Sgt Schultz

This has been one of my problems with the whole equation, too. Just under normal circumstances, guys that were dynamite in their rookie seasons turn into fire crackers in year two, some out and out duds. It is the famed "sophomore slump," and it happens a lot as opponents have more film on them and figure out their tendencies and weaknesses. Some recover, some don't. We then added to that last year, leaving nearly our entire 2020 draft class as a question. Chinn will be fine, if we use him right. The rest.....who knows? Aside from the 2020 draft class, you can say that with most of our roster.

Has to be velocity. It seems too low for women.

The irony of the three season projection is it is almost impossible to do. In this one, they acknowledge Rhule and company may be out after 2022, in which case the projections beyond 2022 are pretty useless, at least as they depend on coaching. We are not the only team in that situation. As for players, everybody is a knee injury away from being out of the league or diminished. Even without that, the unexpected churn due to FA, salary cap moves, and general trade considerations makes it tough. A much easier exercise prior to the salary cap or FA.

I think that is realistic. A fair assessment of our roster talent is probably in the 20-ish range. It could be higher, we just have a lot of question marks of people who under-performed last year or are plain unknowns. We have some holes that those people may fill either well.....or not. All of those things could be do to a coach who is ranked 36th in a 32 team league.

The silver helmets arre almost an orphan, with the exception of the traditional home unis with silver pants. But there is not enough silver, if any, anywhere but those pants to complement the silver helmets and they usually look out of place. We all got used to it, and it is almost like the Steelers having the logo only on the right side of their helmets.......just one of those things. I'm still not a fan of black helmets in a sun belt location. But given that, my only question on these is why not do something with the 90's half-stripes while we are at it?

My main concern with the black helmet craze is the impact on hot, sunny days. That is probably why we won't see them until November. The only research I have found on the subject of helmet color dealt with motorcycle helmets. Granted, they are different, but the temperature difference between a dark helmet and a light helmet on a hot, sunny day was quite noticeable. There is a reason the Miami Dolphins helmets have always been white. Someone proposed a aqua helmet several years ago that was popular with the fans but the team shot it down. Of course, Jacksonville has black helmets, but I'm not sure we want to point to them as a good counterpoint.

Our problem is not the amount we spent on Rhule's magical mystery QB adventure thus far, it is who we spent it on. The amount spent on the QB slot over the last three years is rather unremarkable. The production, however, is rather remarkable and not in a good way. Then, we gave up too much to get Darnold and then exercised year 5. Truth is, Darnold is the source of the ills in this scenario. Not him personally, but a staff with next to no NFL experience believing they can rehabilitate a QB known for questionable decisions behind an OL that had been neglected is, well, "curious" thinking.

Yeah, I would not interpret Mayfield's divorce from the Browns the same way I would if his ex were the Chiefs. The alternative for the Browns to saying Mayfield was holding them back was for them to admit the enemy is in the mirror.

The only PR victory in this for the Texans is that they stop getting bad press on this after the story of the settlement dies down. That should take about three days, and then the bleeding stops. They'll still be getting bad press for their play on the field, but that is situation: normal. Better to be thought of as a lousy football organization than a lousy football organization AND an enabler of sexual misconduct.

This sort of goes along with the disclaimer "past performance is no guarantee of future results." Our OL has almost always been one target of the "we are only one or two pieces away" thinking. Historically, we bring in new pieces, our expectations go up, and they have generally not panned out. The exception being 2015 when the group gelled until the Superb Owl. So, we are jaded on the OL subject. I am generally of the "show me first" line of thinking, but I must admit, the fact we actually drafted somebody expected to be a major piece has me hopeful. Guarded, but hopeful. Then there is the minor fact that we couldn't be any worse than we were last year. As far as the Vikings and the QB debate, Cousins is a decent to good QB. I also think he is widely underrated.....except by whoever negotiated his contract with the Vikings. On total cash for the year, he is the 5th highest-paid QB in 2022 per Spotrac. He is above both Brady and Mahomes, and $10M above Brady at that. To put it in stock market terms, his P/E ratio has him overvalued.

Neither am I, but I am also not buying the sleight of hand that he is an interception machine the likes of which Winston can only dream of being.

And, as somebody asked before about Winston, didn't he miss a lot of games? The answer, yes. The raw number ignores that. Since 2018: Winston, played 38 games, started 32, 1,176 attempts, 4% int rate, 66 TDs (5.6% rate) Darnold, played 50 games, started 49, 1625 attempts, 3.2% int rate, 54 TDs (3.3%) Mayfield, played 60 games, started 59, 1924 attempts, 2.9% int, 92 TDs (4.8%) Allen, played 61 games, started 60, 1999 attempts, 2.3% int rate, 103 TDs (5.2%) Goff, played 61 games, started 61, 2233 attempts, 2.2% int rate, 93 TDs (4.2%) The problem with numbers is people can hurt themselves with them. Heck, PJ Walker has only thrown 8 picks in his 2 years, which is 1 less than Rodgers over that same period. That is some pretty rare air........sorta.......if you turn your head 30-degrees when you look at their stats. Mayfield was not on my choice, but I've come to terms with it. We didn't break the bank or give away the farm with him, and for now it is a one-year commitment. That said, let's not BS how good or bad he is.

There are a few of those threads today. I started to ask whether the moon was full. It is.

Somebody placed a hidden camera in the Foreskins' headquarters? Funny, I watched that movie again for the first time in ages on Sunday. I am still laughing about parts of it three days later.

