1of10Charnatives

I wait WHAT?

right. misread that. thanks for the correction. ned moar coffeez

overall agree but i'd question the notion Matt Rhule showed potential to be really good at the NFL level. IMO there is more evidence that ra ra college coaches fail in the NFL than succeed.

That's a dubious idea at best. Every nfl player knows that every snap they take in a game is filmed and available for review by 31 other potential employers. It would be dangerous to intentionally put yourself on film playing awful in an actual game for any reason, but particularly when the perception of your career and abilities is downward trending after being the number one pick in the draft. Not that it couldn't happen, because nfl players are completely capable of being stupid just like anyone else, but it would be a monumentally risky and probably boneheaded move for any nfl player.

Nothing. *kicks the thread under the sofa.* Why do you ask?

He just said chicken is superior to red meat in every way, do you honestly need any other proof that he's a complete bonehead? I like chicken as much as the next guy, but let's keep it on planet earth.

You're only scared that if you ever put a chicken egg and cheese biscuit from chic fil a in your mouth that you'll never eat anything else for breakfast. I get it. Just leaves more for me.

Either way, it was in an era when you could win Owls with a dominant defense and middling offenses run by conservative game managers QB's. Rule changes since seem to have made that no longer a workable model, but either way.... Head coach of that Ravens team was actually Brian Billick.

FIFY I support whole milk, but not with steak. That needs a man's drink while watching the fooseball. Especially as a fan of this franchise.

Just wanted to come in and give this thread a bump. I know our team has had more ups than downs in recent years, and it's easy for that to translate to a negative mindset on the board, Lord knows I've dipped my own toes in those waters from time to time, but props to @Bear Hands for starting a thread with a positive upbeat tone at a moment it was sorely needed and recognizing some guys who deserve it, even though the season didn't turn out the way everyone wanted. Well done sir.

*chows down on a chicken egg and cheese biscuit* All my life wanna fight about it?

Public service announcement: Being famous, particularly for something as lacking in intellectual rigor as coaching sports, adds literally no legitimate weight to the value of your personal views and opinions. They can be, and sometimes are, as nutty as the guy on the street corner who was huffing paint thinner an hour ago. Famous people are often surrounded by people who constantly tell them everything they think is great, leading to a disconnect from reality and warped views. Taking these views as valid simply because they are famous makes about as much sense as huffing paint thinner.

Troy Vincent and Roger Goodell could announce publicly that the league had help private discussions and decided that puppies are indeed cute and bacon tastes good and without an independant 3rd party witness unaffiliated with the league or it's corporate partners, I wouldn't assume it was true. That's how little credibility I think they have.

I'm with Fu that Harbaugh is the most attractive option out there but likely wears out his welcome half dozen years down the road give or take. I'm willing to live with that at this point if he can change the culture of this place to something that wins more consistently, but am extremely leary of giving full control to any HC. It just never works in the modern NFL. The job is too big for any one man. You need a fully empowered GM to run the FO, not a HC's puppet.

I hope everyone understands that when there is pending legal action, it's perfectly legal to say to a party that is harrassing you to pay a settlement some form of "I expect this matter to be resolved in the appropriate legal venue and be advised I will treat any further attempted contact by you as harrassment and will seek appropriate legal remedy in court." After that, they tend to leave you alone, because as long as you document, it's open and shut harrassment. The reason it doesn't happen more often is because most people don't realize they can do this.

Didn't see any of this til this morning (Don't make it a habit of watching MNF games as I tend to just nod off around 3rd quarter), but my initial reactions are just like most of yours were except I didn't have to go through the confusion and anxiety obvious in this thread last night. The only thing I want to add to everything said here is to tip my hat to both head coaches who demonstrated leadership, particularly Bengals coach Zac Taylor, who it sounds like did exactly what he should have done and stepped up to say to McD some form of "I don't expect you to ask your guys to play after this." To me in a situation like this the opposing head coach seems like the first obvious candidate to step foward and say "There are big concerns than this game right now". Kudos to coach Taylor for doing so and kudos to McDermott for standing firm with him and having his priorities in order. I'm not going to get into throwing shade at the league for their response. Some here have said it's should have been a simple, quick decision, others have said it's complicated. I can see some truth in both points of view, and will say only that the league's past actions have not earned it much benefit of the doubt in this situation.

Brother I am with you on the need for a TE. Top TE's take good offenses to the next level. I agree that no one should expect to win a playoff game with less than 3 touchdowns. The subpar offenses have been weeded out at that point. I'm not 100% on going after QB this offseason because the draft class doesn't wow me. I think getting a top flight pass rusher and maybe that TE are priorities too and live with Sam another year while building the team around him, then going after your preferred target in next year's draft could be another option.

