Chuck Wagon

It doesn't matter if you have the "QB Whisperer" making draft picks. If you don't put players in a position to succeed they won't succeed. Dallas has the best Oline in the league, a stud RB chewing up yards and clock and Dez Bryant, not to mention Witten and a nice safety blanket in Beasley. People are opening questioning if Aaron Rodgers is done as a top QB, if you switched those two guys out Rodgers would be running away with league MVP and Prescott would be just another 4th round QB.

They need it, they can't afford to slip up with Oakland also at 10-2. Carr has played poorly in weather games, they would much rather the path go through Foxboro than potentially through Oakland.

I said before the Raiders game that was the one game we could kind of afford to lose. If we win out it'll be us / Miami / Denver in a 3 way battle for spot #6. Miami vs Arizona looms as a very big game this week as Miami has the Jets then the Pats in week 17, who knows what NE will have at stake. Baltimore beating Miami was needed, given the tiebreaker scenarios, we need Baltimore to win the division with us having H2H over Pittsburgh. One thing is for sure, lose this week and we are DOA.

Detroit had the Cowboys on the ropes in the playoffs 2 years ago before the officials stepped in to make sure the league got the Cowboys-Packers ratings gold. Last year the Lions had a brutal schedule (started 1-8 with losses to 6 playoff teams) before they finished the year 6-2. Since they drafted Stafford - Johnson - Suh they've been much better than us. We aren't Browns level bad. No one is Browns level bad. We have been what we have been over the last few years, a 8-8 type team who is good enough to steal a game against anyone in the league but also bad enough to lose to anyone. The only consistent thing is the inconsistency, though more often than not we lose the games we should lose and win the games we should win.

With a QB like Taylor, I'll never understand calling a wildcat play. It's one thing if you've got a guy like Brady who you know isn't going to run, but to replace a QB who could run with a RB who won't throw, it's incredibly dumb.

I have a feeling Peppers is going to end up in the hybrid LB/safety role like Darren Lee, Deone Buchannon, Keanu Neal at the NFL level. He's my pick for the annual guy who all the mockers put top 5 but ends up going in the 20s or later. Given we are set at LT and unlikely to pick a QB in round 1 (though Deshaun Watson certainly feels like a Whaley / Rex pick), the only spots we should be considering IMO with our 1st rounder is WR / pass rusher / DB.

I do believe that if we can afford to lose 1 game, this is it. The Steelers and Dolphins are must win games due to potential tiebreaker scenarios and the Browns and Jets are must win games due to the level of the competition.

The process of setting the schedule is rather ridiculous, the league looks through hundreds of potential schedules and ridiculous things like Taylor Swift concerts, baseball games and pope visits come into play, but it does seem like bye weeks could be utilized much better to counter balance the disadvantage of forcing the Thursday night game on teams. If we are having byes from week 4 through week 12-13, that sets up the potential for the Thursday night teams to be coming off byes 11 times (counting week 1), plus there's no TNF game week 17, so you could potentially only have 5 games where teams are coming off ridiculous short rest. If they are going to keep TNF as part of the package, balancing it with the bye weeks should be a major factor in the scheduling moving forward.

In fairness, Marty losing the job also coincided with the decline of Tomlinson, he went from being MVP in 2006 to under 4 ypc in 2008.

I think you are dead on with both points here. I fully expect a 9-7 / 10-6 type year forcing a holding pattern into next year. It's an extremely steep hill to climb to grab a playoff spot and the combination of those two losses, giving away the dolphins game and the Seattle MNF mess is likely too big a hill to climb. Does it make me a bad fan to hope the wheels completely fall off and we go 5-11 or 6-10? We can still grab a top 10 pick and we've had the "feel good" 9-7 year recently. My biggest fear would be Rex coaching just good enough and TT playing just good enough for a "run it back" year next year with TT's contract costing us Gilmore and/or someone else only to have the wheels completely fall off next year.

Last year he was holding the trophy.

I do think the landscape of the NFL has changed rather dramatically in just the last few seasons. A couple of years ago you needed a QB or you may as well not show up. Very good to great QBs were able to raise rather mediocre teams into playoff contenders. But that seems to have shifted to the point where guys like Rodgers and Roethlisberger are on middling teams because their defenses are putrid and other defenses are able to out-athlete or out-scheme their offenses. I think more than ever you can build a very good football team around a "caretaker" QB, my biggest concern with TT moving forward is his contract goes from being a bargain to a major deal next year, I think the decision is much less "is Tyrod a better choice than player X" and much more "are we better off with paying a "step down" (or a draft pick) QB a fraction of Tyrod's contract and using the salary cap elsewhere"? Where teams really get into trouble is the contract that Tyrod will step into soon, ie paying a non-franchise QB at the level of a franchise QB. Paying Flacco has caused a ripple down talent drain in Baltimore. That's my biggest concern with TT. I think you could put Rodgers or Roethlisberger onto this team and we still wouldn't be able to sling it around the yard averaging 30+ PPG simply because we don't have the horses at WR to accomplish that. But I do think we can make some improvements to the defense and ratchet it up another level, improve the offensive line slightly more to make the run game better while paying a QB a fraction of Tyrod's contract and be as good if not better.

