tukafan21

The trade CMC talk needs to stop, he's still one of the best weapons in the game, and if we FINALLY do the smart thing and make him mostly a slot WR who takes 10 hand-offs a game as well, then his contract isn't bad. He's our Deebo and needs to be looked at and used as such moving forward

The defense wasn't elite, but it was far from the problem, this is an odd move. But one I approve as I thought firing Rhule made the team better and I want to get the #1 pick at this point, this thankfully makes the team a bit worse again lol

The second we found out that he tried to leverage our offer to get the Giants to offer more. I'll admit that I liked the hire itself, I thought he was going to be a good coach, but that never did sit well with me, basically showed he was in it for himself more than anything else.

Also, I say this knowing it might be met with some hostility, but I want a minority hire for both OC and DC if possible. I think it's the dumbest rule ever, but there is a significant advantage to hiring minorities in those positions if they're good enough to get an HC job at some point in the near future now that you get draft picks when they get stolen from you. I believe having an OC or DC getting hired as an HC gets you a 3rd round pick in the next draft, and we badly need to get some more picks in that range given how many we've been trading away over the years. I don't want to make any hire based solely on that, but if there are good enough candidates there, I think the potential upside a few years later is worth the shot.

I think the Campbell hire was very unique and purposeful. I don't believe the Lions ever felt he was going to be their long term QB, they knew they weren't set up to win for a while and needed a slow rebuild. They hired a guy who players love to play for and can help build the base of a solid culture moving forward, which is exactly what he's doing. We're in a much better place than the Lions were when they hired him, they had no pieces in place other than a couple good offensive lineman, their roster was completely void of talent outside of that. So I'm not looking to make that type of hire for us, but I think that would be Quinn's floor, with a much higher upside, which is why I'd be good with him.

I've said it in another thread, but part of my stipulation with hiring Quinn would be that he hires a young innovative OC that he turns 100% control of the offense over to so we don't fall into a Ron Rivera situation again with 3 yards and a cloud of dust offense like so many defensive minded HC's fall into. However, I'm not totally concerned about that from Quinn, it's not like the Falcons had bad offenses during his time there, Ryan aired it out quite a bit. My problem with taking that shot on a young offensive minded guy is if it doesn't work out, it will set us WAY back, I'd much rather go safer with this hire and worst case scenario, they help build a culture here that could be carried over to the next HC, basically what I think is happening in Detroit right now with Dan Campbell.

Absolutely not, there is a reason he keeps getting interviewed but not hired, and it has nothing to do with his skin color. It's pretty clear that the NFL world doesn't view him as a HC, most likely because it's long been talked about how he doesn't have good relationships with players. If you can't have a good relationship with the best player in the game in Mahomes, then you don't deserve to be an NFL HC. Let Colorado hire him like they most likely will, he's a train wreck for any NFL team that hires him.

As much as I want the next McVay type, I'm not a fan of the risk that comes along with it in case it doesn't work out, if so, we're screwed for literally the next 5-8 years at minimum. My top choice is Dan Quinn, second for me would be Mike Tomlin as I just have a feeling him and the Steelers will mutually decide to part ways after this season and he'd be an absolute home run hire.

My interest in Payton is very dependent on one thing.... what is his contract situation like with the Saints? Is he free to take any job he wants this offseason or do the Saints still own his rights for another year and we'd have to work out a trade for him? As I'm not willing to give the Saints any draft picks to get him, we can't keep giving up our picks, even for a great coach (and it's unknown if he's still that great without a prime Brees anymore). As much as I'd like to get that next McVay type, that comes with a big risk if they don't work out. I'm still very much on the Dan Quinn train, he has HC experience and has taken a team to a SB, his defense has been ELITE in Dallas as well. Hire Quinn with the stipulation that he hires a young OC and completely hands the offense over to them and doesn't hover over everything they do like Rivera used to do. The one thing I do know is that we better not even interview Bieniemy... he's clearly not a HC yet for a reason, long been rumors that his players hate playing for him and he clearly doesn't have a good relationship with Mahomes, not what you want in a new HC. My sleeper favorite..... Steelers fire Tomlin and we scoop him up before someone else does. Great coach, clearly just time for a change in scenery, his players love playing for him, seems like it would be an Andy Reid type of situation when he went from Philly to KC and it's worked out for them.

