Random General Thoughts: Fascinating!

[kungfoodude]

Basically everyone's outlook on "the process" so far is an indication of whether you were excited about the Rhule hire initially or had some misgivings. 

If you were immediately on board with the hire, all these moves give you a sense of confidence that we are moving in the right direction.

If you had qualms about hiring Rhule and his transition to the NFL, you are looking at all these moves and seeing a complete lack of clear goals.

That's basically it. And both sides are dealing with incomplete information. I suspect we are all going to stay on our relative sides of the argument until games start being played.

[MasterAwesome]

4 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Basically everyone's outlook on "the process" so far is an indication of whether you were excited about the Rhule hire initially or had some misgivings. 

If you were immediately on board with the hire, all these moves give you a sense of confidence that we are moving in the right direction.

If you had qualms about hiring Rhule and his transition to the NFL, you are looking at all these moves and seeing a complete lack of clear goals.

That's basically it. And both sides are dealing with incomplete information. I suspect we are all going to stay on our relative sides of the argument until games start being played.

I don't think it's as much about your initial thoughts on the hiring of the coaching staff, but rather your thoughts on the process of "rebuilding" vs. "tanking".  If you were intent that our best move for the long-term success of the franchise was to completely tank this year with the mindset of getting that #1 overall pick in 2021, stockpiling compensatory picks, roster transactions that roll over as much money as possible towards future cap space, etc. then you are probably left up in arms and scratching your head at the moves this offseason. 

Instead, if you are a proponent of "rebuilding" in the sense that we are drastically changing our philosophy from the top down with regards to the coaching staff and roster building, towards the objective of still trying to compete without jeopardizing our future, then these moves are put into perspective more.  There's a difference between "not jeopardizing our future" (i.e. giving out short-term, relatively low-moderate high upside contracts that are easy to get out of while retaining our draft capital) vs. going all out in building towards the future (willfully sacrificing the next couple seasons in order to build as much draft capital and cap space as possible).  I don't think the latter is something you can generally get away with very often in professional football...particularly when it comes to getting your locker room of 53 professional athletes in a short-lived, dangerous sport to buy into this philosophy for the sake of the future of the franchise that they may or may not even be a part of.  People are furious at the Panthers "wasting" the careers of franchise greats like Cam and Luke, and are now unironically advocating that we do the same (except a thousand times more blatant and egregious) to players like CMC and DJ Moore.

[top dawg]

2 hours ago, kungfoodude said:

Basically everyone's outlook on "the process" so far is an indication of whether you were excited about the Rhule hire initially or had some misgivings. 

If you were immediately on board with the hire, all these moves give you a sense of confidence that we are moving in the right direction.

If you had qualms about hiring Rhule and his transition to the NFL, you are looking at all these moves and seeing a complete lack of clear goals.

That's basically it. And both sides are dealing with incomplete information. I suspect we are all going to stay on our relative sides of the argument until games start being played.

I wasn't actually thrilled with the Rhule hire---more neutral than anything else. I warmed up to the idea after seeing him build his staff and make some moves (which he is obviously doing with Hurney essentially his proxy)!

I understand that people have their misgivings about nepotism & all that, but I see it as potentially smart (if he knows what he's doing)! His moves have been decidedly deliberate and not all willy nilly or taking what he can get from my perspective, so I don't see how anyone can really say that what he's done so far is indicative of a "complete lack of clear goals." You may not agree with what he's done, but he's assembled his staff and personnel with people sprinkled in that he knows and trusts. In my opinion, this will help his transition to the NFL and the franchise's transition to the way he does things and the team's transition from mediocre (or simply bad the last couple of years) to competitive. To me, it's kinda clear as day so far, but I realize some people won't like it, and I'm also aware that it could backfire, but I've seen nothing to lead me to believe that it will. To the contrary, I like most of the moves we've made so far (because, like I said, I can kinda see what he's doing so far, and it fits).

[MHS831]

So how has Rhule done it?   Look at a program like Kansas.  They lose most of the time.  They have accepted losing.  Basketball school.  What a dumb concept that is.  Why did their coaches not come in and turn the programs around like Rhule has been able to do, TWICE? They recruit, they develop players.  What is the difference?   Motivation.  Understanding that hard work and hustle overcome talent.