Sorry about your loss, and sorry the team wasn't able to give you some distraction from it. Your post clearly came from the heart, and is a reminder of things that will always matter more than football.

You're really making two different arguments here, one of which I agree with to some degree, the other I do not, but they should be seperated for clarity. The first is your belief that Wilks fits as an NFL head coach because of the way you define the job as a supervisor, but I believe your definition leaves out a key component of the job, and that is making ingame decisions like adjustments to your offensive and defensive gameplan, and making the call on what to do during crucial situations like 4th and short. I believe that these things are also part and parcel of the job, and they are areas where I believe yesterday demonstrated how Wilks falls short in those areas. There is no universe in which Keith Taylor being stuck on an island single covering Mike Evans when Evans caught his third long bomb touchdown, the one that essentially put the game away, can be defended as competent coaching. There is no universe in which failing to go for it at midfield on 4th and short when you already know Brady and his receivers are eating your secondary alive can be defended as competent coaching. It is cowardly coaching, plain and simple. I'm a character guy. By all accounts Wilks oozes character. I'm a Charlotte native who would love nothing better than for a hometown guy to be our head coach. The idea is so appealing it makes me teeth hurt, but Wilks has shown me he has flaws that make him limited as an option. Which brings me to your second point, who are we going to get that's going to be better? Quite frankly, I don't know, perhaps for now the best option truly is to go with Wilks for next season. No potential candidates out there blow me away. But there are only 32 head coaching jobs in the NFL, and there are literally hundreds of men who eat sleep and breathe football working for that opportunity. When you give someone their first shot, by definition you're taking a chance, but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I believe that sticking with Wilks would represent nothing but a continuation of the Fox and Rivera tradition of picking a guy who can get you to respectability by staying in his lane, but whose limitations are unlikely to ever lead you to the promised land.

I think this gets to a core reason why conservative coaches throw up their hands and go down with the ship even though they know it won't work. It's not about giving yourself some chance, however slight, by going on it on 4th and short at midfield, or doubling up the WR eating you alive right now, or blitzing every play even though you know it's dicey. It's about doing the "safe" expected thing rather than trying something radical that might give you a tiny bit better chance because as the coach you tend to get less criticism directed at you when you do the expected thing. When you go for it and take the nontraditional approach, if it doesn't work, fans will second guess it. The coach I want for my team does the thing that gives his team the best chance to win, even knowing sometimes that the increased chance is tiny and more likely to cause shade to be thrown his way, but prioritizes winning over avoiding criticism, because criticism is just part of the gig at the NFL level.

To some degree I'm with you, but let's tone down the hyperbole so it doesn't become misinformation. No team is averaging 30 points a game this year. None. Zero. Only 7 teams are averaging more than 25 points a game. 14 teams make the playoffs and Green Bay with the 14th most prolific offense in the league this year is averaging 22 points a game. The 14th best scoring defense (NO) is giving up just a hair under 21 points a game. A more accurate statement would be to say you need to consistently score more than 20 while having a D good enough to keep your opponents to about that or less. Btw, the best scoring defense is giving up 16.5 and the best scoring offense is averaging 29. That means the spread from 14th best to best for both offense and defense is a handful of points. Ultimately is it a league in which you can win championships anymore by having a dominant defense and a middle of the road offense? i agree the answer to that is no, I just wanna be a little more realistic about the actual numbers.

Failing to go for it was one of those "safe" moves that in reality wasn't safe. If you think merely making Brady cover an extra 30-40 yards was your best bet when deciding what to do on 4th and short, I question your competence as an NFL coach. This is dinosaur level thinking from a bygone football era that essentially shifts blame away from the coach not having the guts to go for it, and onto the players for being unable to do things they're physically incapable of doing.

The QB position was not the reason we lost this game today.

Disagree. it's a no chance of success vs a small chance of success decision. Two of TB's best olinemen are just working back in after lengthy injury. Can your edge rushers win their one on one matchups with their tackles? If the answer in the first half is no, how do you tell yourself if you're competent, that sitting back in the second half in a close game when your run game isn't able to keep Brady off the field will work out for you in the end. You had one chance and one chance only, keep bringing the heat and hope doing so was able to generate one or two game changing turnovers. Tell me I'm wrong when your other option was hope Taylor would be able to keep Mike Evans in check while your 3 man rush gave Brady time to order a pizza and eat it before throwing. This is one of the core problems with conservative coaches. They almost never recognize when the small percentage gambit is still their best option, and retreat into tried and true zero percentage moves because they're "safe".

My guess is a moribund Bucs run game generating a grand total of 67 yards on 25 attempts while your backup corners keep getting torched deep made this a non option today.