skinny21

With Fuller, there’s a question of whether he, as more of a zone corner, fits what they’re looking for. We can’t really know that of course since it seems they’re not even sure what type of D they’ll run. I’m right there with you on the rest though.

Yeah, I think the contender issue is going to be a factor for sure. I do think other things factor in/are prioritized at times though - culture, relationships, locale, and of course money. Don’t love our chances of landing top notch guys, but I’d say there’s a chance that having Quinn here (and plenty of cap space) makes a difference. We’ll see.

Early on, my reasoning for putting the seat down for every flush: Fairness - this way we both have work to do. Then I saw a graphic showing the germ cloud when the lid is left open* *of course, this might have been paid for by the Toothbrush Council - “You’re brushing **** on your teeth! Buy a dozen a year!” (paraphrasing) What the hell is this thread about?

You mean Wagner on a 1 year deal or thereabouts? I’d definitely be on board for that…

I sure wouldn’t scoff at adding Wagner, but I’d prefer a (proven) younger guy. Good point.

From ‘22 to opening day ‘23, the only real changes were losing coach Harris and Bobby McCain, both of which could have attributed to our communication issues in the secondary. Given how poorly our D was playing up until Sweat/Young were traded, sure seems like the schematic changes Del Rio made must of had a pretty big negative impact. To your point though, Sweat was the only major personnel loss overall as of now. Of course, now we have Fuller, Curl, our rotational DEs, and Barton/Mayo as FAs. I’m looking at the defensive personnel like this: High end guys that can benefit from a better supporting cast (and scheme) - Payne/Allen Guys that have shown a lot of quality play that can hopefully take a significant step forward via improved coaching/scheme/supporting cast - Davis/Forrest/Martin. Guys that have shown relatively little, but have some quality traits and/or pedigree that can hopefully take a huge step forward (w/ improved coaching/scheme/supporting cast) - St Juste/Forbes/Butler/Mathis/Ridgeway/Henry/Jones. That’s a lot of hoping, lol. Looks to me like we need a minimum of 1 quality player added to every position group (except DT) - FS, corner, ILB and DE. Bare minimum for me would be a good (to very good) DE and ILB addition, and a (at the least) decent FS and corner. With that said, it looks like there’s a big opportunity for coaching (including a clarity of scheme) to lift the play of a lot of these guys, especially given how young the group is overall.

I absolutely love the fact that your trig teacher sold green triangles on the side… You could base a movie on that angle. (I’ll see myself out)

Be even cooler to have good players at LT and LG 😁

What you’re saying makes sense of course, but it sure sounded to me like he said we finished in-house roster evals… not “we started roster evals”. Probably a moot point though - while they have a lot of work to do constructing a scheme, seeing where guys fit, seeing what they need and getting into the draft… surely they wind up spending some more time on their current guys. Also, I imagine our player personnel team was relied on heavily, as opposed to position coaches (who’ve literally just been hired) zooming through film.

Yeah, maybe so, though it being the first stage of evals wasn’t the impression I got. Whitt was strangely upbeat having just gotten the report “easily bullied, walking PI, can’t rush, can’t rush, underperformer, underperformer, Quan’s interesting.” 😁 On a more serious note, I agree that this could be huge for Davis, but Forrest is another I’m looking forward to seeing what they can get out of. And while I’ve kind of written him off, Butler is guy that could potentially benefit from clarity of coaching.

I’ll echo the positive comments. Both of these guys sound bent on getting the best they can from the roster and seems like the diverse/quality staff is going to be big. I’ll be real curious how the Frankenstein approach to an offensive and defensive scheme will pan out. Obviously possible it leads to a disjointed affair, but the lack of ego, the implied creativity, and potential for unity/buy in by each coach is exciting. I was a little taken aback that they did current defensive player evaluations in a day (or a couple of hours maybe), especially the comment (paraphrasing) “each coach gave a one liner about each player”. Not saying it’s a bad thing necessarily, just surprised it would boil down to that basic of a level. As to last year’s record predictions, we had a very good defense in ‘22, added a proven offensive scheme (lol), and were starting a qb with far more talent than TH. In hindsight it looks crazy to have expect a 1-3 win improvement, but at the time, eh….

Easy fix - just trade down a bunch to a add a few dozen rooks. Seriously though, I’m with you. Just hope we don’t go after the Nick Gates/Jon Bostic’s of the world in an effort to fill out the roster with stopgaps - the journeyman vets that have shown to be sub-average.

Yeah, my “decent” comment was in regards to guys like Cushenberry, not Williams. I don’t have faith in Gates either, but as a stopgap for a short time until Williams is healthy, I’m fine with that… though I’d much rather Stromberg take that job over Gates. Of course, I don’t know how Stromberg/Gates/any of the “decent” guys (or even Williams) might fit into whatever scheme we run, so that could change things obviously.