 

[Icege]

Once we get Marty Hurney away from the roster we can finally build consistent success

[kungfoodude]

3 hours ago, MasterAwesome said:

I don't think it's as much about your initial thoughts on the hiring of the coaching staff, but rather your thoughts on the process of "rebuilding" vs. "tanking".  If you were intent that our best move for the long-term success of the franchise was to completely tank this year with the mindset of getting that #1 overall pick in 2021, stockpiling compensatory picks, roster transactions that roll over as much money as possible towards future cap space, etc. then you are probably left up in arms and scratching your head at the moves this offseason. 

Instead, if you are a proponent of "rebuilding" in the sense that we are drastically changing our philosophy from the top down with regards to the coaching staff and roster building, towards the objective of still trying to compete without jeopardizing our future, then these moves are put into perspective more.  There's a difference between "not jeopardizing our future" (i.e. giving out short-term, relatively low-moderate high upside contracts that are easy to get out of while retaining our draft capital) vs. going all out in building towards the future (willfully sacrificing the next couple seasons in order to build as much draft capital and cap space as possible).  I don't think the latter is something you can generally get away with very often in professional football...particularly when it comes to getting your locker room of 53 professional athletes in a short-lived, dangerous sport to buy into this philosophy for the sake of the future of the franchise that they may or may not even be a part of.  People are furious at the Panthers "wasting" the careers of franchise greats like Cam and Luke, and are now unironically advocating that we do the same (except a thousand times more blatant and egregious) to players like CMC and DJ Moore.

I think those thoughts are tied to together from an extent because it is still(IMO) unclear if we are rebuilding or tanking. It is(again IMO) extremely difficult to fathom what the overall strategy is here because there are a lot of conflicting moves. If you look at the signings of guys like Anderson and Bridgewater(and Thompson and Boston to a lesser extent), you can easily see where a "rebuild" is logical. 

Then you take a look at the signing of JAG level players to large(comparatively) contracts with extremely short terms(1-2 years max) and the persistent and extremely obvious holes in the roster and the thought is "tank."

IMO, my best guess is they are doing some sort of weird hedge on that. Kind of prepping for a tank and kind of prepping for a rebuild. That is just a strange strategy to me and it seems sort of destined for a lower level of franchise purgatory than we are already at. 

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, top dawg said:

I wasn't actually thrilled with the Rhule hire---more neutral than anything else. I warmed up to the idea after seeing him build his staff and make some moves (which he is obviously doing with Hurney essentially his proxy)!

I understand that people have their misgivings about nepotism & all that, but I see it as potentially smart (if he knows what he's doing)! His moves have been decidedly deliberate and not all willy nilly or taking what he can get from my perspective, so I don't see how anyone can really say that what he's done so far is indicative of a "complete lack of clear goals." You may not agree with what he's done, but he's assembled his staff and personnel with people sprinkled in that he knows and trusts. In my opinion, this will help his transition to the NFL and the franchise's transition to the way he does things and the team's transition from mediocre (or simply bad the last couple of years) to competitive. To me, it's kinda clear as day so far, but I realize some people won't like it, and I'm also aware that it could backfire, but I've seen nothing to lead me to believe that it will. To the contrary, I like most of the moves we've made so far (because, like I said, I can kinda see what he's doing so far, and it fits).

Well what is the plan, in that case? What are the goals that you see so clearly laid out in the moves he has made? 

As I stated(IMO), there seems to be two or more competing strategies at play. 

[kungfoodude]

46 minutes ago, MHS831 said:

So how has Rhule done it?   Look at a program like Kansas.  They lose most of the time.  They have accepted losing.  Basketball school.  What a dumb concept that is.  Why did their coaches not come in and turn the programs around like Rhule has been able to do, TWICE? They recruit, they develop players.  What is the difference?   Motivation.  Understanding that hard work and hustle overcome talent.

 

Yes but that process is very much different in college than at the professional level. Kansas is at some natural disadvantages and also doesn't fully commit to being successful as a college football program(and they have also had sporadic periods of success). 

