Sgt Schultz

I think you are spot on with that assessment. Lance was (grossly) overdrafted. It was not a risk, it was an all-out gamble. When the 49ers made the trade for the pick, I thought they would grab Fields and maybe Jones (which would have also been a gross overdraft). Wilson looked like a bust but may be catching on and Rodgers buys the Jets some time to figure that out. Jones is what he was thought to be coming out. Hoodie may have had visions of him quietly being Brady-light, so there may be some disappointment there but that would be squarely on lofty expectations. Lance stands alone right now as the guy who looks to be on the outside looking in pretty quickly.

I never got the whole love affair with him. As you said, just too little to go on to conclude he was going to develop into an NFL QB, let alone do so in a year or two. Who knows, maybe if he hadn't gotten hurt in their second game last year he would have shown something. The other side of that coin is he might have played himself off the roster, too. I didn't have a warm, fuzzy with Zach Wilson, either, but at least there was a body of work to evaluate.

That's two of us, @pantherclaw. Good luck with the halibut.

It could be a revolving door at Panther's HQ. That is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the roster doesn't get drastically older in the process.

There have been two times since Tepper took over that I thought we were thoroughly fleeced. The first was The Process. Way too much money and way too much power for a guy with basically 0 NFL experience. The Process played them like a Stradivarius. The second was the deal with the Jets for Darnold. Even without the 5th year option, what we gave up was over the top. Somebody else may have been interested in him, but not at the price we paid. He was somewhere between a bust and a project by that point, and everybody on this planet and four others knew the Jets were drafting a QB to replace him. I didn't mind what they gave up for Mayfield, or to draft Corral or Bryce. They overpaid for Bridgewater, but had they stuck to the plan that might have worked itself out. That was typical Hurney: pay them like they are elite and they will become elite. Which I don't think ever worked.

He probably did. After he came back the first time, World War 47 was still raging so he went back out and did it again. Tomorrow, he may tar his roof if this continues. I don't even have any grass to mow here, but I may go to Lowe's tonight and buy a lawn mower anyway.

I assume you are going back out to weed some more. Hell, you may plant a few new ones just to pull them out 30 minutes later. I would!

Agreed. He could be 6-4 and 240 of pure muscle, and I would have many of the same concerns. We have a lot invested in him (mostly expectations for the future), and I don't want to watch that go down the drain because he is subjected to so many hits that an Abrams tank would not be able to survive it.

Ouch is right. Not my favorite bit of news for the day, by a long shot.

My only concern about Young is his ability to continue to bounce up off the turf. That is not a critique of him, but rather those paid to protect him. But, it will be Young's problem to have to survive. In every way that is under his control, he seems way ahead of the curve for a rookie. OL.......do your stuff. Please!

ThE sTarTeRs Didn plaY. WhY NOt? ThEy nEed thE rApS. THe sEcoND sTrInG oNlY PlayEd ToO SeRIes. ThEn iT wAs AlL thE gUyS WhO WoNT mAkE tHe TeAm, anD ThEIr BoTtOM GiEs oUtPLayEd OUrs BaD. We StINk. ThAt MeANs ThEiR GuYs ThAt WiLL nOt EvEn Be On tHe RoSTerR oUTpLayed OuR STarTeRs. We wONt WIn A GaMe For tHe NExT To yEaRs. Geez, I gave myself a headache writing that.

It has been heading that way for a while, and going to three preseason games hastened that movement. At the same time, the quality of play out of the chute in the month of September has also gone down. September has always been rough around the edges, but in the last 10-15 years it is almost impossible to identify who is good, bad, or in between until the second quarter of the season takes shape (about mid-October). There were "threats" of going to two preseason games, coinciding with expanding the regular season to 18 games, and I can only imagine what that will look like.

The funny thing is we may be a little deeper overall than in the previous couple of seasons, but there are spots that are wafer thin. Then again, the recent bar is pretty low. And to dredge up another recent fiasco, let's hope this staff has been aware enough to figure out who other than the kicker can kick if the need arises.

It's either that or they discovered he wasn't OOU. Sorry, bad flashback for a second.

Clearly you were not on the Zoom meeting I was on an hour ago! My feeling about preseason games in general is pretty much along those lines. Every now and then somebody who was on the bubble or worse does something that makes them a keeper, but otherwise, pretty dry stuff. And the last one is usually the worst in that regard.

