tukafan21

You would "settle" for Vrabel? He might be my #1 choice, the guy can coach. Only one that I think I'd rank above him of likely candidates would be Ben Johnson, and only coach I'd absolutely rank over him would be Tomlin if the Steelers are stupid and decide to not sign him long term and decide to mutually part ways (which I can't see happening anyways).

Long term, the offensive savant Right now, the leader of men Dan Campbell was never meant to be the Lions long term solution. I live in Michigan and all my Lions friends loved the hire but admitted that he likely would only be there for a few years, they viewed him as someone to come in and just right the ship for a franchise lost at sea and get it moving in the right direction for the next and hopefully long term coach. Turns out that he's done even better than that, but it's what we need right now. We just need to get a culture in the locker room and get this franchise moving in the right direction. And since I don't think Bryce is the long term solution either, I'm less concerned about fixing him than I am just getting a sense of normalcy and fight back in the locker room.

So not reading through this whole thread and hadn't heard this before, but this just doesn't even make sense to me. How can they brag about having award winning talent when the only "evidence" of them winning the award is the fake physical award they gave to the people? These awards are listed online somewhere, it wouldn't be hard for anyone, including the on air talent who they gave the trophies to, to look it up and see they didn't actually win. Or am I missing something obvious?

We have no HC or GM No poo you’re not their top priority right now This is my final straw, I don’t want him back, must tag and trade for anything anyone will give us at this point.

I was just thinking that this could be what makes them push BB out the door. They can hire Vrabel and then draft a new QB and be set for a while

Wow, surprised they fired Vrabel, he’s a good coach, not exactly who I want as I’d like an offensive guy, but I wouldn’t be against giving him a look. At worst he’d develop a good culture in the building and right the ship a bit

Honestly, after hearing that, I want nothing to do with re-signing him now, tag and trade him for whatever we can get and move on. If he was that afraid of playing hurt, he should have either held out or signed the extension, it says a lot about him and I'm sure it affected his play, which wasn't great. If he wants to sign for LESS than $20 a season, then sure, I'll take him back. But if he wants a penny over 20, I have zero interest after hearing this, we need the draft picks and cheap contracts more right now, this team is in an entire rebuild.

Honestly…. We’d probably be better off if he gets even worse and gets us the #1 pick in 2025 to draft his replacement. if he slightly improves and we get better coaching, we’re going to end up in NFL purgatory again. Constantly drafting too late to get an elite QB but never actually contending for the post season.

He'd be my #1 option over any of the names who will actually be available The guy hasn't had a losing season in his almost 2 decade career, that's insane. Absolute worst case scenario, he'd turn the franchise around and establish a culture that we badly need

Really strange that Ben Johnson isn't included in this list when he's probably the hottest name on the HC market, wonder why that is

Was really hoping Smitty would be a finalist this year, but not get in while a couple of the other WRs did. Because that would have then set up the potential to have both Smitty and Luke go into the HOF together next season, which would have been really cool. But can't see a scenario where he goes from not being a finalist to making it in the following year, he'll need a year or two of being a finalist before finally getting the call I'd imagine.

He's 100% wrong Now, in most coaching hire situations, he wouldn't be wrong, you want someone who is all in like he describes. But we're not in a normal coaching hire situation, we're in a situation where no high end candidates should/would be interested in our job. He's already proven by turning down HC opportunities last year because he felt he wasn't ready, that he cares more about winning and being a successful HC than just a huge a paycheck. So it's not like he's going to come here for that big pay day and then just mail it in. I want the best HC possible, not the best HC possible amongst the guys who REALLY want to be here, because the ones who REALLY want to be here given our situation, won't be amongst the best HC options out there. So if it takes overpaying someone to be interested, I'm fine with that, as long as it's a Ben Johnson type. Someone young and likely looking at a long HC career. If they're willing to risk that career on coming to this disaster of a situation and bet on Bryce, then I'm okay with them wanting stupid money to take the job, since they're still betting the rest of their career on it.

First, Watson didn’t miss games because of injury, Lamar couldn’t finish the year for 2 straight seasons because he got hurt in both years. Which is a terrible sign for a guy dependent on his running ability to be successful. I still don’t believe Lamar will make it through this contract playing at a high level. Second, you 100% lose out because you have to spend the time negotiating with Lamar, which means you have to keep your cap room open and lose out on other players you could have signed in the meantime. All for a player you were never going to get even if you signed him because the Ravens were always going to match any deal.

It's amazing how people still refuse to accept that the Lamar thing went down the way it did for two reasons. First is that no team really wanted to give up the draft capital as well as give out the huge contract for someone who wasn't able to finish the previous two seasons. Second and more importantly, it was a poorly kept secret in the league that the Ravens were going to match any deal made to Lamar. Because of that, nobody wanted to waste their time negotiating a difficult contract with Lamar, just for the Ravens to match it and then not get Lamar. The Ravens were trying to use another team to deal with the negotiations, when nobody wanted to be their sucker, they finally just got a deal done with him. It was a win-win for them, either someone else did the deal for them, or they couldn't and it then likely lowered his asking price a tad bit because it made the market for him seem worse.