Obviously comes down to cost and health (ie did surgery go well and is rehabbing progressing on schedule), but Williams could potentially be a great fit for us IMO. If he needs time to regain his form, we have Gates/Stromberg to hold down the fort. If it’s a 1 year deal, it buys us time to time to find a long term solution to the position (and perhaps nets us a comp pick). If it’s a multi year deal, we can allocate draft picks elsewhere and have (likely) added a quality veteran center that should be a boon to a young qb. Personally, I’d rather roll with Stromberg/Gates over signing a “decent” vet center. In fact, that would be my favored philosophy for FA in general - avoid “decent” (and overpaid) FAs, and instead target high end quality players, up-and-coming young guys with potential, and 1 year prove-it types.

I’m curious how much film you’ve watched of Maye. I’ve watched almost zilch, so I’m not asking because I think you’re wrong, just from my own experience I watched two highlight reels of his that were vastly different. After the first, my thought was “I don’t really get the hype” (he looked like Will Grier 2.0 to me), but the second was a much better illustration of why people are high on him. Surprised me that 2 highlight reels could be so disparate.

Lol. Probably no one? As I said, highly doubtful they do anything but select a qb at 2, and the league will expect that to be the outcome. To be clear though, I didn’t meaning to make it sound like the staff might leak out a bunch of lies in order to try to manipulate the draft. Simply that I could see them (truthfully) pointing out Howell’s positives when asked how they feel about him - his arm talent, athleticism, intangibles, toughness, poor supporting cast, etc. And I wouldn’t be shocked if they spoke very highly about both Maye and Daniels, but raved about MJII. And of course, this line of thinking stemmed in part from the fact that Howell has a strong familiarity with Kingsbury’s system (via Longo), and KK and Longo have a connection. Not sure I agree with your second point, even though it’s kind of besides my point. Guess it depends on how someone views Howell. With (what should hopefully be) vastly improved coaching, quality draft capital and tons of cap space, I’d be surprised if other teams just (essentially) pointed at Howell and laughed. Maybe that’s just me. Overall, I don’t see ARI sweating either the chances of us taking MJII or another team trading up to take him. I do wonder if NE might want to try to trade up to ensure they get their guy. For example, if they have say Maye clearly ahead of Daniels, but we seem to have them as more of a coin toss. Unlikely, but maybe an outside chance of them trying to swap picks with us.

Was just thinking the same thing. I’ll add that it’s even possible Kingsbury completely switches it up, like moving to a predominantly west coast offense with some of the guys he brought on being able to serve as, well, something like interpreters between the two systems. Regardless, looks like a sign his offense is likely to look a fair bit different than we might have expected. (“We” meaning those versed in the Air Raid system… which doesn’t really include me, lol)

Oh, I definitely agree with all of that. Mainly just pointing out that the same points SIP brought up also apply to Howell. To be fair to SIP’s point though, 1) it absolutely points to us avoiding the FA route (Cousins/Wilson/etc), and 2) adding your above points* to his suggests we’re nailed on taking a qb at 2. *of course SIP has made at least most, if not all of those same points you did. Only mentioning that to explain that I know his post I quoted wasn’t in a vacuum… not to take away from your post, lol. Probably not worth expanding on/furthering my initial point, but… let’s say this staff likes both Maye and Daniels a lot; they’d be thrilled with either. While I doubt the league would expect us to do anything but draft a qb at 2, similar to the Cards talking up Rosen, I can see a world where we talk up Howell (and bemoan his support system), including pushing the idea that we’re turning to an offensive scheme he had a lot of success in and comfort with. Then we leak that we absolutely love MJII and also like both qbs. Theoretically, NE and ARI (if the former prefers either Maye or Daniels, and latter is set on MJII) could both get a little uncomfortable with which direction we go. To me, those are the only spots I might be willing to drop down to. Obviously, I highly doubt it plays out anything like that. If we could land a qb the staff loves and net an extra 2nd round pick (or whatever) though? That would be fantastic.

Not that I think they pass on taking a qb at 2, but couldn’t your points also lend themselves to sticking with Howell? Howell has the arm talent, (mostly) positive intangibles, flashed, has pro experience but is still young, could benefit with an offense more catered to him (Kingsbury’s offense and his connection with Longo looms large), and that #2 could be parlayed into (even more) improvement of the supporting cast for Howell. Again, I don’t see them going that route. Frankly, feels like it would be spitting in the face of karma, lol. Heck, even if they really like Howell, even if they have him on par w/ Maye, the added 3 years of a rookie contract is pretty massive. However, I don’t think it would be too hard for the staff to sell the possibility to the rest of the league (if they cared to).

