Rosenthal: Carolina surprise offenseRo

[jfra78]

1 hour ago, t96 said:

We’ll see. I’m not so confident in that side of the ball. We had the 2nd worst defense last year and that was with guys like Luke, McCoy, Bradberry, etc. that are gone now. Could come down to coaching and Snow is not very awe inspiring...

I don't think our defense is anywhere near as talented as last year, but a top 10 offense will put the defense in better position to win

[RevJ]

I think we go 1-4, season gets paused, end up winning 2 of 3 before shut down, and there is mild encouragement on huddle board for a 3-5 year.

And most will not think season should have stopped  . . .

[Basbear]

With the Defensive looking like it will give up 42 points per game, offensive will have PLENTY of opportunities.   

[kungfoodude]

9 hours ago, MasterAwesome said:

Nobody has been able to explain how to get a team of 53 grown competitive men playing at the highest level of competition with their livelihood on the line in an extremely violent game to buy into a “rebuilding” *cough* TANK *cough* period where you basically throw in the towel for a couple seasons while you accumulate assets so that maybe you can compete in 3 or 4 seasons.

Well we probably built a roster that makes it a lot easier to be bad without having to try. That usually helps in tanking.

I agree that you aren't going to get a team to willingly do that, though. 

[Mr Mojo Risin]

10 hours ago, jfra78 said:

Maybe we already have one, give the dude a chance.  

Had* one 

[stbugs]

Until we decided to give up and put Grier in, we were on pace for the 16th rated offense right behind GB, Houston and Atlanta and that was with a horrific OL. We would just have to kick around 1 extra FG every other game to have been right around top 10. We still would have had a -100 point differential even with a 5-3 start. We have lost a lot of talent from last year. I like the rookies, but our D will be worse this year so a top 10 offense isn't changing much from last year and we likely won't have a hot start.

[stbugs]

10 hours ago, top dawg said:

I just don't quite understand the people who are discounting Teddy out of hand. When he has played, he has won! 

Experience has taught me that hype/success in college is not guaranteed to translate to the NFL. Teddy has won in the NFL! That should stand for something! I realize that it doesn't mean anything to everyone---because many people always get enamored with the next big thing---but actually winning in the NFL is more important than a paper champion who has yet to play a pro game.

Winning in the NFL because you are on a team with a solid D and good running game isn't much for the next team. Teddy had 3200 yards and 17 total TDs in his best year. That's almost 1/3rd of Cam's total TDs in his best year. Teddy was 100% a game manager for a solid team and he had as many turnovers as TDs that year. That's not good. Also, Teddy's had 2 winning years. One where he was Trent Dilfer and one where he came in as a backup for a team that was one play from the SB the two years before. Are we ignoring how awful he looked in 2018 against us when Kyle Allen showed him up?

How many QBs developed into franchise QBs after 5 years with 38 total passing TDs? Steve Young who had to sit behind Montana. Rich Gannon, who took 12 years. Who else?

I've got no confidence that he'll be anything other than just OK. With our D giving up around 30 a game, he can't throw 14 TDs and expect to win. He's going to have to put up 30 or more TDs and I am not sure he can.

[Davidson Deac II]

9 hours ago, jfra78 said:

I don't think our defense is anywhere near as talented as last year, but a top 10 offense will put the defense in better position to win

Our defense last year wasn't that talented.  Luke was on his last legs, Short was out with injury, and Bradberry while solid, couldn't do it all.  This years group has a chance to be better, in part because they would be hard pressed to be worse.

[kungfoodude]

13 minutes ago, Davidson Deac II said:

Our defense last year wasn't that talented.  Luke was on his last legs, Short was out with injury, and Bradberry while solid, couldn't do it all.  This years group has a chance to be better, in part because they would be hard pressed to be worse.

We are also substantially less deep at almost every position on the defense than last year. Our quality depth is pretty bad. That was my biggest concern with our current defensive roster, not the quality of the the starters(although there are some questions) but the quality of the depth. Right now, we have a lot of guys that are PS quality that are currently going to be in our two deep. That doesn't bode well for us on that side of the ball.

We kind of have to expect that with the massive amount of dead cap and the free spending in free agency that we did. It's going to take time and money to build up that quality depth again. 

[Thorrez]

13 hours ago, Wes21 said:

Yeah, a 7-9 season is so much more important than securing a franchise QB

Not sure if you mean Trubisky, Darnell, Mayfield or Murray here? 

Point being even if we manage a tanking, it is a coin flip at best. 

[kungfoodude]

6 minutes ago, Thorrez said:

Not sure if you mean Trubisky, Darnell, Mayfield or Murray here? 

