woahfraze

Look, Sam Darnold is awful and I hate him as much as the next fan, but let’s pump the breaks here. Matt Corrall is a rookie coming into the league from an RPO heavy offender who was drafted in the third round as the 4th QB of a weak QB class. We have no idea how quickly he’ll be able to pick up the playbook and adapt to NFL speed and defenses. He’s got a ton of potential and certainly could beat Darnold right out the gate, but we have no idea if that will be the case. I agree that playing Darnold is a death sentence for the season, and I generally agree that young guys should get live reps beyond practice, but we also have to be careful to not ruin Corrall. While our offensive line looks better on paper than last year, we also don’t know if the moves we made there will pan out. We have to be cautious with the situation we put Corrall in. If the rest of the roster/coaching staff isn’t there to develop him, it’d be better to bring him on more slowly than to throw him to the wolves. Yes, some development is incumbent on the QB himself to put the work in and take ownership of the position, but we also have to make sure we’re not throwing him out there too soon in his own development.

We need a rim protector and Duren has sky high potential to be an elite one. He also has the quickness and athleticism to perform well when switching out on the perimeter. Not sure if we'd have to trade up because his offensive game is so raw and might limit his draft stock (and is something we'd have to hope he can improve on), although he certainly could rise up the boards between now and the draft. Not that it's necessarily a great source, but in their most recent mock (4/12/22) for example nbadraft.net has Duren going at #14 right between our two picks. Another option would be Mark Williams. Honestly, he's a pretty similar prospect who is also projected to go in the teens somewhere around our picks. Also has to work on his offensive game and is not quite the athlete Duren is, but still a good athlete and with even more length has just as much rim protection potential. I think Walker Kessler could also be in play. Another massive, long wingspan guy with elite rim protection abilities that needs to work on his offensive game. Apparently projected to go in the 20s, so maybe a reach at 13 or 15.

I think you're overvaluing our players and that we wouldn't be able to get the returns you've projected for them. Moore and Burns could probably fetch relatively high draft picks because of their talent. But you also have to factor in the flipside of them being on relatively cheap rookie contracts--they are sort of rentals at that point and the trading team is not guaranteed to be able to retain them once those contracts are up. I don't care if Derrick Brown and Jeremy Chinn were 1st and 2nd round picks, respectively. Brown hasn't shown anywhere enough to recoup a 1st. Chinn was a beast in year 1 and played well in year 2 but because the staff moved him to a less impactful position that's less of a natural fit for him (even if he can still play it), it didn't show as much. In any case, a LB or S is just not a valuable enough position for a team to want to trade a 1st round pick for the player. I understand that WR trades have been all over the map in the past, but Anderson didn't show anywhere close enough this past year to garner a 2nd or 3rd. I could see a 4th possibly. But he dropped too many passes and showed a poor attitude in his media interviews that any trading team likely isn't going to want to spend that sort of draft capital. Is an inconsistent at best locker room malcontent going to garner a 4th when there are so many serviceable WRs out there in the league right now? Methinks not.

Here's what it comes down to for me: Last season, there was reason to believe Rhule really was implementing an effective turnover. The roster was not good. But it appeared to be well coached. Despite the relative lack of talent and poor record, that team competed well. It was in most of the games it lost toward the very end of the game. If Teddy Bridgewater had the it factor, instead of going 0-8 on potential game-winning or -tying drives at the end of the 4th quarter, we may have eked out a couple more wins. Fast forward to this year. I understand the decision to move on from Teddy. He's not the guy. Even if he is serviceable and can keep you in games, he can't get you where you want to go (the Superb Owl). I didn't agree with the Darnold trade, but I can maybe understand the idea that they could salvage him. The decision to pick up his 5th year option though was absolutely terrible at the time and still is terrible. And the personnel they chose to man the offensive line obviously were terrible. So Rhule constructed his roster in such a way that we basically came into Year 2 with more than half our offense being at best a huge question mark and at worst a dumpster fire (and of course it has played out like the latter). So from the above, it's clear that Rhule isn't the best at personnel decisions, especially at the most important position QB, and that's a huge problem. But then you also have to look at how the team has performed on the field. Where was the fight a limited roster showed last year? It's gone. We're getting dominated and blown out, even by other bad teams. Clearly he lost the locker room, whether that be from his personnel decisions, his day-to-day interactions with the team, or a combination of both. Had Year 2 been worse than Year 1, but not to this degree, and the team had shown a semblance of competitiveness, I think I'd still fire him. But I could maybe understand keeping him for Year 3 and giving him a chance to right the ship. Maybe you take personnel input/decisions away from him and tell him to focus on coaching up the players the front office brings in. But given how bad this season is, I don't see how you can bring him back.

PJ should start because he's undefeated as a starter in the NFL..... All joking aside, I only think this rotating of QBs is a problem if it extends beyond a week or two. Cam may not have full familiarity with the entire playbook, and certain play calls are needed based on game scenario where they don't want to risk miscommunication so PJ will come in. As long as the trend is heading toward Cam playing a larger percentage of the snaps and it's not a long drawn out process, I don't view it as Rhule getting cute.

These effing refs. Ball was overthrown and uncatchable....

Not excusing Darnold's play--he's absolutely dreadful and shouldn't even be a backup in the league--but that was an unreal play by Collins. Typically a ball like that is just getting batted down, not intercepted.

