PBF81

It could also be if you don't think that the player's worth the money but you don't have an immediate replacement, hence as a temporary plug until you can draft a guy or get a free agent to replace him. IOW, you're not going to sign him under any circumstances, but he's worth the 5th year option price but not worth the money he's seeking in a long-term contract. Oliver's kind of in that boat. He'll get more than he's worth, but for the $10M he's getting this year, Beane doesn't have much choice and he knows the system. There would be a chemistry learning curve with a newbie, not to mention risk there too. Oliver's not worth the money but it's also far from being a ripoff. Beane will have to address that next offseason though.

Yeah, it'll be better, but would still be nice to see some more detailed pics of the stadium. They still haven't put very much out. Maybe now they'll release a whole lot more. As long as Allen's still here and in one piece.

I'd almost prefer that. Next up, the new pricing. Some have mentioned here that the new model for pro sports is that these companies buy up many seats and then package them up for travel deals, which is why there are so many opposing fans in some stadiums. Based on the responses to their pricing survey, it may be bittersweet. We'll see.

I hear ya, what's interesting is that they said that parking's only going to be minimally impacted this fall. I'm not sure how that's possible as LOT 4 would seem to be all but entirely unavailable if they're really going to begin the "big digging," as will be some of the RV Lot too. I mean they've at least gotta fence if all off for safety reasons. Should be interesting to be sure. Might be the better season to hit some road games.

That's a coincidence, because what I wrote was in English too. Let me know whether you need to have the concept of players/contracts corelated to their performance on the field when justifying whether or not those contracts were good ones or not. Regarding contracts ... That's the problem with the premise of this thread to begin with, contracts don't always translate to performance. If you need some players as examples, let me know. Happy to provide a few. Lotulolei was one. And oddly enough, Beane signed him. Trent Murphy was another overpaid one. John Brown was overpaid although not significantly. Mario Addison grossly overpaid. Vernon Butler a complete waste of money. League wide, Russell Wilson's another current example, a really good one in fact. You've heard of him, right?

Let's focus on the latter three years as a good GM improves his team over time. Baltimore is the only one. You're really not going to cite NE with Jones in his rookie season and not a WR to mention on the team, at home for us, are you? I'd hardly call that a feat. I'm not sure how that is demonstrating how the D didn't show up. We also no-showed, at home, for Cincy before Hamlin got hurt in that game, it's hardly as if we were shutting them down. In five of those playoff games we allowed over 32 PPG. That's good? We must have different standards. Unfortunately we don't play Baltimore or teams with rookie QBs the caliber of Mac Jones in the playoffs very often. For reference purposes, in 2020, when we "held" the Chiefs to 38, the Browns and their 21st ranked D held them to 22, and the Bucs and their 8th ranked D held them to 9. Together those two teams didn't allow what we allowed. In 2021, we allowed the same number of points that the Steelers and their 21st ranked D did to the Chiefs, the Bengals and their 17th ranked D held hem to 18 fewer points. This past season was a complete debacle and everyone knows it, we can make excuses, but vs. the Bengals in the regular season game, they were ripping off yards like it was an all-u-can-eat buffet before Hamlin went down. Everyone has different standards, I'll accept that you don't think that's problematic, I simply don't ever see us even sniffing a Championship like that tho, and getting back to contracts which this thread was about, few if any of the defensive players that some are defending in this thread, including Diggs for example who has the largest contract on the team otherwise, simply didn't show up generally speaking in the playoffs. Since we're talking about contracts and how good players are, it's hardly an NFL secret that the better players step up in the playoffs. Ours haven't.

That's off of the original topic of contracts, but have you compared how our "#1" & "#2" defenses have played against defenses ranked notably lower than ours, and at times against the same opponents that we've played? Which times, specifically?

