Sgt Schultz

So, you have been talking to my wife. Although, she would have added that I was wrong.

Glad this rekindled itself. I was afraid I was going to have to chime in and stir the pot.

Remember who is calling the shots there. If you are on whatever Irsay is on, no development is needed. Pickles would have probably looked like the second coming of Joe Montana.

In fact, it will be so bad the league will ask us not to travel for our road games, essentially uninviting us from participating.

It's that "IF" thing again, @CRA. The roster has potential, probably more than we have had in several years. But that potential has turn into reality. I also think you are right, when you get past the top level, the dropoff is not as severe as in recent years. I honestly hope it is more severe next year, because the top end has elevated itself. The resting point is that some potential will turn into reality, and some won't. Where that needle settles will determine how well this season can even go, then sprinkle in injuries and factor in coaching stealing a win or two or not (we are used to seeing them steal a loss or two). But some of the expectations I read make me hope that, for their sake, the posters have somebody managing their retirement funds. Because if they invest based on the same type of expectations and assumptions they have for this team, they will be in trouble! If we are looking for a barometer, I would suggest asking people how good our WR corps is. My answer is "I really do not know." A lot of potential, but also a lot to prove.

That is the dilemma I see. We have a lot of IFs, some based on reasonable expectations from the end of last year, some based on potential that may or may not be realized, some just hopium. And we see expectations from people relying on all of those things working out to nearly a best possible scenario. Then we have others who are convinced they will all crater to the worst possible scenario. Somewhere between those two is most likely where reality will settle.

Yessir. And I also think there was a significant part of the locker room that, entering last year, was ready for a change. Whenever you have a clown trying to control everything while at the same time clearly being 6 feet of man in 15 feet of water, that happens. So when the ax fell and Wilks was put in charge, it represented a return to sanity for them. Suddenly, the stuff that really mattered mattered. And the nonsense was flushed away.

Likewise, the Rams were winless in the 2021 preseason and then went on to win the Owl.

Good points, but you overlooked one over-arching fact about the Huddle. The motto of many is "we're not happy unless we're not happy."

The mere mention of The Process causes people to turn into werewolves and bay at the moon, the earth to spin backwards, children to get possessed looks and continually cry "redrum, redrum," and politicians to tell the truth.

I'm waiting for somebody to say that if we had only stuck with The Process and his 7-year plan, we would only be three years away from greatness. At that point, the EMTs will probably be dispatched to my house to collect what is left of me.

Maybe it's my own perception, but he never seemed to fully buy into the 3-4 switch. Hurney would have given the thumbs up to a 1-6 if he thought it would ingratiate him with the boss. As for Rivera, it was reported that he said during his interview for the Panthers job that a coach has a shelf life of about ten years and then the message gets stale. He is right on that count. Very few coaches last longer than that in one job and those who do often have a downturn and have to "reinvent themselves" to return to success. He was nearing that mark when the wheels started coming off and Tepper came in. I remember thinking he seemed tired.

I've always said something similar. Tepper, Hurney, and Rivera were in a meeting and Hurney and Rivera had no answer for why the defense stunk so badly. Tepper probably asked about whether a 3-4, like they played in Pittsburgh, would work and the other two figured he wanted to hear "yes," so we became a 3-4. Sort of. Never mind the fact that nobody had any idea how our DL or LBs would work in that scheme.

The closest I can think of is the 2004 Steelers with Roethlisberger in his rookie year. He started the season as #3 on the depth chart, moved to #2 when Batch got hurt, and then got the starting job in their second game when Maddux got hurt (and had been ineffective). They had a top-tier D, though, and that team could and did run the football. Basically, Big Ben only needed to not make bonehead plays. That team had six regular season games where they had more rushing yards than passing yards, a few others where the split was close, and a defense that only gave up 300 yards four times while holding opponents to under 250 yards seven times. Pretty much a "welcome aboard, enjoy the ride, rookie" type situation.

Does the NCAA still count sacks against rushing totals? That was always the big difference, the NFL accounts for them in the net passing stat while the NCAA took them out of the rushing totals, at least from what I remember. I could see that altering the TFL between the two, as well.

Everything is not fine, but it is not Jonestown time, either. I think your expectations and mine are pretty similar. People thinking the bar for this team is 12-5 and a playoff run are deluding themselves. Even the "we were one game away from the playoffs last year" sentiment is a function of several things not related to our the roster or coaching: a weak schedule and a lousy division. Our formula to get to 7-10 last year is not likely to get us to 12-5. That takes dominance on the OL and on the overall defense. Not to mention the team the NFCS was required to send to the playoffs last year was a human sacrifice once the playoffs started. The same people screaming for a playoff berth this year will be screaming murder in January if we are dispatched the way the Cowboys bounced the Bucs. We are an unknown right now, and an unknown that set a very low baseline on Saturday. My hope is that they catch their stride somewhere along the line, and IF our division is even nearly as inept as it was last yer, that opens the door. But, that depends on a lot of things going right. As somebody said (may have been you) in this or another thread, do not confuse making the playoffs to mean good or playoff-worthy. Those are very different bars. Personally, if we walk out of this year trending up (The 2022 Lions and the 2023 hype train), I will be content.

