Sgt Schultz

So, Tom Brady unretires, in the process torpedoes his marriage, and now looks miserable out there. It is quite likely that in four months he will be retired again, screwed up his family situation, and leaves the field with a bad taste in his mouth. And that assumes he is not carried off the field. Some people just don't know when it is time to say "when."

We are at ground zero again. We were at ground zero in 2020, but we hired a staff that ensured we would set off another explosion when they left. We don't have anybody on the coaching staff capable of turning this mess around on short notice, and truth be told, I'm not sure the Chiefs lending us Andy Reid, the Pats letting us have Hoodie for the rest of the season, the Bills sending us McDermott, or the Eagles letting us borrow Sirianni could turn this mess around. Our roster has more talent than what we had in 2020, but the team itself is in shambles. Maybe Wilks can correct that part and instill some drive, particularly on offense, but what he can't correct is that we have zero depth and no starter talent at QB and arguably a couple of other positions, and what has been installed as schemes would not stay on the field with UGA. None of those things can be corrected a third of the way through the season, so strap yourselves in because this will not be pretty. The best we can hope for now is it evolves to be less ugly, but without an NFL-grade QB playing, the best option on offense is probably three yards and a cloud of dust. Yesterday appears to be about what I thought it would be. I didn't see it and probably won't even try to catch up to it. But close to absolute zero on offense and the game getting away in the second half is what this team does, especially with some injuries and a QB who would not even be in the league if not for some other injuries and the fact he either shares DNA with our former coach or single-handedly broke up a home invasion at said former coach's house. I can't think of any other reason. Moral of the story: the old saying about the number one cause of disappointment is unrealistic expectations applies to yesterday and the rest of 2022. With any luck, the organization learns to find its arse with both hands so they can hire a staff capable of turning this mess into something starting next year.

But you are not down 1 vs. 2, you are down 8 vs. 7. Kick the point and narrow it to 7 and leave the option open later to go for 2.

For the life of me, I will never understand why, when a team scores a TD to narrow the gap to 8 points, they go for 2. Miami just tried. For all the analytics geeks, in that situation, IT NEVER EFFING WORKS. And when IT NEVER EFFING WORKS, it leaves the team in a situation that if they score again, they have to go for 2 just to tie the game rather than having the option to play for the tie (kick the point) or go for 2 and the win. Even if it somehow did work, I fail to see the rationale. Take the relatively easy point and worry about whether to go for the tie or win if you manage to score again.

Keep pounding has been around long enough and through enough that it is now part of the tradition of this team, whether they live up to it or not. I'm a St. Louis Blues fan, and midway through their Stanley Cup season they adopted the song "Gloria" as their mantra. There is a story behind it that coincided with their climb from last in the league in early January to the playoffs and the championship. That was a one-season thing, but the fans had a similar debate after the season. Yes, it was their mantra to their first championship, but it was not a tradition. Five months does not make a tradition. Keep pounding is a tradition.

I am afraid that is the most likely cause, even though I said it was probably 50/50. Our biggest problem through five games has been on offense and that needle may well not move much do to the change. The way I could see it getting better in the stats is if our defense gets more aggressive up front, forcing more turnovers that result in gift opportunities. But, offensive scoring rising because the defense is putting them in situations where they can take a knee three times and kick a field goal, well, that hardly qualifies as improvement on that side of the ball. Part of what bothers me about McAdoo is we acquired a QB that does his best out of play action and rolling to one side of the field and limiting his reads to that side. Yet, we have not run an offense that acts like those factors exist. In fairness, the league is littered with OCs who run what they want to run, their own talent and the talent and tendencies of the opponent be damned. It's just too bad he is another one of them.

There is hope. I am not expecting any great shakes this weekend, after all, other than coaching we have the same limitations we had a week ago. There just has not been enough time to phase in any real changes. But, that will hopefully come. The best case is we discover that McAdoo is not as bad as he has shown thus far and was (also) being held back by The Process. That is probably 50/50. The OL is coming together well. We know that, if we had the right people, they would gel as the weeks went on and they have done so. The jury is still out on the DL. They could be the group that benefits the fastest from the change of leadership. We'll see, but at the least Brown has shown in year 3 what a lot of us hoped he would. If we could walk out of this year with a strong starting OL, DL, and secondary, and having shed The Process, I'd call that a win. I'd caution against setting expectations too high too soon. The team has a lot to recover from, and a few days probably won't do it. Wilks is not Bill Parcells or Hoodie, and certainly not a Walsh or any other offensive guru. But, he is not a BS artist, either. I think that alone will help give things a push.

Well, with The Process, an extra week probably doesn't matter. Or month for that matter. Or year. Rhule was basically nothing but a BS artist. Tepper got into this mess by listening to another BS artist tell him he had to jump at the chance to hire this BS artist. He wasn't savvy enough to realize the entire situation. I guess he didn't understand that when you take the job of being an NFL HC, your life basically is put on hold between July and January. That is the price of the job. All the BSing in the world doesn't alter that much.

