Sgt Schultz

Remember the good old days, when Rivera would have just told him to rub some dirt on it and get back at it?

I walked away with that, too. It's a team sport, so I'll take that as a win. The Pats have had a lot of successful teams in the last 20 years that might not have won a lot if individual drills, but put them on the field together and the total was a lot greater than the sum of the parts. Not a bad situation to be in.

Thanks to those that put what they were hearing and reading into the blow by blow on here. Looking forward to t96's take, when he gets the chance. It sounds like we started slow, then picked it up and did well. Sounds like our QBs struggled a bit, but it takes a while to figure out how to grip a football that has half the amount of air pressure it is supposed to. Yeah, anybody associated with the Pats in any way probably has to leave the word "class" alone. They get results, but it is not exactly the way that people associated with 1970's era Dallas Cowboys.

Thanks. I'll give that a listen, probably while I am ignoring my next meeting.

That is Walker's ticket to remaining on the team, I think. Which makes the rep situation worse, because we have two guys splitting #1 reps, a guy essentially getting #2 reps, and the guy we drafted getting the spoils. The original question is whether there is tension. There probably is but I don't know that we have seen it. There is almost always some tension in any organization. Especially one that is in an extremely performance-driven endeavor. What may make ours worse is if the roles of the key people are poorly defined. And I have no idea whether those things have been ironed out internally. I generally assume they are, but who knows? On paper, Rhule controls the roster and who is on it. But a lot of things exist on paper that are obsolete because the alternative was to enforce them and have the paper run in the shredder. Some think Rhule would then just smile, nod, and collect the money but like all coaches, he has an ego. Doing that would be the equivalent of admitting failure (he got fired for not being able to win with "full control"). Ask Chip Kelly how that feels, as he has even admitted (I think) that it led to his undoing in Philly. I'm not saying Rhule has waived that, I just don't know and what we see are mixed signals. From outside, the organization looks like a clusterf*#k that is ruled by committee. The problem with committee rule is you generally get watered-down decisions (or those not related to the problems) and nobody can effectively be held accountable. Truth is, giving that level of authority/control to any NFL coach is a tall order and has been for probably 25 years. Giving it to a coach that has virtually zero NFL experience was, well, somewhere between naive and idiotic. Back to Kelly, Philly did not give that to him on day one, but when they did his death spiral began.

And the irony was that Teddy's criticisms were spot on. Still, he said unflattering things about Camelot, so he had to go and if we screwed ourselves in making that happen, well, that's The Process.

Other than Seattle and their (effed up) QB situation, every single coach could field a starting lineup the minute the teams enter camp. That doesn't mean it is the same depth chart that will exist in September, or November. What happens in TC and preseason can change that. Presumed starters get hurt, fail to recover from injuries, age and lose a step, regress, or just plain suck all of a sudden. Presumed backups get better or suddenly elevate their stock. They can and do show that in the second team reps. When the overtake happens, these guys get first team reps. THAT is the competition. The reason is they are trying to prepare the first team for the season. This is not college, they are not playing Northeastern Southwest Rhode Island State A&M Tech in the opening game. I get Seattle's situation. They are openly at the onset of a major rebuild. Whoever is their starting QB this year gets the job temporarily. They are not expecting Smith or Lock to be the starter a year from now. So we are doing the same thing as a team that is tearing the place down to the studs and rebuilding.

A young lion needs to learn how to hunt. Apparently, one of the older lions in the pride is trying to show the young lion how to hunt. But the problem is the dominant lion will not allow him to hunt because the dominant lion in this pride is a vegan. The lions in other prides also think the dominant lion in this pride is a moron, but they are not going to say anything because it improves their hunting once hunting season commences. Why question an easy meal?

But tell me, what do you really think of Matt Rhule?

Exactly. Why would a team part with anything for Darnold right now, unless we eat almost all his contract? They can wait until we either let him go or his contract ends. It's not like there is going to be a bidding war for his services, or even that they are likely to get 6 games into the season and kick themselves for not having Darnold. There are going to be a lot of Darnolds, some better, available in the coming weeks. Some people also act like the 4 years of film on him are locked up somewhere and not accessible to the other 31 teams (30 if you exclude the Jets), or that they think "wow, he looks good in Carolina this TC, that Rhule is a genius has us thinking Darnold has turned a corner." It is what I call HGTV thinking. Want to sell your house? Spend $15k sprucing it up and replacing things that are outdated, so you can make an extra $10k on the sales price......before the commission, of course.

The whole idea of playing and giving guys more reps so we can create trade value for them leaves out an important part of the equation: is it worth the reps and time? Let's say some team decides Darnold is worth trading for, and we get a 7th that could become a 6th, and we eat $16M of his contract? Is that pick and $2.5M worth giving Mayfield and Corral fewer reps as we try to get one as much time with his offense as possible before the season and try to develop the other? If you plan to unload Darnold, we are also taking reps from PJ. This is an opportunity cost question. You don't just look at what you put in vs. what you got back, you factor in what else you could have done with the resources. Those things have value, too.