I think our ceiling is more than 7 wins, but there are a lot of IFs that go along with a ceiling. IF the OL plays like it did in stretches of last year, IF the WRs play to what we think their potential is, IF Bryce is as good as processing plays as reported, IF the defense can hold its own weight against the run (especially critical against the Falcons, it seems), IF the secondary is decent, IF our coaching staff can steal a win or two, IF our injury situation does not kill us, etc. I think we settle in somewhere between 7 and 10 wins. Vegas' 7.5 over/under is reasonable, given the unknowns. My evaluation of where we stand at the end of this year is not dependent on that number, but how we play down the stretch and what hope there is for 2024. I'd love to see 10-7, but that is not my expectation. IF too many of our IFs don't pan out, and I think the margin for error there is slim, this board may do its best impression of Chernobyl for the next year.

Because we are 0-2 and look lost in the preseason. Don't you know? We should have be 2-0 and have a point differential of 55-17 in the preseason. Because teams that suck in the preseason suck in the regular season. That was something Nostradamus wrote and is a universal truth. It is panic time. It was panic time after last week. Why aren't you panicking? Start now and avoid the rush. Seems like the primary exercise routine these days is jumping to conclusions. We have no idea who did what when The Process was in town. We know that he had full control of everything, on paper. We know he exercised that control over parts of the organization that are unrelated to NFL coaching duties (but something a college coach would do on campus). We heard that he lost some of that control heading into last offseason, but we don't know if that is true and, if it is, where the lines were. We don't even know what we don't know. That is the result of a "creative decision" to give a guy who knew nothing about an NFL team and had no reason in his history to believe he knew anything at this level full personnel control of an NFL team. I thank Tepper and maybe Hurney for that piece of brilliance. I am hard on people up the food chain (even in my job), because I actually expect them to do their jobs. I don't buy into "plausible deniability" or any of that other horse manure. But even with that, I have no idea when Fitts was allowed to do his job, other than sometime on or after October 10, 2022.

It is a thing to behold. Sort of like watching one of those 1950's era horror films.

That is a tough job. I've been a St. Louis Blues fan since I was 8, going back to 1969. I was pretty resigned to the idea that I would leave this earth before I saw them win a Stanley Cup. Then, in 2019, they left me speechless. I'll never forget that feeling. It was almost surreal watching the clock tick down to 0, and then watching the celebration. I still want them to win it again when every season starts, but if they don't, I can carry that memory with me. Of course, the memory is tainted by the fact I was in south Jersey for game 7, but even that can't ruin it. My hope for you is if and when we see this team win a Superb Owl, neither of us is in south Jersey when it happens!

How dare you confuse this thread with facts.

"Hey, look at what this moron said. He can't tell a football from a headache ball. Oh wait, now there an even better one."

"And if anyone is interested in this fine, future hall of famer, we will reluctantly consider parting with him for a mere third-round draft choice. It will be painful for us and a huge loss, but sometimes you have to do what is best for the young man."

In the present, Rivera is one of the guys you call when you hired a complete buffoon and he left your team a smoldering mess. In the case of Washington, the owner was busy making the team a smoldering mess. The examples are following The Process, McDaniels in Denver (John Fox), Meyer in Jacksonville (especially if he had been around another year). Fox and Wilks are cut from the same cloth as Rivera. They are guys that stabilize things, create cohesion within the team, emphasize basics, and slow things down (in a sense). They are not going to steal wins with their game planning or adjustments. But, they will stabilize things somewhere around mediocrity, with some years being better depending on talent. In general, while they are not going to create the best situation for the talent to excel, but they are also not likely to make it impossible for the talent to succeed. There will always be a market for stabilizers because there will always be owners and GMs hiring buffoons that screw things up to the core. Rivera is good at what he does, but that has limitations.

Yeah, he didn't even really start his break back to where the pass was going to be when the ball went sailing by. I forget who the receiver was on the other side of the field, but he ran a similar pattern but did cut it off sooner. The QB School was a very good thorough breakdown of that pass and his others. For me, I would like to see the OL act like they have met at least once before they took the field, some deeper passes (not necessarily bombs, but something beyond the underneath stuff), and some improvement against the run on defense. Some sustained drives on offense would be nice.

Yessirree. In my father-in-law's words, "I exist, therefore I am wrong."