Absolutely not Sure, he's a good coach, but he was fired because he couldn't get along with anyone in that building. We're coming off of a coach who wasn't a fit for the NFL game and struggled to properly connect with and lead Men instead of teenagers, that's not a situation where you replace that coach with someone who was fired because they couldn't get along with others in the organization, totally wrong hire for the moment.

If the Steelers end up with the #1 pick this year starting Pickett the rest of the way, I'd bet my entire life savings that they draft a new QB and trade Pickett for whatever they could get for him.

I'm kinda on the Dan Quinn bandwagon at the moment. That Dallas defense is legit and his players love him, and we badly need someone with legit NFL HC experience next, this team needs someone like that. Bring Quinn in with the mandate that he has to find a young, innovative OC and turn the offense completely over to them, none of this 3 yards and a cloud of dust crap that many defensive minded HC's like to run.

Maybe Tapper is just playing some 3D chess right now by not firing Rhule already? He knows this is a lost season without a real QB or Coach, but he also knows we have enough talent on this team to still win enough games to screw up our draft position and instead of getting a top 5 pick we end up around 12 and still can't get our QB of the future. Plus if he fires Rhule now, he owes him a ton of money. I'd like to think he's keeping Rhule around so that it costs us games to keep helping out our draft pick next year to hopefully get our QB, while also hoping Rhule leaves on his own for one of these college jobs and then he gets out of having to pay him a poo ton of money to GTFO.

I don't think we're that far away from being a playoff caliber team, so I wouldn't be trying to trade anyone like that. We have a TERRIBLE coaching staff and an awful QB, you can't win in the NFL today with those two things. If we can get a competent new HC and a top QB in the draft, I see no reason that we can't compete very soon. We have a lot of great pieces, but when you might have both the worst HC and QB in the league, you're not going to stand a chance. Just look at our defense today, they played really well and just got screwed over by Baker and the turnovers. 2 of their 3 TD's were on drives of 5 yards and 31 yards, that's not on the defense in the slightest, take that away and they just held a good offense to 13 points and would have won the game. Draft a QB with our first rounder, a WR with our second rounder (and dump Robby while at it), and spend any cap room on improving both lines, and I think we have a very good team next year with a real NFL coaching staff.

Oh I know, and I can't wait for that, it's going to be glorious I understand things like the UFC cracking down on illegal streams, that's a PPV that anyone can go out and pay for if they want to watch. But the NFL is a different story, they screwed up and agreed to a bad deal years ago. At this point, nobody is signing up for Direct TV solely for the NFL package, they already have it or they don't, so just let streamers stream so fans can watch their teams play if they live out of market. I used to go to the bar every sunday, but once Covid hit that changed things and streaming had been fine the last few years, but this year it's just not working well, it sucks.

Or maybe the NFL shouldn’t have been beyond stupid with their direct tv deal. I would gladly pay for a yearly service to watch the games, but I’m not going to get a terrible tv service just to have the ability to then pay more on top for the NFL package. Same thing as last week too, ended up finding something that worked for the first 3 quarters and now can’t get anything to work in the 4th. This isn’t like avoiding paying for PPV’s, it’s on the NFL for being stupid, in this day and age there should be a service for anyone to buy a season pass regardless of what TV provider you have.

Anyone have good ways to watch the game if you don't live in the area? The steam I used last year was terrible last week and already giving me issues this week again, fearing I'm not going to get to watch us this year at this rate. Can't wait till next year when they have the League Pass option outside of Direct TV customers.

He's a former QB who has long been considered a good QB coach and even in his first year in Tampa, Jameis had his best year of his career (sure, a ton of INTs, but that's Jameis' decision making, he still had career numbers besides that). My question with him is whether he has the rest of the HC skills needed as he's still very young in his coaching career, even these super young guys who are getting HC jobs now have much more coaching experience as they usually start coaching at 22ish where as Byron didn't start until his mid to late 30s.

I'd be good with taking the shot on Byron because even if he doesn't work out as a HC, I think he'd put us on the right track for a franchise QB. It's impossible to figure out if he's really ready for a HC job or if he'll be successful as he obviously has benefited by having Brady and working under Arians. I think those things though will make him successful in identifying and developing a new QB. So even if he doesn't work out as a HC, whether it's strategy, defensive approach, play calling, etc, I think he'd do enough positive work with the QB situation that if he had to fire him after a couple of years for other reasons, the franchise would still be in a better place. And that's all if he's unsuccessful, there is a very solid chance that he's going to end up as a really good HC as well, so all in all, to me it's more than worth the chance on him. Although if I'm being honest, I'd rather us steal an up and coming OC from someone like McVay. I don't even know who their OC is right now, but his coaching tree is already looking really impressive and that's the style of coach I want us to have with how the NFL is playing these days, you need an innovative offensive mind.