Armed with the perspective of a few days since Rhule was sent packing, I think the analysis of what went wrong between Tepper and Rhule was simply that Tepper hired Rhule. Had it not been for that, things might have worked out. Deep, I know.

You have to keep in mind not only the names, but where they were/are in the stage of their career. The Cam he inherited was not the Cam of 2015. Olsen and Luke were putting out on the 18th holes of their careers. The roster he left behind was younger and marginally better. I don't have an argument with the statement that what he left behind was better than what he inherited. I'm just not convinced that was due to any great plan rather than just the way things unfolded. Truth is, that is not the question anyway. The question is whether the roster he built is better than the roster that could have been built by someone in that same timeframe.

I gathered that, and got a good laugh about the response! Quite appropriate.

For me, down the road is just not getting run off the field and looking clueless by the end of the season. Actual impact on wins and losses is another level of improvement that given our offense may take a while. It is very hard to change an offensive scheme during the season. Doing so often makes the problem worse before it gets better.

I don't know about anybody else, but my optimism is for down the road a little bit, not this week or even this season. What Tepper did earlier in the week was like flushing a toilet. The stink will linger for a while but the source is gone.

Or perhaps he becomes a footer in a new stadium somewhere.

This sounds like desperation on Danny Boy's end. The way these things normally work is if someone is collecting dirt and they say so publicly or within earshot of somebody "not controllable" and it can get out, it is usually too late or the dirt is not as compelling as they want to make people believe. Honestly, given the deep pockets involved, the biggest thing he could have is if game outcomes were fixed. Second would be, as SmokinwithWilly said, knowledge of concussions and long-term health problems related to the game. But, as far as personal dirt on owners, they are all rich enough to drag most of those scenarios out until after they are dead, barring something that maybe would fall into the RICO law realm. Hell, many of them are rich enough to make that go away, too, unless it is something really bad (human trafficking, part of a drug cartel, etc.). There are a lot more scenarios where he has nothing or next to nothing that would do any damage than scenarios where he actually does. Even if he does, it is about even money that how he got that information would make it not actionable by any authorities. All this falls into the old saying, "when dealing with a thief, you never have to worry about them calling the cops." Who knows what his end game is, or if he even has one.

I'm with you on that. I won't get that out of my head for a while.

Hence the Wild Turkey 101 post. I couldn't see a combination that came up with those numbers either, especially considering he'd have to lose an interception. I didn't even want to ask.

Amen. We have a lot of people who have not lived up to expectations, and that could well be because of coaching. Now that Rhule and company are out of the way, it is the time to see what those players have. Regardless of who the next coach is, we need to reach a known state before we move ahead.

Every game seemed un-winnable with Rhule and company.

That is a frightening thought right there. I wish I could say there was no basis for it, but I can't.

I think we will be finding ashes to sweep up for a while. How Tepper handles that will tell us how hopeless or hopeful things are. Tepper came in and thought he was going to cure the on-field results by redrawing the org chart. I think he now knows the shape of what he redrew made the problem worse, and even if he had gotten the organization structure right, who is in the various key positions is more important than the shape of the chart. He also learned that the chances that he was going to create some new model of how an NFL organization should be shaped were virtually nil. I don't think we are in terrible shape all things considered, but Tepper and who gets hired to replace Rhule are big variables.

I've found him intriguing lately, although I will confess I have not seen him play a down. His stock could rise quite a bit based on this next game, win or lose. The thing I have read about him that worries me is that he plays in a one-read offense. For those who have seen Tennessee, is that true? If so, we already have one of those (who is our only QB signed for 2023). That does not mean either Hooker or Corral can't be anything more than a one-read offense, just that they haven't had to for the last few years. But, as I said, I do find Hooker intriguing. Not first round intriguing, but interesting none the less.

We are making a lot of assumptions about what a new coach and staff will want. There is no one answer to that. Some think a new coach is going to be lured by less talent and more draft picks, others think the current situation is almost good enough. The honest answer is that there are as many answers to that as there are potential coaches, maybe more. It is going to come down to who that coach is and whether he thinks he can win or build a winner quickly with the assets we have. Personally, the two that are available for a decent deal are Shaq and RA. Both probably will be cap cuts next year (RA is almost definite), and if somebody is going to offer us something of value for them, we need to listen. I am not interested in trading CMC for Buffalo's second, because the Bills' second may be about like a third unless they fall apart. That's not to say he is not available, but the return has to be better than that. The reason some see him as untouchable is probably because he has been the bulk of our offense since his first season, when he has been healthy. I'd rather have him than not, but there is a price. The other time bomb for a new coach is some of our young talent will be on year 4 of their rookie contracts next year, which means it is decision time. That is not a killer issue, but it will greatly shape how they decide to move forward. Chinn and Brown are probably no-brainers. But the rest need to prove they are more valuable than somebody new. That is part of the price for screwing around the last year or two, more worried about things other than on-field performance.