WhoKnows

We had a high priced DT not that long ago who produced sacks until he stopped being healthy.

Good point on the tag, with that you’ve basically got Brown for 3 years at $13M per year. If he’s looking for $24M a year after that trade him, otherwise lock him up for $15M per year.

It almost doesn’t matter all that much since he’s not going to get the $20M+ the elite (great against run and get sacks) DTs get. He’s got two years left with the 5th year so he’ll be cheap enough the next 3-4 years and by year 5, when the cap hits rise, the salary cap will have jumped and he’ll be reasonable. Again, this is based on a $15M a year type deal that top 10-12 guys get.

If he doesn’t hike the QB hits/sacks, I don’t think he’ll be as expensive as people think. Bozeman was going to cost us upwards of 12M per year according to many in here, but he got half that. Brown is solid but in 3 of Williams 4 years he’s had as many sacks in each year as Brown has in his 3 year career. Heck Williams more than doubled Brown’s career sack total last year. I may be wrong but I see Brown as a $15M a year guy. Also, we’ve got Brown for two more years with the 5th year option.

We weren’t a helmet removal penalty away. We lost the division by letting Evans abuse us. Tampa had Gabbert playing week 18 after they got the lead because that game didn’t matter. Also, we completed a 60+ yard Hail Mary that we couldn’t do again with a QB who likely is out of the NFL. We got the penalty but it was a miracle we were even in that situation. We then blew our chance but who cares, Tampa got blown out like we would have been. We also don’t have Young now if we make the playoffs. I’ll take Young over a meaningless blow out every day.

Damn if Arizona isn’t setup for the top pick this year. If they are driving it, they might keep Murray on the bench. Maybe they want Harrison Jr or they expect a haul like Chicago got from us. If Williams and Maye play well then they could end up with pick 1 or 2 and get a bunch of picks. It was easy to move on from Rosen but Murray’s dead cap is $81M in 2024. It’s reasonable in 2025 ($33M).

Sorry, but you can’t just say 1 elite guy and 2 JAGs (let’s be honest only top 3 WRs have a real impact) are worse than 3 good guys as if the elite guys has to have shitty guys. If you look at our WRs, we have the 50th, 84th and 88th guys in receiving yards and a 2nd round rookie. I liked the signings and draft because having Marshall as our WR1 would have been really rough, but based on recent stats we have a bunch of JAGs so having a stud would be great. Hopefully, Bryce will elevate everyone but we don’t have the WRs to say we’d be better with 3 500 yards guys instead of Adams. Math wise that makes no sense as that would mean you’d need over 2000 yards from TEs and RBs to have 4k+ passing yards.

If you are going to use individual games as an example, you might want to remember the actual game. Do you recall that KC’s OL was pretty much all backups? They didn’t score because Tampa’s DL was going through backup OL like a hot knife through butter. There’s a reason why KC drafted Smith and Humphrey and traded for Brown to rebuild their OL in 2021. As I already posted, Belichick averaged having 1 or 2 pro-bowl DBs every year he’s been coaching. Of course top Ds with a top coach have a better shot at shutting down top guys, but it’s not that easy to shut down elite guys. Having Revis, Gilmore or Talib helps too.

Elite WRs are not shut down easily, but having a Higgins is huge for Burrow and Chase. Same with Hill having Kelce before and Waddle now. JJ and Chase still make plays while double teamed. Also, Belichick isn’t every coach. The reason he’s always been effective at targeting a specific player or weakness (like letting Blount roll Indy’s weak run D) is because of how NE drafts/signs FAs. They spend way more on D than most. Brady is Brady but he always had top Ds and always had solid secondaries. He’s had 11 different DBs make the Probowl or All Pro since he’s been the coach including most being multi-year.

This spread the ball around stuff isn’t that big a deal. KC also won a SB with Kelce and Hill having the overwhelming targets compared to last year. The common denominator is Mahomes. Hurts and the running game/OL was another common denominator, but Philly didn’t spread the ball around. Smith and Brown had 2700 yards and the rest of the WRs had 500 yards. Heck, Brown and Smith had 2/3rds of all passing yards including RBs and TEs. Minnesota isn’t upset they have JJ and Cincy has done great with Chase and Higgins and Buffalo wouldn’t be as effective without Diggs. Spreading the ball around means the WRs have to get open. Olsen and Cam’s running, along with the OL got WRs open in 2015 but having a stud WR would have absolutely helped the offense. It’s silly to think otherwise. If our WRs don’t get separation, spreading the ball around won’t work. Young and the OL will hopefully assist with that but just having a group of guys without a standout doesn’t make the offense better. That group of guys need to get open. Stud WRs are always open.

Yep, Martz doesn’t use TEs, the trade had nothing to do with Greg’s play.

I knew it was him. He takes everything personally and literally flipped out before. Strange bird that talks about positivity but posts in every thread about haters even when no one has said anything bad. He can’t let things go, just odd. He does invite fights and he does take a message board and the team way too seriously.

Would have been a decent choice to ride Baker and Rhule for the entire season. More than bad enough to make getting Young way cheaper. I think those two could have kept us to 3-4 wins to get us pick 1 or 3.

It was a bad trade just like Sam was and just like how Teddy was a waste of money. That’s what I remember posting with other folks who didn’t like the trade. It was obvious that Teddy, Sam and Baker (and even PJ who some in here wanted to give a real chance to) would never lead us to a SB win. I wanted to tank for Trevor and have wanted a stud rookie QB with true potential since day 1 after Cam. It’s a shame that it took 3 years to finally go that direction but I’m happy with Young. Just sucks that we wasted so much cap and draft picks the past few years that we could have use to make the team around him better.

