tukafan21

Stats can be misleading this early in the season. They played two of the best passing offenses in the league the first two weeks, hard to judge them on their passing stats solely on that.

Wow I kinda hate you for making me laugh so many times in what must have been an emotional and tough post to write. You kept sneaking in the comedy after touching moments and it almost made me feel bad to laugh, haha. Took me a minute to get past the “literal poo eating grin” My sincerest best wishes to your wife’s battle and to your whole family… Keep Pounding!!

100% If we played today in the first two games, we'd be sitting at 2-1 right now. Seattle is one of the best teams in the NFC, that stadium is the toughest place in the league to play, and we did it in the road with a QB who has been taking backup snaps since mini camp. I'm upset we lost like everyone else, but today was a MASSIVE improvement over the first two weeks. And look, I don't mean to pile on Bryce, but honestly, Dalton was the difference. He just looked like an NFL QB out there in the way he played, moved, threw the ball, all of it. Bryce still looks like a scared little kid out there, and I don't just mean his size.

Really? We hung with one of the best teams in the NFC, in the rain, on the road, in the most hostile stadium in the league. I'm not happy with the loss, there are still lots of things that need to be improved upon, clearly. But to not think we looked better today than in the first 2 weeks is just being angry to be angry. We looked god awful in the first 2 weeks, that was a clear improvement over those games (albeit still a step back from last year, but that's beyond the point).

We just better not hand over the #1 pick, sure #2 would be bad, but if we give over the #1 pick and in 20 years, Caleb Williams is a HOFer and Bryce is a bust, it would go down as the worst trade in NFL history. Other trades obviously have been bad and not worked out, but if that scenario played out, there'd be nothing else that could ever top it. That's really my biggest fear on the season, it's not one that I expect to play out, but it's certainly possible, especially if we keep getting killed by injuries.

He might not be wrong, it was the worst kept secret that the Texans wanted Bryce and would have taken him #1. If Stroud ends up a stud with Bryce a bust, that win that got Love fired will end up being what saved the franchise.

We very well may start 0-6 (although the Vikings at home is a winnable game) but as long as the team doesn't lose the fight in them because of it, there are a lot of winnable games after that. I'm obviously not saying we'll win all of them, but I think we'll have every chance to win any of these games.... Tampa x2, Atlanta, Saints, this division is still going to be average at best on the season, all games we'll be in. Texans, Colts, Bears all are bottom 10 teams at best and will be winnable games, and the Titans certainly don't look like world beaters either. That's 8 games I think we'll have a chance to win and we need to win 5 of them, any worse and this season will be an abject failure once that pick goes to the Bears. If we can go 5-3 in those games with Bryce as the QB, then I'll probably be able to halfway accept this season. Bryce's development and the pick we hand over to the Bears will be how I judge this season, please just don't be Top 5 (not that Top 10 will feel much better, but at this point I feel like that much is a given).

lol Ben Johnson turned us down last offseason, do you think us getting worse and not having our own draft pick is going to make us more attractive to him?

I'm kinda surprised to see everyone losing it right now, especially given how down on the team I was after last week. But I think this game was a huge step forward for us compared to how bad we looked in the first two games. If we didn't look so bad the first two games, I don't think people would be all that upset right now. Seattle in the rain is about the hardest place to play in this league and sure, not everything was great, but we still put up 27 points on them and our defense kept them in check for most of the game. It's not surprising that a playoff team from last year with a HOF coach was able to wear us down and figure out how to put up points in the second half, this was always an expected loss coming into the season. The false start penalties are absolutely frustrating, but in that environment and the way many of them happened, it was clear that it was communication problems and not just bad mental errors, they'll work on it and I'm not concerned moving forward. The most concerning thing to me was how much better the offense looked with Dalton in there than Bryce, especially with him losing Mingo as well. He just looked "NFL competent" out there, something Bryce didn't and scares me moving forward with him, but that's not the point of this thread. The other thing that has me worried is health though, our guys are dropping like flies out there, not good.

Assuming Caleb Williams keeps playing like he has been, it’s going to be very interesting to see what NFL teams do in the final month of the season if they’re in contention for the top pick.

He seemed like the obvious choice to me, his biggest negative was that past OSU QBs hadn’t been successful, what a terrible reason to pass him up to take a high school sized kid.

I actually think we might have a decent passing game. Seattle isn’t good against the pass to begin with and then they are having injury issues too, could be without their top corner and both safeties.

1% And that 1% was solely Fitterer and Reich asking if he was good with the pick and him saying yes. I think he is 99% responsible for forcing the issue and making them trade up to draft a QB, but I think at that point, he stepped aside and let the football people do their thing and make the choice. The guy just wants to win and he's not Snyder, he knows he doesn't know as much as these guys on the football side, I really do think he's letting them make all the football decisions.

