wit33

Retreads are appropriate when pursuing bonus football!!! Ya! Not happening, but wouldn’t be against it.

Not sure Rivera has much say in personnel, especially early on. Maybe he gained some cache when competing for a SB.

Exaclty. Especially one with great pedigree and elite size and athleticism. These bargains exist every year. No way I pay Darby. I think he’s been great this year.

Keep the big boys together and wait to make decisions until Young and Sweat are due for extensions. Wonder how much influence Rivera had with the overall philosophy being to pay the big boys and let corners walk when in Carolina? I’m okay with getting the elite athlete veteran corner on a cheap deal (Darby), then letting them get paid elsewhere. This coupled with investing In young dudes in the draft. Let this be a place where corners want to come to resurrect their value and get paid elsewhere the following year.

Not to be a downer, but Gibson seems atrocious with stretch/zone run concepts, especially when under center. It seems Turner and staff have attempted to keep teams honest with outside runs through use of pitches and sweeps.

Do you pay Settle (something similar to what Matt got) and Allen and let Matty Ice walk when deal is done?

Play hardball with Alex Smith and pay these two dudes with some of that money.

I think Turner and the staff have turned the corner on understanding how best to use the RBs on the team: Gibson is a monster out of the shotgun set (truly dynamic) more so for me due to his ability to get the tough yards out of this formation. Just scratching the surface of his receiving ability— he’s going to be tough. Mckissic is the fly sweep threat on early downs and the primary on 3rd and 3/longer. Barber is the under Center back and go to guy for short yardage. This has created a good run game that will be tested against better teams coming up. I’m borderline confident because of Alex Smith and him making a career out of this style, brand, and philosophical approach to football, but this was pre injury and when he had some wheels to extend plays/run for timely first downs. Curious to see how capable he is to manage a game against the better teams/defenses as Alex of today. This was no problem for him pre injury.

I have no clue how to rate centers lol It seems like every team likes their center and feel he’s undervalued lol

I’m sure I’ll find another partner to engage in some Smith debates lol. It’s been real. Here’s to hoping Smith continues the miracle run he’s on and leads the young team to the post season. To spin back to Gibson, Smith should continue to be a great positive for his development. Anyone have any idea of Smith has the ability to audible at the to run right or left or get out of a run call altogether??

Is this considered an indictment in your view? If so, I’d encourage you to look around the league of QBs 6-15 and see how often they make the playoffs? Also, Smith and Niners organization were horrible in his first 4 seasons. Average to above QB has great value at the right cost. QB play hovering around 13-20 on a rookie deal or a veteran at 6-9% has great value, IMO. Sure, continue the hunt for the next elite guy, but maximize your windows of talent your team has. I’ll pass on the idea of throwing away average to above QB play with a team potentially ready to compete to find the next elite young guy. Though, I don’t believe these have to be mutually exclusive. My wish would be the team being shrewd with what they pay Smith next season or whatever other veteran and look to get a dual threat guy.

Smith has made it to an NFC title game. What label do you give Alex Smith teams if not “in the hunt”. You said you feel Kyle Allen could be a playoff QB like Smith. Something along those lines. To be honest, I don’t think we’re that far off on what we want for the future, but disagree on the kind of career Smith has had. Who cares lol.

Ya, I couldn’t tell you what the difference is between below average and average, so maybe his is now average. Currently, he’s dynamic out of the gun set where the run asks him to get down hill and requires less feel/nuance. Great run, no doubt. He’s working at it and you can see he’s gaining confidence and ownership of runs he makes and misses. Why do you think he struggles when QB is under center?? He’s really bad, IMO. You can beat any QB not named Mahomes (lol) with great defense and strong supporting cast. Rodgers hasn’t won a SB in 15 years and he’s a top 5 QB of all time. I can’t say enough how much I dislike the argument of winning the SB being the end all be all, but I understand that’s an opinion. If I have coaching staff, philosophy, a top 20 QB (being paid 5-7% of the cap), a great supporting cast and that provided a window 3 consecutive playoff runs, 2 NFC title game losses and a first round exit... I will not view that as a failure or find something to blame. All time great QBs don’t win SBs either and many go 10-15 years without winning one, but somehow that one means negates all the other seasons. This is where we divide and have often in the past, you can’t just grant Kyle Allen the ability to lead a franchise to the playoffs as if that’s nothing when comparing to Alex Smith. Smith being a winning QB 9 consecutive years means something man lol. I agree with you here, I’m not done in my evaluation of Smith and whether I want to see him as the starter next year. Need to see if he can manage games and keep the chains moving agains better teams. If they were to bring him back, I’d like to see Alex work with the team on the money, but the NFL is weird with how they just give starting QBs money.