There's no way these are connected. The staff couldn't possibly evaluate Henderson so poorly in the one week that he's been in the building to have buyer's remorse yet. This is about being in on every deal and pulling the trigger on a great (albeit older and currently injured) player when we learned he could be had for only a future 6th round pick. There's very little downside here. Either gilmore plays well and we consider paying him (would depend on his contract demands and how we feel about his age as well as the same for DJ Jackson, since we may not be able to retain both--although it'd be nice to do so) or he doesn't and we move on. If it's the latter, then we still have Horn and Henderson on their rookie deals and hopefully a resigned DJ Jackson.

As bad as the interior of our offensive line has been, you can't just assume that Christensen and Brown are better or more capable. They have potential and we all hope they can be. But for all we know, they are guys that shouldn't be in the league. The coaches--who yes, could be wrong in their evaluation--don't think they give us a better chance to win than the current group they are trotting out. And they both see how all the players in question perform in practice and know a hell of a lot more about football than all of us.

Part of the reason our run defense was so good in weeks 1 through 3 was due to excellent execution out of odd man fronts. Check out Brett Kollman's recent video on the subject. It can work. But Dallas has a much better offense than the three teams we've played thus far, so our true talent level isn't what we've shown thus far--the numbers weren't sustainable. But more importantly we didn't execute today across the board.

The clock doesn't stop when a player runs out of bounds until under 4 minutes at the end of each half. This is not a new rule....

I don't feel good about the game. Bad matchup for us. Their strength on defense, particularly the defensive line, is not a great recipe for our weak offensive line and a Darnold that we're still trying to build up from the "seeing ghosts" portion of his career. On offense, yes they downgraded at QB and lost a lot of WR talent, but they still have a great offensive line that may be able to neutralize our strength (defensive line), and Sean Payton knows how to call an offensive game to get his guys open. We have to hope Jameis reverts to bad decisions Jameis and that turnovers weigh heavily in how close the game is.

"We haven't seen that yet though here." I disagree. It may not have been a high percentage of throws, but he still took those shots and proved he could hit them. That in of itself is important. We shall see if Joe Brady gives him more leash as he continues to prove himself and/or improved defenses don't prevent that.

Aside from the deep bomb to Robby Anderson, Darnold also hit DJ Moore twice on intermediate to deepish throws along the sidelines with nice throws. He also had another nice intermediate one to Marshall Jr. that was dropped (or maybe had tight coverage that broke the play up, but Sam placed the ball in a place where only Marshall could catch it and the defender couldn't). He's much more willing and much more able to attack down field than Teddy. That will open up the offense for all of that CMC stuff underneath.

My post at halftime in the gameday thread last night (right as half was ending, prior to the really nice throw to Marshall down the middle and the back shoulder TD to Robby): Halftime thoughts on Darnold: Looked quite good throwing the ball to the outside on short, out-breaking routes. Mixed bag in the intermediate part of the field--had a really good multi-progression read throw on 3rd down to DJ Moore. But also missed Terrace Marshall Jr. and Robby badly over the middle. The latter should have been picked. We didn't attempt anything deep, although that's probably by design, as I'm not sure the O-line could've provided enough time for the WRs to get downfield. With the O-line, he may have less success moving forward in the short part of the field because teams will be able to tailor their game plan to that, sort of like they could against Teddy last year when they realized he just wasn't willing to throw down the field. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic about Darnold. Certainly somethings he needs to work on, and all of this was against second stringers, but the O-line hasn't done him any favors. I'll reserve judgment until I've seen him in a couple real games. But I'm decidedly worried about the O-line, and think they may prevent proper analysis of whether Darnold is/can be good or not.

Lulz refs.

Really nice back shoulder throw there for the TD

Halftime thoughts on Darnold: Looked quite good throwing the ball to the outside on short, out-breaking routes. Mixed bag in the intermediate part of the field--had a really good multi-progression read throw on 3rd down to DJ Moore. But also missed Terrace Marshall Jr. and Robby badly over the middle. The latter should have been picked. We didn't attempt anything deep, although that's probably by design, as I'm not sure the O-line could've provided enough time for the WRs to get downfield. With the O-line, he may have less success moving forward in the short part of the field because teams will be able to tailor their game plan to that, sort of like they could against Teddy last year when they realized he just wasn't willing to throw down the field. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic about Darnold. Certainly somethings he needs to work on, and all of this was against second stringers, but the O-line hasn't done him any favors. I'll reserve judgment until I've seen him in a couple real games. But I'm decidedly worried about the O-line, and think they may prevent proper analysis of whether Darnold is/can be good or not.

When his competition at safety is Juston Burris, he may be starting....

C'mon refs. That's a massive hold on Derrick Brown right there.

Where was this Donte Jackson in years 1 and 2. Nice tackling.

Nice playcall. Nice execution.

I don't think it's a bad play call if you're trying to see what your first team offensive line has in short yard situations during a game that doesn't have stakes. And the fact that they can't get any push against a 2nd string defense is very concerning. This is valuable information to have for the regular season. The coaches may be more inclined to pass the ball when they need to go for it on 3rd or 4th and short because of this, granted the 4th and short failure on the last drive shows that pass blocking may be an issue too...

12. Three sets of 4 chuggas with a slight pause between each set. This is objective fact; don't pretend like you don't know the exact cadence chugga-ing I'm talking about.

Don't know why I'm getting pooed when I agreed that shouldn't be interference...