Seems to be a lot of that going on today in these threads. Is today "Take Your Bottle To Work Day" and nobody told me? I've always said the job description for an NFL owner is to count money. When they are done, count it again. The NFL delivers it in box cars so it should keep them busy. Not only is that all they have to do, it is all they should do. Snyder is a "special case." He gives sleazeballs a bad name.

My indictments of Rhule from last year never included a count of micromanaging the play calling on either side of the ball, or even the overall game plan. A HC stepping in to say no, they aren't running THAT play happens probably nearly weekly with every team. A HC also telling his OC or DC they want them to focus on one thing or another leading up to or during a game is also pretty common. That's why some of them sleep in their offices, giving themselves ulcers over what they see on the film and how to deal with it.

Mayfield is one thing right now: the odds-on week 1 starter for the Carolina Panthers. He could eff that up, but the competition is a guy who has shown to be a bad decision maker, a guy who is raw, and a guy who has no business wearing an NFL uniform. Mayfield not only has to earn loyalty, he has to earn his employment for 2023. I think he is exponentially more likely to do that (somewhere) than Darnold, but his being on this team next year is far from a sure thing. I have no doubt he knows that, unless we repeat the Darnold mistake and shield him from any adversity. Cleveland is probably the worst NFL organization for anybody wearing the adjective “immature.” Manziel was their answer, too, and his maturity level makes Mayfield look like a picture of maturity. Uh, yeah. Mayfield may want to focus on securing the bronze medal before he reaches for the silver. Even the North Korean judge is skeptical. Let’s see, the leader board right now says: Gold: Cam Silver: Jake Bronze: Beuerlein

I think of it this way: we have 3 QB roster spots (most likely) and 4 QBs competing for those spots. Corral gets one of them unless he is lining up under the RT to take the snap during training camp. That leaves 3 QBs competing for 2 spots. Who do we think should be the odd man out in that scenario? Keep Corral and the best 2 (again, assuming Corral knows which guy is the center). After this season, the bigger question is whether either of the remaining 2 are worth resigning. Personally, I think the QB roster is Mayfield, Corral, and Darnold in some order (maybe that order). After this season, the answer to resigning Darnold is no, and the jury will deliberate on Mayfield, depending on what he does on the field, what price he commands in FA, whether Corral is ready, or whether we blow chunks so badly we wind up drafting a QB with our very high 2023 draft pick. And I am assuming Mayfield beats out Darnold. If not, we probably wind up with Corral and 2 new faces in the QB room in 2023.

Especially in a Three Stooges short.

I started at #1 and stopped reading when I got to the San Diego Chargers. What kind of time warp am I in when the Chargers are in San Diego while the Raiders are in Las Vegas? I can reconcile the Chargers with the Los Angeles Rams by simply turning back the clock to 1994, but then the Raiders would be in Los Angeles. Granted, I am a closer to Roswell, NM than probably anybody on this board, but I am still a few hours away.

I was having that Yogi Berra feeling when I opened this thread. "It's deja vu all over again."

He costs us almost $20M to cut this year. Right now, he's our best deep threat (the fact that he has trouble catching the ball aside). While its true that we have a lot of WRs on the roster, we have no idea how many we have that are worth a roster spot. If somebody wants to trade something for him, great. Otherwise, let's see whether Robbie or Robby (or maybe Robbee) shows up this year and deal with it after the season. Like Darnold, we got ourselves into this, let's not compound it by cutting off our nose to spite our face. I'd be more tolerant of his constant drivel if he was actually productive, but right not it is basically just a sideshow. Let's not do anything (else) stupid unless it becomes an actual problem. Besides, at this point everybody should know his relationship with sanity is pretty casual.

Ultimately, that is what it boils down to for Mayfield, and we may not have even promised him that. He wants to start and set himself up for the big $ after his 5th year is done......potentially here but anywhere.

As close as I ever came to rooting for losses was 2010, when it was obvious from day one we were going to stink, we knew why we were going to stink, we were essentially too cheap to just fire Fox when he had a year left on his contract, so my attitude was “let’s get this over with.” I wasn’t rooting for losses, I was just numb to them….both before and after they happened. We probably aren’t far away from that with Rhule. I’ve said this many times, but he lost me when we were losing last year, our young talent was regressing, and he was absolutely clueless as to what to do about it. It’s not personal, hell, I work with a guy who is clueless half the time, has the worst instincts I have ever seen, and has no sense of priorities. I like him personally; he is a good person. He just sucks at his job. I don’t root for him to suck at his job, in fact, I’ve done everything I can to try and help him. But I accept it and am numb to it. As for the roster, we do look better entering 2022 than we did entering 2021. Problem is, we looked better on paper in 2021 than we did in 2020, too. Maybe not a lot better, but better. But it did not turn into anything (other than dung) on the field. But, the annual “we’re gonna be better this year” predates Rhule and Tepper. We’ve been sold that we were only a few pieces away, and we found them every year since 2015. First, it was Hurney’s fools’ gold, now it is “the process.” My bar is not too high. I can accept last year was lost. I don’t like it as it was a complete waste, but it happened. If, at the end of the year, I can say that we achieved what I thought we should have achieved last year, I’ll be content. Nothing would make me happier than to conclude that, after stepping on his wang last year, Rhule turned himself into a viable NFL HC. Realistically, the odds are against that and I certainly am not willing to bet a dime on that happening, but I would be happy about it.

The irony of the Teddy situation is it demonstrated exactly how scatterbrained our current organization is. He had the audacity to level criticisms at our all-knowing coaching staff and had to be banished. We showed him by screwing ourselves with Darnold (both in what we gave up to get him and then picking up the fifth year). And Teddy's criticisms turned out to be pretty accurate.