Same as always, me not wanting him has nothing to do with his ability to scheme offenses. It's that no players like to play for him That's not a problem for coordinators, particularly when they have a HC that the players would take a bullet for (like Reid or Ron), but it doesn't work for a HC unless you're a Belichek, or else you turn out like a Josh McDaniels.

Your argument makes sense from an outside perspective. These coaches are just like the players, they have the mentality that they are great at what they do and they aren't going to fail, particularly if you give them the right players. Look what he's done with Goff, you give him someone like Herbert in LA, and he's going to 100% believe he can be successful. It's not like he'd be making peanuts by taking that job compared to ours either. He'll take the 40 million over the 80 in your scenario and bet on himself that he's going to succeed and get a second contract and long HC career, 100 out of 100 times. Also... your logic is flawed, as he won't have to work 10 years to make what he'd make in 1 year. First being if we land someone like Johnson, there's no scenario that he's fired after year 1 and likely no scenario that he's fired after year 2 either. Second, he doesn't get all that money right when he'd be fired, it's still payed out over the length of the contract. So even if we use your argument that the got fired here after 1 year, he's still getting paid annually, same as if he's coaching another team. So realistically your argument would be that he'd have to work an extra 4-5 years after his 1st contract to make up the difference that he'd have made here. Again, it's about whether he wants to bet on himself to be successful as a HC, if he thinks he'll be successful elsewhere, it's not a big bet to go that route over taking the early money here knowing he'll have a much lower chance at success given the state of this roster/franchise.

Trust me, I've never made excuses for Bryce this year, I think he's a complete bust and we're going to be drafting his replacement in 2025. But in that kind of weather, even the best QB's of all time sometimes have the ball slip out of their hand as they're throwing a pass. And I only saw the pass once, didn't see a replay, but to me on an initial glance, it just looked like the ball slipped as he was throwing it, not his noodle arm throwing up a dead duck like does plenty of other times all on his own. Sometimes there are just legitimate reasons for something happening, not finding excuses for them.

I'm as big a Bryce basher as anyone else on here, particularly over his noodle arm. But can't really fault him for throws like that on a day like today, that wasn't because of his noodle arm, even he can make that throw in normal conditions, seemed pretty clear to me that it was the rain that caused it to slip out of his hand as he threw it.

Sure, but then when he fails because Bryce is garbage, he'll never get another HC job again and will be a QB coach and/or OC making peanuts compared to HC's. If he takes half the money but goes to the Chargers where he has a franchise QB and other pieces and becomes a consistent winner, he'll end up making so much more money in his career. The guy is only 37, I don't think he wants to get paid for the next 5-7 years, he wants to be a HC for the next 25-30 years.

Seems dumb to worry about this, Bill doesn’t have many years left coaching, he’s not going to a situation like this one and need to do an entire rebuild

We can only hope The more he wants out of Carolina, the more reasonable he’ll be on his contract demands, and thus the more a team will be willing to give up for him in a tag and trade

Is it bad that I honestly don't remember? 2019 feels like it would be the obvious one, but I think the real answer is 2016, and everything since then has just felt snake bitten and with a grain of salt.

This It's why we won't have a shot with someone like a Mike Evans, a contending team will offer him close to whatever we could offer him, he's not taking a couple extra million to suck with us vs contending for another ring. We can go after guys coming off rookie contracts who want to cash in, or vets around 30 who think they can sign a 1 year deal with a team like us so they can start, and hope to showcase themselves into signing a deal with a contender in 2025. Top 2 WRs on the market should be Higgins and Ridley, who will both be tagged, with Higgins being traded while the Jags will be trying to sign Ridley long term. Next best would probably be Pittman, who will be in the same category as Ridley, tagged to keep, not trade. In my opinion, our top option should be looking at trying to trade for Aiyuk as the Niners won't be able to sign him long term and likely will have to trade him this offseason while they still can.

BPA that is a DL, G, or CB While I'd love a WR, we need to fix that problem through a trade or free agency, can't "waste" another 2nd rounder on someone who isn't going to be able to be an immediate impact player from day 1. Also need a pass catching TE, but not sure I want to use the first pick of the 2nd round there, more likely with our 3rd. Wouldn't hate a LB either, but just doubt the value will be there compared to those other positions where there should be better options than a LB.

I still think Bienemy is the most likely solution since he’s a good offensive mind and he knows nobody else wants to hire him so this might be his only shot at a HC job. He’ll be the most accomplished person Tepper interviews and it will be hard for him to go another direction when nobody decent has interest. It will backfire and before the end of the 2024 season there will already be reports about the entire locker room hating him. he’ll then get fired a month into 2025 and the locker room will celebrate just like the Raiders did when they got rid of McDaniels