Cardale isn't ready. This isn't a Goff situation and he played a fraction of the football that guys like Wentz & Prescott have played. Cardale is well known and he's certainly got tools, but I don't see much sense in playing him as there's likely little he can show in 3-4 meaningless games that will sway the decision on him being the clear starter entering next year. Either Taylor plays himself into his contract for next year over the rest of the season or we'll be looking for a QB high in the draft or in free agency.

I completely agree with you. The boosters had their hearts set on Saban when they hired Strong, as soon as it was announced Red McCombs (a mega booster) was calling it a failure. The talent level was really down when Charlie took the job (Mack Brown was basically "weekend at bernies" his last couple of years) and there was unrealistic expectations of immediate success. I expect they'll hire Herman, unless someone like A&M / LSU / Oregon steps in and blows their offer away, but it wouldn't surprise me if Herman to Texas has been done through back channels for a little while already.

Yeah, I was screaming at the TV when that happened. It's an absolute exercise in masochism (and thank god we aren't the Browns) but looking back at old drafts are very interesting. We took Kelvin Sheppard just before Justin Houston went (obviously he turned into Hughes so it's a win). In 2012 (the Wilson draft) we had 2 picks at 144 & 147 where we got Zebrie Sanders and Tank Carder, Josh Norman went 143 and Malik Jackson went 137. So far there is only 1 Pro Bowler who went after pick 69 in the 2013 draft (Latavius Murray at 181), it was a bit of a crap draft, we got Robey undrafted and he might push to be a 1st rounder if there was a redraft of that year now.

Well yes, but I was looking more at guys drafted directly behind (or close) to where we picked, clearly you can have a super team of Brady - Gronk - Antonio Brown etc with hindsight being 20/20.

While I tend to think of the last 5 drafts as hits for the most part, looking back on what could have been (save your comments, I know hindsight is 20/20 and a waste of time): 2011 - Patrick Peterson instead of Dareus 2012 - Fletcher Cox or Dontari Poe instead of Gilmore 2013 - Anyone instead of EJ, but we could have gotten Deandre Hopkins / Kawaan Short / Leveon Bell instead of EJ / Woods / Kiko 2014 - Mack if moving up / obviously ODB or Aaron Donald ( or even Zack Martin) if staying put

Bosa has been a game changer for the Chargers. They have Denver (who they already beat) this week, then go: Titans Dolphins @ Texans Buccaneers @ Panthers Raiders @ Browns Chiefs The desert might have them favored in all of those games, they are certainly good enough to go 6-2 or even better against that schedule. I'm not sure how we can go 6-3 to close the year, I think those Ravens & Jets losses are really going to bite us.

Losing Decker can't be underrated. It allowed defenses to key on Marshall and load the box on their run game. The Jets have zero depth, Enunwa looked good when he was their 3rd target and defacto TE, but he isn't talented enough to be a #2 and Robbie Anderson / Jalin Marshall / Cheorone Peak are all very young and none of them are anything special. Fitz is likely done in the league, no one will pay him what he thinks he deserves and he's likely not going to carry a clipboard for peanuts. They need to give Geno a good long look to make sure they should move on as he's a FA after this year. For all their draft picks and money spent on QBs, they could be taking one very early next spring.

Flacco is hurt too now, the Ravens are a mash unit. We could see two division winners at 8-8 or worse in the AFC this year. IF we miss the playoffs at 9-7 and 2 division winners are 8-8 I think I officially quit following the NFL.

A lot of buzz (hope?) here in Ohio is Haslam will sell the Browns to buy the Titans as he's a Tennessee guy.

Stockton is getting old and makes plenty of mistakes, but there are much worse than him drawing much better assignments. I think Phil Simms and Aikman are both terrible, they add very little in the way of insight and are their respective network's top guys. Phil's struggles with pronunciation are ridiculous (thank god the Bingals can only play Dinver once per year.) Aikman appears borderline punch drunk often and doesn't appear to know much about the NFL outside of the NFC East & the Packers. Gruden's overwhelming praise got tired a decade ago. I really enjoyed Bob Papa and Mayock in the early days of Thursday night football. I think Mayock is one of the best.

The Steelers are notorious for laying road eggs under Tomlin. I have no idea what to make of Miami. Before Sunday it looked like they were one of the 5 worst teams in the league and Gase was in danger of losing the team already. Now I can't tell if we just disregard the Steelers game as them just laying an egg or if the shakeups in Miami opened everyone's eyes. It sure was bad for my confidence picks.

San Diego went to a prevent D almost the entire 4th quarter, except right at the end when they blitz and Siemien took a big loss. Teams should (and likely will) just stack the box against Denver and send plenty of extra pressure, both Sanders and Thomas are hurt and Siemien simply doesn't have the arm talent to consistently throw over the top.

I thought teams weren't allowed to change their helmets now, but those were sharp.