philibusters

I think you are right. He is not the explosive running back. He is more of a Brian Robinson or Kyren Williams guy. Our running back Brian Robinson Jr. is a decent comp, runs with power, but enough burst for outside zone run. Because he is a little more squat and shorter than Robinson, I think he is a little bit shifty. Should be a good starting RB in the NFL. That said in the NFL the dropoff at RB is not great compare to say Tackle, so you don't worry about missing out on a guy like Corum, so like you I think he is there in the 3rd round if you want him.

I watched the below video of Maye. Its every throw from the Minnesota game this year where he went 29-40 for 414 yards and two td's and two interceptions. I liked what I saw. Handful of really nice throws, handful of good quick game, He was partly to blame for both interceptions. On the first interception he made the right read but didn't get enough loft on it and a linebacker to it on a nice play by the linebacker. On the second interception, he got hit when he was throwing on a comeback route which caused him to be really short with the throw. The interception is mostly on the LT, but if he got the ball out of his hands as quickly as could have on the comeback throw, he probably gets rid of it before getting hit.

We are tied with three other teams at 4-12. We get the tie breaker in the first round. The secocnd worst SOS gets in the second round and the third worst SOS get the tiebreaker in the third round. So we would get the tiebreaker in rounds 1, 4, and 7

Malik Willis also had elite speed. I liked Daniels, when I thought we would be picking in the 3 to 5 range I was very intrigued (and who knows we still may) but I am going Caleb Williams or Drake Maye over him if I have the choice.

Given the cap hit Denver will take for Wilson, I cannot see any realistic way they could afford Cousins. Howell is perfect for Denver because he is cheap. But they are going to take a big cap hit to move on from Wilson. Wilson to Denver could happen, but if they want an expensive veteran QB, why not just bring Cousins back for a couple more years. There was a time Wilson was clearly better than Cousins--that time has passed.

In terms of trading spots for Sam Howell if we do trade him, Denver is now on my radar. Denver will be picking 14th. They just benched Russell Wilson. If they choose not to go with him next year, they will be on a real tight cap and need a cheap option at QB. At 14, Williams, Maye, and Daniels are very likely all off the board. Nix and Penix will likely be on the board, but 14 is a **** rich for them as they are more second round talents. What would be a fair trade with Denver. Ideally from our perspective a second. Second best scenario would be a pair of thirds. Third best case would be we get a second rounder and give them a 4th. Fourth best would be we get one third and one fourth rounder. Since Sean McVay spoke well of Howell, I could see that being another trading spot. But they will have at least one more year of Stafford so they don't have a desperate need. Probably realistically the best we could do from the Rams is a third rounder. They get a trial to see if he can be Stafford's heir. Either trade would be good for Howell as working with McVay or Payton is likely to help him improve. I think they would both really appreciate his work ethic and maturity.

RGIII failed for a lot of reasons, but two big factors were the injuries and his request that a lot of running plays be taken out of the playbook (which was done at the suggestion of Dan Synder). Kyle Shannahan is pretty ingenious and he had figured out how to open pretty big passing lane using the threat of RGIII's running ability. When that running threat disappeared the passing lanes got smaller. Starting in 2013 he also lost his confidence. He became afraid to throw the ball into tight windows and didn't trust what he was seeing near as much as in 2012 when his confidence was sky high.

I just looked at Payne's contract at OvertheCap and I agree it would be hard to trade him. Essentially trading him would give us a deadcap hit of 22 million and the team trading for him wouldn't even be getting great value themselves as they would have a cap hit of around 60 million over 3 seasons. Payne is a good player, but I still believe resigning him on the contract he got was the wrong move.

Tytus Howard is an interesting case. They drafted him 23rd overall and he was meh his first three years. Essentially a low end starter. In year 4 he took a nice step forward and was solid. The Texans then gave him that 3 year 56 million extension. Unfortuantely for the Texans he went back to meh this season. He is a Andrew Wylie level starter. However, winning kind of fixes everything, so right now nobody is upset that the extension looks like a bad one. But if they stay like a 9-8 or 10-7 team and struggle to take the next step, their fanbase will start complaining about that extension if he continues to be a low end starter.

That is likely correct. But if the Jets beat the Patriots all those games will matter.

Every GM and every former GM is a subject matter expert. Some of them are better than others. I don't know what your job. But it probably involves some technical expertise. Now the odds are there are people in the world better than you at your job. It doesn't make you an idiot though whose opinion regarding your work is worthless.

Yeah because it is not as simple as giving a guy a look. First you probably trade a day 2 pick to get him. Then you have to give him the starting job for a year which means we don't draft a guy with our first round pick this year when we actually may end up with a pick to get a top guy or we don't give Howell another year. All that investment when the most likely outcome is Justin Fields is decent, but not a franchise QB (a low level starter like Daniel Jones). Plus because Fields is decent, just not good, we probably go something like 7-10 with him at QB and are not in a position to get a QB the following year. I agree with ntotoro, keep what we have or draft a QB.

Possibly. Not sure what the market will be for him. Salvage projects only work if you can the player relatively cheap.

