LinvilleGorge

Fans think this way but folks who will be leaving millions of actual dollars on the table don't.

If his name was "Joe Smith" instead of "Marvin Harrison Jr." I honestly think there would be a lively debate over who is the #1 WR prospect available.

No, Dalton isn't very good but the difference would've probably gotten us to 5-6 wins IMO. That's enough to drop you down to the 5-7 range vs. #1 overall.

I think he's a helluva WR prospect but I don't understand the generational talk. Would anyone trade a Chase or Jefferson for him? Okay then, how is he generational? Hell, I'm not certain he's the best WR in this class.

"Not every team can draft me. There's only one of me." said with the biggest of poo eating grins. Maybe this guy will prove to just be THAT good but I honestly think he's gonna bust HARD.

I never blame a prosect for how he chooses to approach the pre-draft process. They're all just trying to maximize their stock. But when guys opt out of things it absolutely raises valid questions on why they think that opting out of this thing is the best option for their draft stock. Guys absolutely don't try to harm their draft stock. They might go full Eli and flat out refuse to play for certain teams and force a trade if they have that type of leverage but they're not going to try to fall in the draft and literally cost themselves millions of dollars.

No medical testing for Caleb Williams at the combine...

Possibly. But I doubt we 're #1 overall if we'd just played Andy Dalton all season. Probably not top 3. Maybe not top 5. I wouldn't trade Stroud for any rookie this year. Not after seeing what he did on an NFL field. I bet the Texans wouldn't either.

Bad teams are never just a QB away but you don't get to pick and choose when you can land a franchise QB. When the opportunity arises you jump. You don't draft a guy for his rookie year, you draft him hoping he's the answer for a decade plus. We had an opportunity and we shot our shot. We just missed.

Due diligence. The trade wasn't the mistake that we made, it was the pick. Well, it should've been Burns in the trade not Moore. That was a mistake.

I'd rather let Burns slam than pay him $30M per but with the bump in cap I'd tag and trade him.

Firing Rivera mid-season left a bad taste in the mouths of NFL lifers. Yeah, Rivera deserved to be fired but he didn't deserve to be fired mid-season. That's kinda whatever because no one would've ultimately cared if he got the replacement hire right. But he didn't. He went out and hired a college coach of a third tier program whose philosophy of riding good D with serviceable offense doesn't really translate on the modern NFL. He paired that with a hot shot college OC who had never actually called plays before then scapegoats that guy when he clearly wasn't the issue. That's when the red flags started flying for me. Oh, Tepper will scapegoat folks to protect the guy he went all in on. Then he knee jerk fires Rhule mere weeks into the season when everyone thought he should've been fired at the end of the previous season, plugging in a seasoned DC and former NFL HC in Wilks to "audition". Wilks rights the ship and we end up being average down the stretch but he's not retained and Tepper hires a retread offensive guy to pair with the QB he's gonna draft. The QB looks like a total flop and the coach doesn't make it through the season. There's that scapegoating again. It's a mess and it all points back to David Tepper.

It's stems from Tepper's incompetence and perceived heavy meddling. Rhule is a symptom not the disease.

No one with other potential NFL HC options was taking this job. That's the sad reality. Our candidate pool started with the options no one else was interested in.

Meanwhile, Brian Burns defending the run

I mean, it's fitting. If you're gonna run a circus you need a circus tent.

Pretty much agree with all of that.

It would definitely be a good landing spot for Fields. I'd like to find out if he's legit and being held back by the Bears or if that's just who he is - extremely talented but wildly inconsistent.

I like Fields so I'd prefer him stay out of the division. I like Mayfield too so it already sucks having him in the division.

That sucks but I honestly don't blame you. I get it, at some point it's gotta really start feeling like throwing good money after bad.

Their play in 2022.

Bryce was probably the best QB in college in 2021. He wasn't top 5 in 2022. Caleb Williams was better. Drake Maye was better. C.J. Stroud was better. Hell, Max Duggan, Bo Nix, Penix, even Sam Hartman were better. This is why that laughable talking point that Bryce was having to carry inferior talent at ALABAMA of all places started popping up.

Yeah, I'll believe we've fixed this mess when we start actually winning games. I've heard too much about all the big plans and analytics and new approaches and blah, blah, blah. I'm done buying any of it. Show me you can win NFL football games, period.

I think he was exactly what we hoped he'd be. It's just that everyone else was a lot less than what we hoped they'd be.