All time great QBs do not equal "drought"
The problem is twofold as I see it:
1. Our defensive minded HC has a scheme that no longer works (if it ever really did). It relies on smaller, faster players who are going to get hurt more often because of the nature of having a 225 pound LB getting blocked by OL who outweigh him by 100+ pounds play after play. It relies on keeping everything in front, and eventually the offense will make a mistake. It works often against mediocre QBs, but not against most of the guys you see in the playoffs.
This carries over into the overall philosophy of the team: low event football as some call it. So exciting. Keep it clean, limit mistakes, make a play when you have to.
Again, many teams are sloppy, undisciplined, and will often hand you the game if you play this way, so you'll rack up wins. But it doesn't work against great teams very often.
2. The GM is not very good. He is living off of drafting Allen, which was amazing for this franchise. But his free agent signings have been so-so at best, his draft picks, especially high ones, are so bad the HC who he is supposedly one mind with doesn't want to play them, and his roster build is so bad we're bringing back a guy with a broken neck who cannot or should not even play to sign to the practice squad and waste a space for no apparent reason last year, and this year we're signing back a bunch of players we let go ostensibly because they weren't good enough.
This is an admission that the GM has failed time and time again to find suitable replacements for these players. There is no other way to say it, as much as we love these players as human beings and for what they did here.
I'm not even kidding: Andre Reed would have had a better chance of seeing the field and making a contribution last season than Hyde. This is no shot at Hyde, the man had a career ending injury. But why was he taking up a spot on the practice squad?
This GM has to go, and if the coach was fired as well I am fine with it. But Beane is by FAR the bigger issue.