I definitely agree its not a given. And if the FO believes Sam is the guy, they absolutely should trade down if they end with pick 2 or something like that. But that all hinges on the fact they think Sam can be the guy. Sure the rebuild will get off the ground quicker if they can build around Sam, but the ultimate goal of the rebuild is to build a team that is a Superbowl contender year in and year out like the Chiefs, Bills, Bengals, Eagles, and even teams like the Cowboys. And in order to do that you have to have the QB. Its more important that the rebuild be successful rather than get off to a quick start in my opinion, so everything hinges on their take on Howell. For example the Lions had a quick rebuild, but I kind of feel like we don't know if it will be successful. They chose to stick with Goff and doing so allowed them to become a playoff team sooner, but the goal is not to become a playoff team for a year or two but to build a stable super bowl contender.

I think it was a little bit pessimistic. Jamin Davis is a starting caliber LB. Not a good one, but starting caliber. Like Forbes he was a bit of a trainwreck as a rookie, but in year 3, both the beat reporters who watch the tape and PFF say he is a starter level player (PFF Grade 67). I think Curl who is a free agent is a good S. I am a bit higher on the O-Line. Though I do agree we are not a contender next year.

Based on my evaluation of Stroud before the season started they were comparable prospects, though I like Daniels a little more than I liked Stroud at draft time this past draft, though as the poster above noted they are very different QB's. Stroud strength in the draft assessment was his easy accuracy at all three levels. Daniels by contrast is a heck of an athlete who has developed into a good passer over the past 5 season in college (he first became a starting QB in 2019). All that said, I way underestimated Stroud. My impression of Stroud was that he was really good at throwing the ball, but his ability to go through his reads or make plays outside of structure were meh. I basically saw Stroud as Jared Goff. If you put him an offense where his first read will usually be open he'll be great because he throws a beautiful accurate ball and can throw with anticipation (leading the receiver open). By contrast if you put him in a bad situation, I thought his pocket presence was average (not bad but not good), that his ability to get through his reads was average, and his ability to make plays outside the structure of the offense was average. I was wrong on my take on Stroud, but I still saw Stroud as a starting QB in the NFL just not a high end one. But he is a fundamentally different play style than Stroud. As others have noted, Deshaun Watson or even Lamar Jackson would be better comparisons in terms of playstyle.

I like Rivera so I hope Harris handles it in a classy way. This was a make or break season for Rivera after his first years were lukewarm. Clearly the season broke bad and Rivera has to go, but I think they should treat him with respect on the way out.

Did we ever figure out if the blown coverage was Curl or St. Juste? If it was a standard coverage it would have been on Curl, if it was an inverted coverage it would have been on St. Juste.

Short term, you probably downgraded LT (I don't know much about Morgan--but the odds are as a rookie he would be a slight downgrade to Charles Leno, even if he ends up being a solid starter eventually), Jonah Williams is probably about the same as Wylie, maybe a slight upgrade, but that is close. Wylie is an upgrade at LG over the combo of Shaddiq Charles/Chris Paul. Likewise I don't know much about Sedrick Van Purn. Our Center play has been worse than our LT play this year, so its possible you get could get an upgrade, but you could also get a push or a slight downgrade, its difficult to project with rookies. Overall long term that O-Line is set up better, but short term, not that is not a big upgrade if its upgrade at all.

If Howell was 6'4 he would see the middle of the field easier, probably process that area of the field slightly faster, and probably would have been a 1st round pick. I agree 4 inches makes a significant difference.

I understood the point the poster made but was also surprised they lumped Lawrence and Fields together. Lawrence struggled as rookie, but he very good the second half of last season and this season so far. But I can see how you remember hearing talk from say mid-last season that Lawrence really hasn't hit yet and remember that and not realize he took off the second half of last year and played well this year.

At times it was fun to watch, but less so the last few weeks.

I have been and still am pro-Howell. The one thing that annoyed me that some of the extreme Howell fans did was they refused to acknowledge that he was a big part of the huge amount sacks we have given up. I have been pro-Howell, while acknowledging that he has his faults and there are things he needs to improve. Where I have clashed with other pro-Howell people specifically though is on the sacks. This is a normal bad O-Line. They are probably not bottom 5 in the NFL, though they are pretty clearly below the mid point mark amongst O-Lines. Clearly not all the sacks are on Howell, but a decent portion of them are. Its a truism that got put into my head listening to NFL podcasts the last few years that sacks are generally more of a QB stat than O-Line stat (though obviously the stat reflects on both to some degree). So coming into this year that was already a strong belief in me that QB's have a big part of the sack total. So maybe its the religious zealot side of me that does not like a foundational belief to be questioned, but it annoys me that some of the fan base is putting the entire sack issue on the O-Line.

I kind of want Terry to get his 1000 yard season

Yeah, I don't know what the analytics say but I could see a strategy of signing solid LB'ers in free agency (TJ Edwards--good but not top of the market money) and drafting LB'ers late in the 5th or 6th every two out of three years or something like that being a good strategy. I think we probably made a mistake letting Cole Holecomb go. He signed a 3 year 18 million dollar deal but only 5 million of it was guaranteed (on the 5 million dollar signing bonus was guaranteed--though the odds they would have cut him before this season, which he had a 2.7 million dollar salary for were low).