Point being even if we manage a tanking, it is a coin flip at best. 

The thought is that the upper end QB's in this upcoming class are "safer" bets. Even after Lawrence and Fields it does actually look like a strong QB class, depending on who declares.

[top dawg]

1 hour ago, stbugs said:

Winning in the NFL because you are on a team with a solid D and good running game isn't much for the next team. Teddy had 3200 yards and 17 total TDs in his best year. That's almost 1/3rd of Cam's total TDs in his best year. Teddy was 100% a game manager for a solid team and he had as many turnovers as TDs that year. That's not good. Also, Teddy's had 2 winning years. One where he was Trent Dilfer and one where he came in as a backup for a team that was one play from the SB the two years before. Are we ignoring how awful he looked in 2018 against us when Kyle Allen showed him up?

How many QBs developed into franchise QBs after 5 years with 38 total passing TDs? Steve Young who had to sit behind Montana. Rich Gannon, who took 12 years. Who else?

I've got no confidence that he'll be anything other than just OK. With our D giving up around 30 a game, he can't throw 14 TDs and expect to win. He's going to have to put up 30 or more TDs and I am not sure he can.

Teddy was good in college, so much so that I remember a few Huddlers mentioning "tanking for Teddy" the season before he came out. And, it's not like his winning ways haven't translated to the NFL, regardless of whether someone believes he only did it because he had a good team surrounding him. At some point, one really has to concede that you're not going to take a trash team to the playoffs, regardless of who you are.

Unlike Trent Dilfer who simply didn't have to do much, Bridgewater actually had to win a few games. His defenses were very good, but they weren't historical. But, I can understand why you'd think of Teddy as a game manager. That's not necessarily a bad thing in all cases. We almost one a Super Bowl with a glorified game manager (and Delhomme was one in my opinion), but this brings me to the next point, which is sometimes that has a lot to do with the HC's and OC's philosophy as well. 

I have questions about Teddy, believe me. But I have less questions about his ability to get some wins than whether or not his decidedly small frame can hold up to the rigors of the NFL. I mean, he really had a catastrophic injury. If he hadn't his career just might be on full showcase as opposed to a reclamation project. I'm not going to count it against him because he played on decent defensive teams, including one as a rookie, but then got hurt in the third year when many QBs show marked improvement and start putting it all together. If anything, he didn't have to be as proficient or efficient as he was, particularly in his sophomore season, considering the relatively little experience that he had. The other two seasons were pretty much throwaways where he didn't get any credible playing time and rehabbing both physically and mentally, and people not really believing that he could resume any semblance of success (which probably had to do moreso with his injury than anything else). Bottom line: He took the reigns and stayed the course for one of the best in NFL history. So, yeah, I'm not sure he can get us to where we want to ultimately go, but if he stays healthy, I wouldn't bet against him. His career is the epitome of disjointed, but injuries do that to even the Cam Newtons and Andrew Lucks of the league who had considerably more time at the helm. 

This year (or next) will tell us a lot.

 

[Wes21]

16 hours ago, top dawg said:

I just don't quite understand the people who are discounting Teddy out of hand. When he has played, he has won! 

Experience has taught me that hype/success in college is not guaranteed to translate to the NFL. Teddy has won in the NFL! That should stand for something! I realize that it doesn't mean anything to everyone---because many people always get enamored with the next big thing---but actually winning in the NFL is more important than a paper champion who has yet to play a pro game.

We will get to 7-9 BECAUSE of Teddy.  That's not a discount, that's an improvement.  Without him we probably don't win that many games.  But you can flip that to 9-7 if it makes you feel better.  But what's the point?  I'm not a "hey let's just tank the entire season" kind of a guy.  Losing sucks.  But I also don't understand the logic in signing someone like Teddy for $20M a year.  There is nothing wrong with Teddy, other than he's not the kind of kid that's going to put a team on his back and go out and win a bunch of games on his own.  But if you put a team around him, he's more than capable of stacking wins.  The 2017 Jaguars would probably have been Super Bowl champs if they had a healthy Teddy Bridgewater.  I'm just not seeing the kind of roster that Teddy can win double digit games with and stack up playoff wins.  We need a little time.  Bring in a vet, that's fine.  But why tie up so many resources for someone like Teddy? 

We'll see how it turns out.  If this roster improves quickly, it will be a great move to get Teddy on board.  Otherwise it was just a wasted opportunity, when the better model has been shown to be going out and getting a QB on his rookie contract and stack the deck around him before you have to pay him.

[4Corners]

Phil Rosenthal > Gregg Rosenthal