Sgt Schultz

That is the issue. I'm not a fan of constantly kicking the can down the road because eventually you are going to wind up with big dead cap numbers for guys who simply can't play anymore. Then you are screwed. But, if you avoid that and avoid signing duds or guys who are okay but never going to be worth what you are paying them (the old Hurney, if we pay them like they are elite, they will become elite method), some smart moves can work out. When you see a contract like Wilson's that is now owned by Denver, or for that matter Ryan's was a couple of years ago, you can see what you don't want to do. But, I think this roster will take at least two years to get on solid footing, and unfortunately, that has us running into the time when the sand has run out of some rookie contracts. That is the price for screwing around and wasting years with experiments like The Process. The last two seasons have been largely wasted, and the sand was slowly sinking to the bottom of the hourglass for Brown, Chinn, and that class. It could be worse.....Hurney could have been signing the FAs in that time, in which case our dead cap role would look like a Who's Who of "wasn't he good about five years ago?"

Hey, that would be an improvement. Under The Process, finished .300 or below every season (okay, technically .313).

Just saw this: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bills-damar-hamlin-released-from-cincinnati-hospital-returns-to-buffalo-to-continue-recovery/

I cut Wilks a little slack on the defensive performance because Snow and Rhule built a sort of Rube Goldberg machine. I'm not sure our defensive roster was built to play anything other than that Rube Goldberg machine. Wilks was vocal about having problems with Snow's defense, and I think that probably extends to who is on the roster. I'm not advocating for Wilks, but he inherited the roster which was constructed on a flawed set of assumptions.

It has been a poorly run franchise for as long a I've followed the NFL, and hey were the team I grew up rooting for in St. Louis. Bidwill senior was tight. His coach and GM could do anything as long as it didn't cost him any money. Now his son is running the show and he doesn't seem as tight, but he also seems clueless. His only upside, if my observation is correct, is he doesn't micromanage the football operations. But he doesn't seem to be able to identify who can run the football operations, either. I honestly thought they were going to unload both Kingsbury and Murray after the talk in the dying weeks last year. You are correct, they would have been better off without them both.

Part of me has wondered if he was keeping the OC seat vacant for McDaniels' demise in Oakland. They seem to have some chemistry that works, and McDaniels is simply not a HC. The Raiders reportedly can't afford to fire him and pay another HC, but the same problems that doomed his stint in Denver are happening in Vegas.

Well, at nearly the same time they extended Kingsbury, who was in trouble this time last year, they extended Murray, whose future was also in doubt this time last year. It's brilliant, really. We should fire the coach and unload the QB, but instead, let's extend both!

You just have to look at it from the Texans perspective. Realistically, if they had the first pick they would have just screwed it up, anyway.

I may be the only person that really didn't have a strong opinion of hiring Harbaugh one way or another. Yeah, reports out of the Niners camp had him wearing thin on the locker room, but he also had a lot of help by the two stooges above him (Baalke and York), so it is tough to assess how that would have gone without "hepp." But, if he wanted what I have seen in terms of money and control, yep, bring on the punter and move on. What this confirms is that the Panthers job is not seen as the worst of those available/expected to be available. I know that is a shock to a lot of people, but the Broncos are a mess, the Colts are a little less of a fiasco than the Broncos, and if the Cardinals job comes available it is not exactly a pearl, either. Houston is, well, Houston. Let's face it, none of these teams are in the market (along with maybe some others) because their long-time, beloved, successful coach decided to hang 'em up while things were going great.

That's more or less the position I find myself in. Otherwise, I will probably root for Buffalo. Top off Hamlin's recovery with a ring. I'd be fine with the Bengals finally winning one. But, like you said, other than the Cowboys and Bucs, I'd be fine with any of them.

If we’d kept Rhule to “get the #1 pick,” we would now be having to bring somebody in to basically tear the entire thing apart. Rhule would have everybody scratching their heads about whether 70% of the roster was worth keeping, because we would not have seen them in their natural positions, if at all. The exception would be those from Temple or Baylor. Add that the likelihood we would have outsucked Houston, Chicago, Denver, probably Arizona, and maybe Indy is pretty low. It is pretty much impossible to purposely lose as often as teams that naturally lose. Remember, the year the Dolphins tried to tank for the #1 pick, they wound up picking fifth.

I just checked.....no. They are not on here. Not surprised.

I hurt just watching that.

I brought up a neutral site AFCC early in this thread if they decided not to complete the Bills-Bengals game AND two of the three out of the Bills, Chiefs, and Bengals made it that far. Coin flips, not a chance. I'd be much more inclined to use something that is less random and requires more skill.....like a drinking contest.

It's been a while since news has made me feel this good. Thanks to everyone who has been diligent about posting the updates. Not for nothing, but I see his Toy Drive GoFundMe is now over $8M. If you want a smile, look it up and see $8,003,080 raised of $2,500 goal.

There could be a death.

Thanks for posting that. My major reservation is this: other than the coin toss between the Bengals and Ravens, it is close to what I said they could do with the neutral site AFCC if two of the three teams most impacted make that game. The fact that this was decided by the competition committee tells me it must be wrong somehow, even though it is similar to my own idea. Where did I go wrong?