Nobody with the easiest prediction yet? Higgins TD (you know Baker wants to get one to him in this game as a huge middle finger to the Browns and they looked like they had a good connection in camp) Panthers 31 Browns 23 Baker is going to be fired up for this game and it's going to bleed into the rest of the team as well, I'm thinking 3 passing TDs to Higgins, DJ, CMC, with another CMC TD on the ground Browns are going to be missing both their starting OT's with Brisett starting and only one decent pass catcher, Burns with 2 sacks and another 2-4 from the rest of the team. Their best chance is to run the ball, but without their starting OT's, they will struggle a bit from there too.

Agreed, that's why I say you wait on Cam and TD. Do Smitty and Luke now, they've earned it and even if we turn into a powerhouse. I think for an expansion team in this era, it's more than fair to retire the best player in that team's first 30 year history. That rate would be retiring 3 numbers every 90 years (I wouldn't count Mills in that calculation, his is different and something any team would do in the same situation, such as Sean Taylor), that's Steelers level stuff right there, and I've already made my Luke argument of course. Wait 10 years, if we're still not looking at a potential dynasty, you can do one more, if after another 5 or so and still in the same place, do the other. If we've turned into a potential dynasty in 10-15 years, then we're sitting at only Mills, Smitty, and Luke and can be more stringent moving forward and those 3 will still always be more than deserving.

Wouldn't that probably favor the Browns then? I know we're going to have a physical defense, but so do they, the difference is their offense is 100% built around the run, and they're very good at it, that would seem to favor them in a rain game against almost any team in the league (in regards to dealing with rain, not about being favored in the game in general lol)

If we had 6 Super Bowls then I'd agree, but we're not, and it's nice to have some history with the team and I think almost 30 years into the franchise, it's okay to retire the best player in franchise history in Smitty and a first ballot HOFer who played his whole career for us. HOF opened in 1963, modern day NFL essentially started in 1967 with the first Super Bowl. 30 years after the first SB, the Steelers had 4 SB titles, all of which they won by Super Bowl 14. Yes, if we won 4 SB's in our first 15 years, the standard for retiring numbers would just have to be different. I'm not even going to argue for someone like Peppers, he's probably the best player to play the majority of their career with us, but spent too many years away to have his number retired here, but put him in the Ring of Honor. If you want to really limit things, do Smitty and Luke and then stop there, but I think Cam and TD should be considered at some point too, pending how things go over the next 10 years. If we don't win a SB and don't have any players at that time who are looking like they'd be future candidates, maybe then you do Cam if he's made the HOF or TD. But in the end, Smitty and Luke are both no brainers to me, even if you want to severely limit them.

That's a fair argument too and one I can't fault. But if we're talking about high standards, how much higher does it get than being a first ballot HOFer? Particularly when they do that after a concussion shortened career? There's only been 86 first ballot HOFers in almost 60 years of the HOF being around. Granted his career was even shorter, but he also won an MVP and 2 SB's, but it took Terrell Davis 11 tries to get into the HOF, says a lot about Luke's career that he'll be a first ballot guy with only played 8 seasons. And Calvin and the Lions I think are good now, it was ugly at first over the fight over his signing bonus, but they've more or less settled that beef and are cool again, just took a few years, kinda like Smitty and the Panthers.

I get what you're saying, and agree, TD while a great player for us, is more about his story and what he meant to the organization. And yes, there needs to be a high standard, but Cam won an MVP and should be a HOFer (I still think his rushing stats alone is why he'll get in), how do you not retire the number of the franchise's only MVP winner who also will be in the HOF (hence why I also said to wait 10 years before looking at it, as if he never gets in, that could change things). But Luke to me has the strongest argument of those other three. His career was only short because of concussions, nothing else, and he's going to be a first ballot HOFer and one of the best MLB in the history of the game. For someone to get into the HOF on the first ballot, after playing their entire career with one team and was only cut short due to injuries, how do you not retire that number? Do you think the Lions won't retire Calvin's number? Basically the same thing, 100% they retire his number. If we just look at the player's standing at their given position over the history of the sport, Luke would have a better argument for getting his number retired than Smitty.