DCOrange

Re: Hughes and the pass rush, it does make me wonder if it might be helpful to know the percentage of plays where 2 or more defenders beat their blocker. Based on Hughes' win rate and our lack of actual pressures this year, it makes me wonder if it basically just boiled down to Hughes beating his man, the QB being able to climb the pocket or side-step Hughes and then the QB is totally fine because everyone else is successfully blocked. Also, if I remember right, teams tended to get the ball out quickly against us before our line really even had a chance to get home.

If he comes relatively cheap (like just a few million dollars per year), I'd bring him back, but he's a guy I'm hoping we can upgrade via the draft. The jet sweeps and stuff are an important piece of the offense, but we need someone that's more effective at other WR-things than McKenzie is IMO. A guy like Kadarius Toney or Rondale Moore would be a suitable replacement.

These numbers are actually from ESPN. They break it down here: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29939464/2020-nfl-pass-rushing-run-stopping-blocking-leaderboard-win-rate-rankings. This link also gives you the top 10 list for individual players at each of these metrics as well as the team rankings. More details at the following two links if you want more than just a summary of what the metrics mean: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/24892208/creating-better-nfl-pass-blocking-pass-rushing-stats-analytics-explainer-faq-how-work https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/29813062/introducing-new-nfl-run-blocking-run-stopping-stats-how-run-block-win-rate-run-stop-win-rate-work

They project us to be signing quite a few expensive players this offseason. I don't think we'll pony up for Sherman but I guess we'll see soon enough.

I think Toney will probably be a 4.45ish kinda guy though, whereas Hill is just a freak of nature speed guy. Toney is so damn good after the catch though. I would guess just from watching him he'd run somewhere in the 4.5's if there were an NFL Combine this year.

I can’t really get too mad about any pick at this point because of how good the team is, but this is pretty much the last thing I’m hoping for (besides taking a QB or special teamer at 30). At the moment, I’m hoping for Toney to slip, one of the LBs, OLine, or a trade down. I don’t think I’d bother drafting a RB anywhere this year. Would rather just sign a free agent if we aren’t happy with Moss/Singletary.

I think it’s pretty much a lock that Dak gets more actually. A few of the Cowboys writers I follow were talking about it a day or two saying he’ll likely be able to get $38-40 mil per year now versus the $32ish Dallas offered last year.

I think it was Matt Fairburn from The Athletic that was speculating the tag might be used on Milano. I could kinda see it being an option depending on how they want to approach some other positions this offseason. That would obviously be a big chunk of change but if they can make the rest of it work this offseason, you can tag Milano and keep him for one more year before some of our extensions kick in.

This is really it. I don't think the replacements were necessarily horrible but they definitely did not pan out the way Beane had hoped. But moving on from Shaq and Phillips were absolutely the right calls IMO.

Honestly, this seems kinda disrespectful to Tampa.

Ah gotcha. Yeah Shaq is purely an edge but if you still roll with the OLB vs. ILB designations I get it. I wouldn't really consider Shaq a LB by the modern definitions. I think both of them will return to Tampa but we'll see. It's going to be pretty tight. They can get up to around $50-60 mil in cap space through restructures and some cap casualties but they have a lot of key guys to sign this offseason. Fortunately for them I think Gronk will take a paycut to return, Evans has already said he'll take a paycut to help re-sign other guys, Brady and Antonio Brown could theoretically do the same as well.

Sure, if they aren't the right guys. But signing a bunch of good players to relatively cheap deals is a good way to build a team.

Really, with the cap declining this offseason, you could say this about most of the teams in the NFL. It's a great offseason to be a team with cap space.

Gronk already said he'd either retire or return to Tampa and last night he said he'll be back in Tampa. He's not going anywhere else.

The Breeland one is arguable, both whether the contact was incidental tripping or if the ball was catchable, but I think it was a pretty reasonable call to make at the time. The other two are legitimate penalties. Ward is literally hugging Evans and with Mathieu, it's either a 5 yard penalty and Tampa scores from the 5 yard line or interference and they score from the 1.

The defense was the better side last night, but no individual player had as much of an impact or put up the numbers that Brady did. I don't know how anyone could really single out Shaq or White. They were good, no doubt, but were they really any better than Vita Vea, Winfield, Lavonte David, etc? I don't know. They couldn't just give the SB MVP to the entire team, but that's really what was deserved. Brady was nearly flawless last night and finished with good numbers despite taking their foot off the gas the last quarter of the game. In a game where nobody really had standout numbers, that was enough.

This absolutely is not true. David is a free agent (though he'll almost certainly be back in Tampa), but White is in Tampa for at least 3 more years if not more. Fournette is a free agent but he was legitimately bad all year. No doubt he came up with some big runs in the playoffs though, but his issues were still on display too. One of Brady's INTs against Green Bay was entirely on Fournette; he's a terrible pass protector for a RB. He also had many runs during this playoff run where it basically just looked like a lucky version of Trent Richardson. He'd stare directly at huge holes and instead run square into the defense before regaining his balance and bouncing it outside for big chunks of yardage. Fournette isn't a good RB and would not be an upgrade over our current guys IMO, but he can be productive if the OLine gets as much push as this one does. He is undoubtedly a better athlete than Singletary/Moss, but he's not the guy we need. Ronald Jones was legitimately good this year, but he's another year away from free agency.

There’s no single reason Tampa won. They played very well in every single facet. Defense had an all time good performance (maybe not as good as the previous Bucs Super Bowl but it’s among the best), the passing game was extremely efficient, and the run game was very good. Was it a better defensive performance than the offensive performance? Yeah, but it was pretty much a perfect game of football for that team last night.

Also, Jameis is absolutely capable of putting together great performances. It’s just that he’s equally likely to be a turnover machine. It’s certainly possible that Jameis would have sucked enough to keep KC in the game but it’s equally likely he would have led Tampa to a blowout win just like Brady did.

A friend of mine was asking how big it was that he was returning against Green Bay and I tried to explain to him that he was playing like one of the best DTs in the league already. Their GM still gets ***** on all the time for taking the K in the 2nd round (which is indefensible even if their history of kickers is laughably bad), but he’s really done an excellent job in the draft. Vea, Wirfs, White, Davis, Winfield, Godwin, all studs. Cant remember if he’s also the one that took Ali Marpet but he is too. They have some old players like Brady and JPP, but this is a young and extremely talented team and they have the cap space to keep all their talent too.

Hurts’ running ability is obviously a big factor in it, especially with the Eagles OLine where a guy like Foles will be a sitting duck. But it’s also drastically different offensive schemes and supporting casts. The Bears were super conservative giving Foles and Trubisky as easy of throws as possible, whereas Hurts was asked to throw it down the field a lot and to throw it to guys that can’t create separation or catch the ball.

Hurts was better last year and is potentially the future of the team.

Foles sucks and there’s no way in hell they can sell starting him over Hurts to the fan base there.

I would imagine he'd serve as the backup to Jalen Hurts (assuming they don't draft a QB in the first round).

I think a 4.55 would be a good time for him actually. A 4.45 would likely require a friendly timer.