Honestly, I don’t think it’s less optimistic in here. The difference is the reaction to posts. For instance, most in here do think we have a good shot at winning the division and that that is our most likely way into the playoffs (like last year) because our division is the worst one. The survey says 64% think we’ll make the playoffs and 60% think it’ll be by winning the division. When you say that in here it means you don’t believe in the team and don’t like the players and coaches. The only thing that actually surprised me was the SB win in 5 years. Actually, looks like Scot misread that. The question is will the Panthers make the Super Bowl within 5 years. I’d say we can, but it’s not as easy to make/win SBs as we’ve seen and we certainly aren’t talented enough this year or next year. We’ll need a couple solid drafts before I think we are such as Mingo being a quality 1000 yard guy.

10-7 would likely have starters resting week 18. If we go 10-7, that is likely 5-1 in division and a 2+ game lead the last week. I agree that 10-7 would have the division sealed up early.

This looks more reasonable. The OP’s WR numbers plus Hurst, Sanders and the rest is basically a 4500 yard year. That would be a rookie record. Only 4 rookies have ever had more than 4000 yards and I’m sorry, assuming that with a WR corps led by Thiielen is too optimistic. It would be great but that’s a best, best, best case scenario.

Damn the irony, you really can’t let things go. That’s really sad. No one is in this thread saying bad things just that we’ve got a shot because the division’s bad. Oh no, the horror! @LinvilleGorge Is this guy who’s not around anymore and had a mental break when people weren’t super optimistic?

Agree. Young is absolutely the key. We aren’t talented enough yet IMHO that we can overcome mediocre QB play. Our division is bad enough that a couple surprise division wins could get us in the playoffs. I think all teams in the division can beat each other with a couple big plays (see big Tampa loss last year), so pulling out a couple close division games could separate us. The only threat is if somehow Carr plays lights out in NO. They’ve lost a lot of talent on D so who knows.

It’s amazing how the 2015 OL gets discredited. When BC, Bozeman and Corbett start racking up pro bowls and all pros, then this OL is much better. The current OL is better at tackles but that OL was better G to G. When all 3 of your IOL were all pro and/or pro bowl caliber, it’s a good OL. We were ranked top 5 and in some cases only behind Dallas in OL. Also, we absolutely will have a chance to win the division. All we have to get to is above .500 and Id bet we’d be leading the division or at most 1 game out.

Not worth arguing. He’s trying to say he hasn’t been a bust (relative to draft position) because he’s never been more than the #3 target on his 3 teams in 5 years. That’s literally proving you and @LinvilleGorge’s points. Same with well he was behind Mark Andrews. Welp, if you are drafted in the 1st, you are expected to beat out a 3rd rounder and expected to be a top target, especially because TEs only get drafted in the 1st if they are top, top prospects. We think he can contribute so we signed him but the folks thinking Olsen are very likely going to be disappointed. Olsen was better with the Bears even though they didn’t use him a lot and traded him away and the rest is history but he didn’t get beat out by lesser players, ever. He was just in an offense that wasn’t TE friendly. Hurst was not in the same situation. Again, he should be useful to us because we don’t have a front line TE. Hurst should be the starter day 1 and the entire year, but he’s been a disappointment so far for a 1st rounder who turns 30 in training camp.

He was a 6th round pick, not a 1st so seeing the field in year 1 and looking like the starter in year 2 is exceeding expectations. Apples and oranges.

If after 5 years the stat being quoted about a first round pick is that he’s got a good catch percentage, the player has not lived up to being a first round pick. It’s really that simple. It is funny to see people get so upset about preseason rankings and realistic talk about players who haven’t even played a game for us yet. We certainly wouldn’t be scared of Tampa or Atlanta if Baker and Ridder were throwing to Thielen, Chark, TMJ and Hurst. As that one article said, most obsessive fans. I’m all in on Young and I hope he makes this crew look better than they are. We do need skilled position upgrades if we want to do more than compete in a bad division.

Exactly, I say that every time. Rankings are almost always based on prior results. Realistic fans know we haven’t had more than 7 wins in 5 years and that we blew our chance to sneak into the playoffs last year. Our leading WR/TE had 700 yards and he had his worst year in many years. It shouldn’t be a surprise that we would rank low and it doesn’t matter if we think things will be better. We also need to be realistic that we do in fact need improvements in our skilled positions outside of RB. Young is not Cam running wise so he does need some real help and it would be criminal if we think what we have is sufficient. Mingo surprising would be a great first step.

SMH. How else do you rank players? Actual stats or fan perception and small sample size extrapolations. Football is a team sport yet you guys are crying disrespect again because we are at the bottom looking at actual results of our receivers. Funny how now I’m doubting we can win a shitty division because I’m realistic and not ranking WRs/TEs on hope. The Saints were a FG away from the SB in 2018. Atlanta was in the SB in 2016 and we went in 2015. Division was stronger back then. No one in our division is a SB contender. We are going to need better weapons for Young in order to reach Cam’s 2015. Even just Olsen or Cam rushing was a better weapon than any of our WRs/TEs now. We need more to get past just winning the division. We have bright spots and I’ve been asking for a top rookie QB since 2020 offseason but our WRs and TEs aren’t close to the elite guys.