Exactly. And one won the Owl the year before after going winless in the preseason. I look for trends, which are pretty much impossible to establish after one preseason game. If they have one of those weeks characterized by Vince Lombardi's "Gentlemen, this is a football" speech and focus (the basics) and it results in showing competency (or better) at the basics, this past week becomes just a ground zero measuring point. I was alarmed by the fact that we looked like we had never been on an NFL field before. But again, trends are more important than one point of reference. I am hoping Saturday serves as a wake-up call. Almost every team will have a regular season game where they stink up the joint on all ends (the Lions had that against us last year, we had it against the Bengals and 49ers). The Chiefs had one against the Colts, but they were good enough to almost win that game despite themselves. That does not mean it is time to throw in the towel, just get back to work. The old saying is this is a marathon, not a sprint.

You've been around the Huddle long enough to know better than that. If we are 2-2 making the turn into October, the entire coaching staff and front office should be fired. Everybody that can be traded, should be. Everybody that can't be traded should be cut. We'll probably even have some north end of a southbound horse saying we shouldn't have fired The Process. And that is 2-2. I don't even want to think about a 1-3 start.

Wilks was smart enough to see our only path to wins was last year was to run the ball, control the clock, minimize the chances one of our QBs would throw the game away, and rely on pushing people around in the trenches. It just happened to play into Wilks' own tendencies as a HC. The problem with that is that it works until it doesn't. When it didn't, we weren't good enough to have much else in the arsenal. People citing that we were one win away from the playoffs also need to recognize that the entire division can say that. It was not because we or anybody was good. Are the playoffs even a possibility? Well, the NFL still requires the NFCS to supply a team to the postseason, and until everybody proves otherwise, this is a doormat of a division that somebody has to win.....or at least not lose as bad as the other three. But beyond that, people set their expectations at their own peril. It is kinda hard for four teams to be as lacking for two consecutive years as as the four in the NFCS were last year. Odds are somebody is going to improve. But, all four still have significant question marks and "ifs" attached to their chances.

Frank, that is pretty much how I see it. Preseason games have become more like advanced scrimmages over time. You want to see production, cohesion in the units, and ability. Winning or losing falls behind walking out healthy and seeing those things.

As @Gerry Green said, it used to be common to play the team into shape. Training camp was longer and there were more preseason games. At one point there were six, and teams placed increasing importance on them through game five, and used game six to look at the guys on the bubble to see who made the roster and who didn't. When they went to four preseason games, teams used to put a lot of emphasis on game three. That started to wane as time went on, and the result was we saw rougher play in September. Now, with three games and relatively short camps, September is rough. If I get bored one day I will look at records at the end of September vs. final standings for a few years. But, I've been saying September is basically an advanced preseason that the results count in the standings for a few years. And they have talked about going to 18 games and two preseason games, so that will not get better. But as for the September analysis, that will have to wait. I have drinking to do.

The preseason record is pretty meaningless, especially since they whittled it down to three games. To that point, unless NFL.com is wrong, here were the 2022 extremes in the preseason: 3-0 Teams: Ravens, Bears, Texans, Jets, Steelers, and Raiders (actually 4-0). 0-3 Teams: Jags (0-4), Chargers, Vikings, Seahawks, Bucs, and Foreskins. Of the 3-0 teams, none won their division and only the Ravens made the playoffs. Three (Jets, Bears, and Texans) finished last in their division. Of the 0-3 teams, three won their division (Jags, Vikings, Bucs), two more made the playoffs (Chargers and Seahawks). Going back to 2021, there were more goose eggs on both sides of the equation: 3-0 Teams: Ravens, Bills, Browns, Broncos, Colts, Chiefs, Pats, and Jets (2-0-1) 0-3 Teams: Eagles (0-2-1), Falcons, Cowboys (0-4), Lions, Packers, Rams, Vikings, and Giants Of the 3-0 teams, the Bills and Chiefs won their divisions. The Pats made the playoffs. The Ravens and Browns tied for last in the AFCC, while the Broncos and Jets were at the bottom of their division. Of the 0-3 teams, three won their divisions (Cowboys, Packers, and Rams) while the Eagles joined them in the playoffs. Only the Lions finished last in their division. The Rams won the Owl. We can go back further, but there was no preseason in 2020 and before that they played four preseason games, so I stopped in 2021. That is only two years, but any apparent relationship between going winless or undefeated since they went to three games is random thus far. Three times as many teams won their divisions after going winless as did going undefeated. What I found odd in all that was in the 2021 preseason, all the undefeated teams were in the AFC, while all the winless teams were in the NFC.

Please, please, please, please, please, refrain from comparing Young to Mayfield about anything. As I see you mentioned a bit later, word is Mayfield is having the usual demons in Tampa. When your NFL resume includes being a first round QB selection by the Browns and then a reclamation project by The Process, those demons may just be who you are.

If Rivera was still in charge, you better believe we'd suck it up and be out there despite rain, lightning, hail, tornadoes, or anything else mother nature would throw at us. Just rub some dirt on it, uh, mud, and get back out there!

The Broncos were very one-dimensional. They had an anemic offense but a great defense. So, our brain trust did the obvious thing: Throw the same game plan out there that we had used all year and assume that great defense would not be ready for it after two weeks of preparation. Guess what, they were prepared and then some......whodathunkit? Offensively: take away the two big turnovers that resulted in 15 points for 4 yards of offense, one blown put coverage that was followed up with no yards and a FG, and their offense accounted for 6 points. Unfortunately, our brilliant offensive strategy only accounted for 10. Then subtract the above-mentioned 15 from the turnovers.