Lot of discouraging info getting churned out regarding the offense. Made me start speculating as to why Quinn would go this route, particularly given he seemed to put so much into figuring out what he’d do differently if given a second opportunity as a HC. Best I can come up with is… 1) all 3 of the top prospects, as well as Howell, have experience in the system. In other words, the scheme should allow whoever our qb is to hit the ground running as it were. 2) if the qb has a head start within the scheme, it might be easier to then hone in on the other aspects of qbing as needed - mechanics, reading defenses, etc. 2) Kingsbury is creative/innovative and Quinn has seen defense adapt/change over a short span of time. An offense that can regularly feature new wrinkles could make life that much harder for defenses. 3) Bobby Johnson has experience in both the Air Raid and other offenses, so might have more of a chance of blending styles. Brian Johnson brings an outside view as well (as does Pritchard, working under both Coryell and West Coast systems). So, taking those pieces together, perhaps the plan is to start fast with whoever our qb is, including addressing their weaknesses, then over time start to incorporate other elements we’re worried about. Not a plan that gives me the warm and fuzzies, but hopefully there’s some sort of method to the madness…

There are valid reasons for this team to spend big on high end quality FAs, and legitimate reasons not to go that direction. And of course our cap space will go quickly - that 83mil looks great, but I believe it’s really more like 64ish due to rooks and in-season spending (obviously still enough to make a big impact though). Now, they can play around with contract structures (particularly with Leno off the books next year, and presumably a rookie qb salary), staggering bigger FA contracts a bit over the next few years, but there are a lot of positions that could use quality/high end help, they need to/should plan on extending Cosmi, and just signing enough bodies will add up quickly. My hunch is their (the FOs) desire to turn this around quickly leads to a pretty aggressive FA. I have to assume Peters will feel a strong need to prove himself - to ownership and to fans, including that he made the right HC hire. I believe Harris is anxious to turn this around too. Wonder how FA players will perceive our situation - rebuild/rookie qb, the allure of playing for Quinn, whether Kingsbury is a plus or minus on this front, etc. Gonna be interesting to see it play out.

Two guys I could see us taking/rolling the dice on at 40 (maybe a bit earlier than expected?) - Corley and Sanders. Both good fits for Kingsbury’s O I believe and both positions of need.

Yeah, I guess I’d say I’m less concerned with “will he run the ball” (ala EB) vs things like “will he run mostly from shotgun?”, “will he mix it up/break tendencies?” and “does he do a good disguising run vs pass?”. I’m too much of a layman to really be able to qualify my concerns with him, but seems like there’s enough content out there pointing out certain concerns that give me some pause. To be clear though (in a general sense), there are certainly things I’ve seen/heard that I like, even if I didn’t go into them. Agreed. I’m hopeful for Stromberg, though I don’t think they can/should assume he’s more than competition/depth. if he wins a starting gig, great, I just don’t think they should ignore the position. It’s a tricky position to be in - needing to add quality to the starting group as well as depth, but not wanting to squander resources, ie: 1) blocking Stromberg from earning a starting role, 2) spending big on a high end FA that blocks a different promising draft pick, or 3) drafting a guy that winds up as a OL depth over a guy that could be a starter at a different position of need. And of course, you don’t want to assume the draft will bring in bonafide starters. With that said, ‘too much quality’ on the oline isn’t exactly a bad problem to have, lol. edit: I think it’s be smart/ideal to land at least one proven or promising guy that has some position flex (either can play both tackle spots or can play G/C)

I’m pretty much aligned with you. Maybe a touch excited about DQ because of the self-awareness, willingness to adapt, and having a personality that should benefit the culture and relationships w/ players/staff. There are some things I like about Kingsbury for sure, but I have some serious reservations there too. Can he marry run/pass? Can he effectively sequence plays? Perhaps the broad question (for me) is does he get caught up in the details and perhaps lose some sense of the big picture? My guess (and it’s not a novel one) is it might come down to - can he surround himself with staff that can help with any of his weaknesses, and will he listen to them? I’m hopeful, maybe even cautiously optimistic, but my expectations are not very high at the moment. On a side note, I’m very intrigued by the idea of the oline spacing. I see the potential for more room for backs and qbs to run, improved sight lines for the qb, and it could make stunts a bit harder to pull off. OTOH, does it leave more space for blitzers and can our oline manage being on more of an island?

Setting aside Kelly, something I’ve probably mentioned once or twice a year for some time now - the benefits of running uptempo practices. You can (roughly) double the amount of reps in a practice. With about 55 spring/summer practices (I think?), running 90 reps per practice rather than 45ish, you’re talking about (again, roughly) 2500+ additional reps. Easy to see how that could be a huge benefit to a young qb, to the backup qbs (who often get minimal reps), and of course to any rookies and free agents brought in. That’s not to mention how the increased reps can help with installing a new offense/defense, and the effects on player fitness. It’s implied, but I’m going to spell it out anyway… those additional reps could be a big help with getting olineman more used to each other, ie fast tracking the continuity aspect of oline play (not to mention other units). Back to Chip Kelly, I’m not a fan of the man, of how he came across in his first stint in the NFL. The tweet earlier suggesting he’s altered his scheme at the college level (and its relevancy to the NFL) is a positive. Serving as an OC vs a HC could help reel in some of his excesses, but that’s speculation. I guess if I had to weigh bringing him in vs a young guy that hasn’t had to craft/coach/call plays for the offense, well… there’s risk in both avenues. I wouldn’t be thrilled about Kelly, but the potential of uptempo practices (as well as game usage) is really appealing to me.