire team.

Don't we have enough players with injury concerns already?

Actually, it's a legit concern. Prior to today, there were 39 players from Baylor and Temple on NFL rosters. Of those 39, 10 were on the Panthers roster. 25% of the NFL players from those two schools were on our roster. That should be concerning to anyone. It may look very different after today, and I hope it does. However, you cannot dismiss the concerns so easily. It's very clear there is a bias there. It's one thing if that bias was leading us to success, but in this case success is certainly not something we've experienced very much of recently.

If Matt Rhule fails, it will be decisions like this that doom him. I am in no way saying Grier was "good", but he was head and shoulders above PJ based on this preseason. I hope this is just the precursor to us bringing in a vet backup. Someone who can throw the ball to our guys and not beat us if we need a game or two.

Care to explain how that works? PJ 2021 - 16 / 39, 252 Will 2021 - 22 / 31, 222 PJ looked like absolute donkey after that first game. The guy only managed to complete six passes total in the last two games. And he's "by far our best backup"? Set aside the agenda, evaluate what's actually happening. I'm not saying Grier is great. I'm not saying he'll ever be a Derek Anderson level backup. What I am saying however is that objectively speaking, Grier has been better than PJ this preseason, and honestly not all that bad. I'm not sure Grier will ever be a serviceable backup. I'm 100% sure PJ will not. If you can't complete 50% of your passes, you have no place in todays NFL.

Why is this a surprise? Surely no one expected he would just be cut, right? This is really the only thing they can do. His trade value is non-existent right now, right or wrong. He's worth $67 million in dead cap this year and $51 million next year. The only way the Texans get out from under that is by waiting until 2023 to cut him OR find a trade partner.

No, wrong again. Smith's last year in KC he averaged 8.6 air yards per attempt, with a 67.5% completion rate. By way of comparison, Mahomes last year averaged 8.9 air yards per attempt, with a 66% completion rate. Need more? Ok. Look at Tyreek Hill. In Hill's first season starting, Smith's last season in KC, Hill had his second highest yards per reception and his highest yards per target over his career. I am in no way saying Smith is close to Mahomes. What I'm illustrating here is that KC parted with Alex Smith because they had an absolutely GENERATIONAL talent on their hands and after the years Smith had in KC, he was clearly not a backup. Not saying I would want an Alex Smith here, but the comparisons to TB5 are grossly wrong. TB5 doesn't come close.

Darnold needs to look like a franchise QB consistently over a season. It's really that simple. It's not something you can always put numbers around or easily define, but you can SEE it when you watch.

That's actually not the case. In his time in KC, Smith was much more willing to air it out. In fact, TB5's "best" season barely beats out Smith's worst FULL season. Smith is a far better QB than Teddy.

My recollection was that he injured himself.

Good numbers. If his production continues along those lines in those situations it will bode well. Sam can't control the protection he gets, but he can control what he does when it's there.

For all the crap Grier has taken around here, some of it earned, we definitely shouldn't be hatin' on him now. He's actually played fairly well this preseason.

Cam Newton, Christian McCaffrey, Robby Anderson, DJ Moore, Dan Arnold, Terrace Marshall . . . I'm not sure I can name a better offensive skill group ever. Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az-Azhir Hakim, Ricky Proehl maybe? Toss in Jordan Gross at LT and hand us the next three Lombardis.

I suspect he'll be starting sometime in October.

I wish him the best, but he really needs to find someone to fix him. The fact that he pushes EVERY kick right points to something mechanical, but I can't spot it. Shame the Panthers coaches couldn't either.

The key for Darnold this year will be the situation surrounding him. If we are keeping the game close, if we are staying ahead of the chains, etc he will have less need to be the hero and hopefully he'll just play within the system. If we start to get behind in games, get behind the down and distance, it will encourage his less desirable traits.