Falcons were worse off after 2007

[House]

Wow, I don't know. I remember the team being completely hamstrung in past offseasons by Julius Peppers and the Franchise tag fiasco. So much to the point they had to extend Jake Delhomme. I see that as mismanagement to the nth degree.

While initially, I would agree with you, one would really need to know what was going on "behind the scenes".

Was Hurney the one that wanted to stick Pep with the FT or was Hurney the one that was tasked with finding a way to do it while still being under the cap?

If it is the former, I don't know why he would put the team in that situation if JR and/or Fox wasn't really big on the matter.

So I would tend to think it was the latter of the two. In which case he did the only thing that was available to him to do. I also remember that Fox and JR where on board with the whole extending Jake thing. Also, if it wasn't for the whole "poison pill" $12,000,000 thing then it wouldn't have been that bad of a deal, and no one really saw Jake falling off the way he did. Not that anyone really believed Jake was that good anymore but he was at least thought to be a stop-gap for a couple of years until his hier was ready.

[Mr. Scot]

nowhere to go but up.

You know how people like to say "well, at least it couldn't get any worse"?

Never say that :nonod:

[Mr. Scot]

I appreciate the sentiment of the thread, but Atlanta didn't keep the GM that got them into that situation after that season.

You can't equate their situation to ours.

Atlanta was in business as usual mode, not in a youth movement. This season is anything but BAU for the Panthers.

[Falcons1stPanthers2nd]

Fiz. We will not get blown out by anyone.

[Carolina Husker]

Sorry, but a "genius GM" would never have a 1-15 team under his watch this far into his tenure. I'm not sure why we as fans keep bending over backwards to defend a guy whose team has never strung together two straight winning seasons.

[Fiz]

Sorry, but a "genius GM" would never have a 1-15 team under his watch this far into his tenure. I'm not sure why we as fans keep bending over backwards to defend a guy whose team has never strung together two straight winning seasons.

throwing out the "no back to back winning season" card is pretty silly. surely you don't think that 2004 wouldn't have had a winning season barring the injuries, which of course hurney had nothing to do with. Surely 2007 probably would have had a winning season if not for jake, and even then there wasn't a single person on this board that did anything but praise him for the Carr signing.

taking things out of context is lame.

[Khyber53]

The most important thing for our team to rebuild is a new CBA. Until that is set in stone and the next set of Salary Caps in place, our front office isn't going to risk many dollars.

It takes a long-term plan to build a competitive team, and right now, with the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging over the league, long-term planning isn't going anywhere. We won't pick up a top tier coach or veteran talent until everything is settled and we know what kind of resources we will have to work with. And if something doesn't happen before draft time, we can expect to see some of our most beloved players be allowed to walk.

[Carolina Husker]

you're the first person to use the word genius in this thread, so you're making up something to argue with.

taking things out of context is lame.

Nuh uh.

I think that if you would objectively look at the situation you would see that Hurney has been an awesome GM. Not only is he a genius with the cap but there have been a lot of really good players drafted by Hurney.

throwing out the "no back to back winning season" card is pretty silly. surely you don't think that 2004 wouldn't have had a winning season barring the injuries, which of course hurney had nothing to do with. Surely 2007 probably would have had a winning season if not for jake, and even then there wasn't a single person on this board that did anything but praise him for the Carr signing.

It's really not. In the NFL, more than any other sport, a team's record is really the most important barometer of how a team should be judged. Our 1-15 season is one injured Alex Smith away from the makings of joining the 2008 Detroit Lions as the worst team in the history of the league. If a lack of talent on this team is partly to blame for this season, how does Hurney not share some culpability for that?

I'm not saying the guy is awful. He's got a lameduck coach who appears to be content upperdecking this franchise on his way out of town, a penny-pinching owner who'd rather brake the Player's Union than field a competitive team, and 3 of the worst QBs in the league all in one locker room. It's not an ideal situation.

I'm just saying there are usually broad, sweeping changes following a 1-15 season, from the GM down, and I'm not sold on the idea that he's above being held accountable for this season because he's made some commendable salary cap moves.

[Fiz]

What lack of talent is hurting the team specifically?

[Carolina Husker]

Qb, og, t, wr, dt, s, cb, de, pr/kr

[Fiz]

Well not de or k/pr but whatever.

You're not going go go out and bring in another tackle. Prior to the season, they already had three and one guy who could play it.

Matt moore earned the start, but they needed a vet backup.

Basically the biggest holes this year were dt, wr, backup qb.

How can you lay he blame for that at hurney's feet?

[Carolina Husker]

Umm, because he's the GM? Just because the ball didn't bounce in our favor on every decision doesn't mean he's above criticism. Again, being 1-15 with one of the most anemic offenses in league history falls at the feet of the GM at some point in the conversation of "how did we end up here?"

It was pretty well known within the organization, at least amongst the players, before training camp started that we were going to be Otah-less for most of the season. I understand it's not easy to go out and plug in a quality RT/LT overnight, but what we have now is pretty bad.

Our DEs are average at best. Johnson is rotational, and Brown, though he looks more promising than he did this time last year, is always going to be compared to the 1st round pick Hurney gave up to get him here. Neither would start for most other teams in the league, and they both look like career situational ends at this point in their careers. And couple that with an atrocious secondary and the personnel looks even worse. At the very least, they're not above being replaced.

Obviously a lack of a legitimate QB is the most glaring miss, a concern for about 80% of the teams in this league, but we're going on two seasons now of having the worst QB corp in the country. His steadfast love for Delhomme ruined us last year, and his inability to find his replacement ruined us this year. I'm still okay with the Clausen pick there at 48, but I'm not okay with not having a viable veteran QB on the roster to start the season. That's our biggest weakness currently, and that is distinctively a result of Hurney's moves as a GM.

If we pass on Luck this spring, barring a trade for anything other than a lion's share of picks to move down, God help us all. This is now, more than ever, a QB-driven league, and what we've been subjected to behind center these past few years has been some of the worst quarterback play I've seen in nearly 18 years of watching football.

Again, I'm not saying Hurney is to blame for all of our woes, nor am I saying he's a terrible GM. I'm just saying he seems to be getting by pretty well for the long-time GM of the worst team in the league. If he was retained next season, I wouldn't be angry. If he was let go, I wouldn't be angry either.

[AceMan]

You can't equate their situation to ours.

We're doing that with this thread

[Fiz]

I'm going to slaughter that when I'm not iposting, husker.