Building in the NFL is a much more even playing field than college football, which relies very heavily on coaching and roster building. The advantages/disadvantages of college football are minimized in the NFL.

It remains to be seen if Rhule(and staff) are great coaches and it remains to be seen if they have the necessary evaluation ability to maintain consistent success in the NFL.

One thing that should give anyone pause is that Rhule had never shown the ability to MAINTAIN success at the college level. He achieved his program building/rebuilding and then moved on to the next school. You can be in a perpetual boom and bust cycle in the NFL and be successful. That is literally what has gotten our previous two coaches fired. 

[Moo Daeng]

The guest on WFNZ the other night (I know,  but I've been out of the country 6 months so I listened) made a good point. With the aging QBs in our division it is the perfect time to go through our rebuild. In a few years we are primed to take the NFC South when Brees, Brady, and Ryan are gone.

[kungfoodude]

2 minutes ago, Moo Daeng said:

The guest on WFNZ the other night (I know,  but I've been out of the country 6 months so I listened) made a good point. With the aging QBs in our division it is the perfect time to go through our rebuild. In a few years we are primed to take the NFC South when Brees, Brady, and Ryan are gone.

That is entirely dependent on our ability to build. The Saints have a very talented and very young core. Every team in the division currently has a better roster on paper than ours. 

The guest is not incorrect in that we CAN be positioned very well for the 2-5 year period from now but there are a lot of things we have to do with the team/roster to be able to take advantage of that. It is definitely not an "A then B" process.

[top dawg]

13 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Well what is the plan, in that case? What are the goals that you see so clearly laid out in the moves he has made? 

As I stated(IMO), there seems to be two or more competing strategies at play. 

I stated it in the post! Short version: to change the team relatively quickly from mediocre to competitive by building a staff & team with people that he has intimate knowledge of or familiarity with without aimlessly nuking things in his wake!

[kungfoodude]

1 minute ago, top dawg said:

I stated it in the post! Short version: to change the team relatively quickly from mediocre to competitive by building a staff & team with people that he has intimate knowledge of or familiarity with without aimlessly nuking things in his wake!

That might make sense for the coaching staff, that isn't exactly a winning strategy for the NFL. See: Rivera, Ron.

[Moo Daeng]

13 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

That is entirely dependent on our ability to build. The Saints have a very talented and very young core. Every team in the division currently has a better roster on paper than ours. 

The guest is not incorrect in that we CAN be positioned very well for the 2-5 year period from now but there are a lot of things we have to do with the team/roster to be able to take advantage of that. It is definitely not an "A then B" process.

His point was that for us, in this division, now is the best time to be doing this given it needs to be done. 

Of course you still need to do it successfully. That does without saying. It won't happen if you don't try.

[MasterAwesome]

27 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

I think those thoughts are tied to together from an extent because it is still(IMO) unclear if we are rebuilding or tanking. It is(again IMO) extremely difficult to fathom what the overall strategy is here because there are a lot of conflicting moves. If you look at the signings of guys like Anderson and Bridgewater(and Thompson and Boston to a lesser extent), you can easily see where a "rebuild" is logical. 

Then you take a look at the signing of JAG level players to large(comparatively) contracts with extremely short terms(1-2 years max) and the persistent and extremely obvious holes in the roster and the thought is "tank."

IMO, my best guess is they are doing some sort of weird hedge on that. Kind of prepping for a tank and kind of prepping for a rebuild. That is just a strange strategy to me and it seems sort of destined for a lower level of franchise purgatory than we are already at. 

Not sure I follow your logic in bold. You’re looking at it from a casual fan’s perspective rather than the perspective of the coaching staff/scouts. I guarantee you with the contracts they gave these guys, that they’re not considering them “JAG level players”...rather they think they are starter-level players that are capable of filling some of those “obvious holes” you mentioned. Bottom line is that if they were truly in tank mode, they would’ve signed some bandaid nobodies to minimal contracts and just taken the comp picks, rather than extend mid-tier contracts to players like Weatherly and Burris. I don’t know how you can make any arguments to the contrary other than some kind of blanket “Hurney is just so dumb and makes no sense!!!” statement.

Nothing the FO has done to this point screams “tank” to me...I don’t see the contradicting strategies that you do.