No doubt. Our ability to not put players in positions to succeed goes back many years, even prior to Rhule. Rhule just seems to excel at it.

We had 14 receiving TDs total last year. That is roughly 1/3 of what Dallas, Tampa, and the Rams had. DJ had roughly 30% of ours, but the total number sums up the problem. We had half as many total TDs as the top teams in the league. DJ is probably pacing the floor waiting to see who wins the competition at QB.

That is probably one reason why so many top 10 or 15 picks that are QBs fail. The teams that are in a position to draft them feed them to the wolves almost by necessity. If you are a top QB in the draft, you are almost guaranteed to go to a dumpster fire unless there is or has been a trade.

If that were to happen, Fits needs to let Tepper know it is time to cut Rhule. The scary thing is that while I don't think it is what is happening, the fact that it is a possibility is a problem.

I agree with you. I think we wind up paying about $3.5M extra but wound up with Mayfield. My guess is the final depth chart is Mayfield, Darnold, and Corral, but with Rhule, who knows? I think we entered the draft with two QBs on the roster, neither of whom would be on any other roster. We now have four on the roster, but that does not change the status of the original two.

I haven't watched the game yet (I was not staying up until 2am yesterday to watch it, but it is on the Tivo). Corral didn't light it up. Since he has a small number or practice reps and was playing with guys who will be working in their backup careers in another month, I am left thinking "what did we think was going to happen?" As far as PJ, he's 27. For a young QB, if you get to year 4 or 5 and are the bottom of the depth chart, you are going to be replaced by a rookie. That's life in the NFL, and it applies to more than just QBs. Maybe somebody will give him a spin, but I doubt it. His only chance is that they decide to cut Darnold, which is not out of the question. I don't think anybody is going to trade for him, either, but you never know. What I do know is if somebody does trade for him, they are going to want us to eat 80-90% of his contract, so we are paying for him whether he is on the roster, on somebody else's roster, or laying on the beach.

Schiano is in there somewhere, too. Chip Kelley at least had his star ignite for a while in Philly, until teams figured out the weaknesses with "the system." Then it went supernova and burned out. Meyer has a few bonus points on them all, though.

Last year we needed a two punter system.

Why is PJ Walker Even on the Team? A - "He gives us the best chance to win" B - He understands "The Process" C - He's from Temple....next question D - His 23 and Me profile is quite interesting E - All of the above

There is that, which means this could be a no-lose situation! Suddenly, my Friday just got better. Thanks mrcompletely. What a good thought to kick off a weekend.

It will be interesting, for sure. The problem I see with that is Goodell appoints the arbiter for the appeal. He appointed someone yesterday, but I have no idea what the guy's background is. The way the process is laid out, it is stacked in the NFL's favor and the NFLPA agreed to that process. The NFLPA has been successful at getting suspensions delayed, but not so successful at getting them overturned. In a sense, they are fighting themselves in the process because they agreed to it, and once either a union or management agrees to something in a CBA or mid-term bargaining, they are almost always stuck with it until the next CBA reopens it. There is a rumor circulating Watson is willing to accept 8 games and a $5M fine, but I doubt the NFL settles for that. From my tone, you can probably tell that I don't think anybody in this mess is wearing the white hat. But, in fairness, in my eyes Goodell never wears a white hat in anything.

I think we benefit from playing the Browns early, but it is a tough match-up for us. It's not that I think Watson will be back this year (I expect him to be out all of 2022), but at some point they will adapt. That said, if they focus on the run again and are effective at it, they may not need to adapt in week 1. Our defense will have to prove they can stop that and not get pushed around. Jumping on them early will make life easier. The opposite is true of the Steelers and Seahawks. I don't like either of those teams this year, but they have solid coaching staffs who will have 10+ games to figure it out by the time we play them. Our track record "down the stretch" in recent years has been bad. Meanwhile, if my dislike is accurate, they could be teams that start poorly and then play more respectably as the season progresses. There is no reason in the world we should be a tossup against the Giants, but I agree, we are. I don't like the Falcons at all (I think the barometer may wind up being whether we sweep them) and I'm not high on the Saints, either. As was said, there will be some teams that will fall short of their expectations (I could see the Niners and/or Arizona falling into that) and some will be better than expected (maybe the Lions, but that would not take much). Those things usually balance out. All of that to say I pretty much agree with hepcat's overall analysis. We could get off to a 3-0 or even 4-0 start again, so I might raise 8 wins to the upper end of the most likely scenario because of some of the above thoughts. But, the problem is while the above comments are all based on unknowns (other than the Falcons, who should be awful), we have a lot of unknowns, ourselves. We've all been disappointed before believing our unknowns would work themselves out.

We may have to take a cue from the city of brotherly love and build a jail at the stadium. I don't know that they have one in their current stadium, but there was something about the Vet that brought out the very worst in humanity. In general, this is just another symptom of people losing their perspectives about what is important and what is worthy of being sloughed off. Most things actually qualify for the latter, but increasingly people think every hill is worth dying on.

Pretty much anybody that was very good was going to get run into the ground.