I think his ranking is spot-on given those three jobs. And I by no means think we are as close to being good as some on this board. Both the Colts and Broncos went all-in for a veteran QB and instant success this year, and it turned out badly. I think the Colts can actually save money by dumping Ryan after this year, but the the Broncos all-in has at least two more years before they can cut ties without taking a cap hit that Congress would be proud of. So, none of us has a QB that will get us to the next level, but we (for once) don't have a bill for a QB that would attached to our need. If trends count, ours at least appears to be slightly up right now. The Colts and Broncos have been big disappointments this year.

You have my respect, sir. It was a tough road until 2016, and then in the Series being down 3-1. Then a funny thing happened..... The guy I worked for back in the mid 80s was a lifelong Cubs fan. His saying was "they wouldn't be the Cubbies if they didn't break your heart." Some of this lifelong and long-term fan stuff is tough business.

Honestly, I have a lot of Chiefs fans as friends because of where I went to school. Reid would have a long leash either way. They are avid, but not terribly reactionary as a group. If anything, winning the first trip and losing the second may have shortened his leash by a length or two. But probably not. I have to speculate on Buffalo. But Levy never brought home an Owl, and he was not forced out. Quite the contrary, he was like deity up there. I do know Bills fans are very close to their team, so he might be okay as long as they don't blow up, and in light of the Hamlin incident, that might not matter, either. Now if you change those to Eagles fans, Cowboys fans, or Foreskins fans (pre-Snyder blow up), or probably those of the big majority of the league, those answers change. Each fan base and owner is different. The leash arguably gets shorter if you win one and then fall short with basically the same major pieces, at least among fans. "What have you done for me lately" is the apt saying. There was a lot going on in San Francisco. At the same time as World War 47 was breaking out between Harbaugh and the two stooges, he had also decided they needed to work with Kaepernick to make him a better NFL passer. So they expected some regression as that process played out, with the upside being he broke out of the pocket and continued to look downfield (and potentially catching DBs cheating at his break) rather than tucking it in. Harbaugh saw that as Kaepernick's ticket to excelling in the NFL, and it was reported Kaepernick was all in. So, in a sense they were retooling while the cauldron was bubbling and the management was going to hold the diminished results against him. Those morons might have fired him had they won the Owl that year. The situation was a poster child for toxicity. It was little wonder they couldn't close out the season with a playoff appearance.

Oh my.......Add Bruins fans to that list. They are pretty insufferable, anyway.

And with all due respect to everybody else, you are one of the more balanced people in your thinking on this board (at least from what I can read in a forum). If the Blues never win another Cup or even get to the finals, they gave me that one thrill. I can die knowing that and be happy. But, if you go to the Blues forum, those of us that can be satisfied treasuring those memories and not asking what have you done this year are in the small minority. It is much smaller than those who would have said they would be in that group in 2018. Da*# it, now you jokers are going to have me pull up game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup finals again, just to renew that feeling. I still have that on the TiVo.

I don't know that anybody is expecting that. More along the lines of being in the discussion consistently. Think the recent version of the Chiefs, Bills, and longer term, Ravens, Steelers, and yes, the evil empire with their multiple Owls. Right now we are used to one step forward and two back. Harbaugh can cure some of that, but the question many are asking is whether he does that for one run and then we are back to where we are. That could be the Rams fate, who knows? Like I said in the post above this, what happened in San Francisco may have been inevitable, but the fact that it happened when it did was, in my opinion, more on two buffoons in the front office than him. If he slowly grates on a team, that can be handled with gradual roster changes. When management essentially says you either "wid us or agin us," that is a different story.

From experience, a few years later you will be saying the same thing. It is the nature of fans. I thought I would die before the St. Louis Blues won a Stanley Cup. I was at peace with that. Then they won it in 2019. In 2023, the fact that they won one still brings a smile to my face, and when I rewatch game 7 I still get a lump in my throat when the announcer says with 12 seconds left, "and the Blues at the bench realize they are going to be champions." That does not make me feel any better about I see on the ice in early 2023. I don't have a strong opinion about hiring Harbaugh one way or another. I will if they interview Matt Rhule II or some other dreg. But, the assumption that Harbaugh will bring us a Superb Owl win is without any basis. He has elevated teams, but he has not won the entire show at the NFL or college level. I realize that is rare air, but I also realize a lot of people here do not quite get that. The question is, is his peak something just short of that? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully somebody on the Panthers side will get an answer they are happy with. There are others who are asking at what cost he will create the short-term success? It is a valid question. The Niners were a wreck when he left and Michigan may be in some trouble. I know about the Niners fiasco when he left. He was losing the team, but that might have been because his departure was being ensured publicly by that dynamic duo of York and Baalke. At some point in 2014, it became hopeless and everybody knew it, including the players.

No, not really. Just that winning one would not be the magic elixir a lot of people think (and have thought in other sports franchises). While an Owl win would give everybody a smile for years to come, the mood would not be altered all that much a few years later. For example, Cubs fans are not necessarily in any better mood now than they were before 2016. Sure, they remember than World Series win fondly, but then it raised their expectations and may have soured their attitudes since even worse. The only cure for that is sustained success. Not necessarily a championship every year or three, but the realistic hope and pursuit of more. Then again, there is the impact the Pats sustained success has had on their fans. As a group, they became insufferable. Although, in fairness to their long-time and long-suffering fans, that was probably from the hangers-on that get inherited with sustained success.