Many different ways to win in the NFL, as you know. Sure, does every franchise want an elite guy at the QB spot, but you can go broke waiting to hit on one (most likely you will). This teams coaching staff (philosophy of building around a strong defense and run game) and talent on defense is trending in direction of being able to support a top 15-20 guy. I’m on side of needing to watch Smith a bit more before deciding if he should be the starter next year, especially at a $20mil per year clip. Would be nice if he worked with the team on that deal. I was a supporter of Smith due to his ability to extend off-script and run for 1st downs, these factors helped mitigate his weaknesses as a passer. He no longer has his running ability, so he must show he can threaten teams in other ways and be a guy who can keep the chains moving from the pocket.

His vision is below average and can only run out the gun, but even with that, he’s having a dynamic rookie season. The gun runs seem to simplify things for him a great deal. Tons of room for growth. Exciting stuff!

He’s having a dynamic rookie season and still hasn’t learned how to run when the QB is under center or be used in the pass game (you can see he has loads of potential here for Turner to explore and use). He’s uniquely dynamic in the gun, he can pop one and grind out tough yards, which has great value in this formation.

I mean, a statistical comparison isn’t even debatable for Barber and Peterson this year, so if Peterson looks “cooked”, what label does Barber sporting a 2.4 ypc average get? I’m not all that passionate about it and Gibson looks to be the short yardage guy in Shotgun sets and Barber when under center. You hope Gibson learns how to run when QB is under center, because he looks atrocious when asked to do so.

I no longer possess the ability to judge AP outside of statistical measures, due to not watching the Lions consistently enough, but if AP is 90% of what he was physically the last two seasons with the Skins that still equates to a much better short yardage back than Barber. It’s not a move I’m despondent about, but it’s be nice to have AP on the team as a mentor and short yardage guy, IMO. I agree with all of what you said, but his recent new wrinkle of value in playing well at LT is fascinating and makes one wonder if he has a future there. Hmmmm?

Not when I see Barber looking pedestrian in his role all year. This would’ve been APs role.

Interesting block by Moses that got the job done lol Cool to see him hyped about the run. Moses is arguably the teams MVP this season if a lineman could ever actually achieve that award lol

Not coming at you in any sort of way, just acknowledging from my fan view he still looks like a freak/generational (meaning I don’t study players like you do). Very much a subjective thing to me, generational talent isn’t validated by statistics in year 1. For example, Lebron James was a generational talent and had by far his worst statistical season year 1 and was nowhere close to being dominant compared to the other top players. If we’re having the same discussion next year the alarms some are sounding will be validated, in my opinion. Sounds like you nailed it.

He still looks like a generational talent on an NFL field though, right? Generational production will take a while to accumulate. We’ll see.

I will not walk back in wanting and borderline expecting a Randy Moss rookie year production from the DE spot— plenty of time remains for him to spearhead a playoff run. I still believe some huge games are to come in this season and makes sense him sharing he feels healthy again. As average as the defense has been, it’s made major strides in year 1 of Rivera and Del Rio. This idea the unit has underperformed is interesting. What were your expectations coming in? When you say impact plays, what does that mean and what’s the number that would allow you to anoint him as having an impactful rookie season? Not coming at you contentiously, as I’m guilty of being subjective with most things. Not accusing you to be subjective, maybe you have some concrete information and data you go off of.

Any interest in breaking the data down? My hypothesis would be he is singled on quick throws and doubled on some of the 5-7 step drop backs. Looking and saying he was singled on a designed quick throw isn’t the same as being singled on a 5-7 step drop back.

You can see this on the field as well. He also seems to be wired in a different way like many intense defensive leaders of the past.