Is this a serious question? If you're a real fan, you watch every game that you're able to, no question about it, regardless of your feelings about the team at that moment.

This year? Short answer: no Long answer: lol no

I don't know if Shanahan can fix him either at this point, it will be tougher to do after another bad coaching stint the Darnold had here. But I think if Darnold went to someone like Shanahan right after the Jets, we'd be talking about him as at worst an above average starter, if not better.

Maybe I should have clarified lol With the coaching staff we had, it was a god awful trade, because they clearly were NOT the right ones to fix him. But for a QB needy team like we were at the time, with players like CMC and Moore, I don't think giving up a 2nd round pick for someone who has the physical tools that Darnold has is a bad trade, in a vacuum. With the proper coaching, I think that would have been a really good offensive squad.

Completely false, I was very much on board with going after Darnold even before we knew the team wanted him, and I'm still not convinced the trade was a bad one. He's a player with all the physical tools you could want in a QB in today's game, his problem has always been in his head. Darnold had the worst imaginable coaching possible with the Jets and then somehow got equally bad coaching here. If he started his career with a coach like Shannahan, there's a chance we're talking about Darnold as an elite QB in this league. The fact that Shannahan was willing to dump Lance and all they had invested in him to go with Darnold instead, actually tells me that he's likely better than he showed in New York or here, and it was the coaching that ruined him.

If we're so bad this year that it would get Reich fired, it could be hard to attract a quality HC who would then be saddled with Bryce, who subsequently would have likely had a really bad season. I also think Tepper knows the analytics say it's best to hire a GM and HC at the same time and he's supposedly an analytics guy who hasn't followed that one yet. I think Reich and Fitterer are both tied here for at least this season and the next, but if we're not contending for the playoffs at the end of next year, they're both fired and replaced by a new combo. Although I could also see him firing Fitterer after this season and giving Morgan the job and 2 years to make something happen next to Reich for 3 full seasons to prove Bryce was the right guy. If it's not working by then, you blow it all up and start completely fresh in 2026.

Again, the team tanking is the wrong way to look at it because the players and coaches would never do it, closest is for a GM to purposefully put together a crap team, like the Cardinals have done this year. It's really about fans wanting the team to lose and being okay or even happy when they do, because you know it's for the best for the franchise long term.

Bryce is the wrong QB for that kind of offense. He's supposed to be the mental savant, you want an offense that is passing based so he can do his thing, particularly pre-snap. That's something you wouldn't get with a run based offense. That would have been a scary team with AR though, takes pressure off him and add his running ability to the mix, could lead the league in rushing.

I'm not for purposefully tanking, that isn't good for team morale, but I've always said that as a fan, I have no problem rooting for us to lose during seasons like that, I know it is what's best for franchise long term. I can stomach a really bad year or two if I know it's getting us the draft picks needed to turn things around, particularly if it's for a QB. I almost enjoyed the 2010 season, no, not early in the season, but after maybe 6 or 7 games, I was happier with each loss than I normally am from wins. At the time it was because I thought it would get us Luck, but getting Cam in the end was totally worth it of course. I personally wanted us to keep Rhule for the season because I felt like it would have ended up having a Top 3 pick, which then yea, we take our QB while keeping Moore and the rest of the picks, which would make this season feel just fine right now. I've never understood why you want to root for your team to win meaningless late season games in lost seasons, you feel good for a day or so but can significantly hurt your draft positioning. In seasons you're actively building up your team and you're just getting there, like the Lions last year, then it's different, then you want to win them to help build towards the next year, that wasn't us last year.

We gave up 2 firsts, 2 seconds, and Moore to get Bryce If we make that trade for Burns and get 2 firsts and a second, that means we'd still have a first rounder this upcoming here, maybe even our own and then still have two firsts in 2025 as opposed to right now, only having 1 first in 2025. So basically the same situation we're in right now where people want to trade Burns for 2 firsts. Or, we'd have given one of those firsts to the Bears and kept Moore, either way, I'd rather be in that situation right now, having that first rounder next year would make this season easier to be okay with how it's going. Especially if it was our own, and with how ours and the Rams seasons ended, there's a chance the Bears would have preferred to have their pick over ours.

I will call this out every time I see someone say we should have taken Parsons. Parsons was viewed by every team as a MLB, the last thing we needed at that time was to spend a top 10 pick on a MLB. The only reason Parsons has become maybe the premier pass rusher in the league is because the Cowboys had such injury issues that they started using him to rush the passer and he was too good at it to not move him there permanently. People can be upset about taking Horn over a number of players, but Parsons just shouldn't be one of them

More power to you lol I'm in Detroit and already told my friends the other day that I'm not going to pay what its gonna cost to go to the game here in a few weeks just to get abused by the Detroit fans while watching us get beat. I'll go and watch it at someone's house with them, but just not able to drag myself through the rest to watch in person.