Oh do they. Great, I'd absolutely love to hear your explanation of Diggs' playoff performance the past five playoff games, particularly against KC & Cincy. If you enjoy that enough I'm happy to throw in another couple of high draft high contact players to get your explanations for. Let's tackle them one at a time however. Curious, did you look into it before making your comment? ... or did the words just start rolling out? We can recommend the discussion on "football IQ" once we mail that down. Fair enough? I'll look for the ping. 🙂

Nah, rarely, just my usual non-narrative accepting self. 😉😁

Playing well and losing is entirely different than your best players not showing up and otherwise playing like crap. You know that. Our D has been AWOL in the playoffs.

Correction, Allen has gotten us 4 playoff wins. Most of Beane's biggest draft picks that you refer to have flopped come playoff time. And we have yet to advance beyond the divisional round more than once generally having underachieved.

The ultimate goal is about winning, particularly in the playoffs, not about contracts.

Well, here's the thing, that's assuming that every game plays out to ev strategy. Obviously that's not the case and that's a huge part of my position on this. Clearly that was one really good example where it did not. EV in that game clearly favored the run, and in no small way. Allen had 2 passing TDs. Singletary and Cook also had 2 rushing TDs. All three TOs were attributable to the passing game. None for the running game. Singletary and Cook averaged 8.9 yards-per-carry. Allen's passing averaged 6.4 yards-per-pass-play. 2.5 ypp less. In that particular game the EV was with the run. Again, agreed that it shouldn't be the philosophy of the team in general, but there are times and one can't say that it should never be the case or plan. That's what game-planning around an opponents strengths and to its defenses is all about, as you know. But having said that, it could also be that he thinks he's OK w/o the surgery and will be fine. Or perhaps he's not convinced that the surgery will actually help, or who knows, perhaps the doc told him that if you have this surgery that you'll have months of rehab and it may not be 100% going into the season, trauma and all. IDK, just playing devil's advocate here. I'm sure he talked it over and made his best decision. Agree with your points however.

Valid points! As to the bolded, great point there as well. Nicely stated. My points about Allen's elbow and the injury statuses on the D were really pointing out that if all went perfectly we'd merely get back to where we were minus an extra year for everyone. It'll likely be somewhere in between, hence the way I phrased it. My concern for Allen's elbow is greater than yours for it is. Apparently, as we were told, it was a problem through the last game we played, namely the Bengals playoff game. We were told that he couldn't throw short well or accurately. He decided shortly after that game to not have surgery, or at least that's when he made the announcement, but obviously it had bothered him, and affected his play as such, up until that time. So I'd question why he decided not to have surgery, on what basis. Make sense? IOW, what indication did he have to believe that it would heal back to 100% without the surgery. Who knows, we're obviously not privy, and it would hardly be the first time that a player refused surgery when he should have gotten it, but I do question it as such.

Perhaps we can get Ted Nugent to weigh in.

Yeah, it's a good basic article, nothing to disagree with there. But you understand my point, right? I'll provide an example from last season. The Chicago game is low-hanging fruit here. They were ranked DFL in rushing D TDs allowed, 31st in rushing yardage allowed. In that game Singletary and Cook both averaged 9 yards-per-carry. Allen meanwhile was struggling against their 18th ranked passing yardage D, and 11th pass TD D. It was one of his worst couple of games all season. Our second drive in that game, tied 7-7, Singletary had run for 2, 15, and 3 yards on 1st, 2nd, and 1st downs consecutively, and on our opening drive Cook had 2 carries for 24 yards. The next three plays after Singletary's three runs were a 15-yard pass to Davis for a 1st, a penalty on the next play, then Allen throwing for 1 yard setting up a 2nd-and-19. On the next play Allen threw a pick. Up until that point Cook and Singletary had averaged 9 ypc, so why not give them the ball at least a few of those times until the Bears stopped them. There was nothing to indicate that we couldn't have run the ball 75% of the time, kept their D on the field, not thrown 2 INTs in that game. In another game it may have cost us a win. But I'm guessing that had we run some more, that Allen's passing may have yielded more than 172 yards. The bottom line is that both Singletary and Cook were ripping it up, neither got more than a dozen carries, and Chicago's rushing defense sucked. I don't understand why we wouldn't have run more, in that particular game, not necessarily as a philosophy on the season. It's not as if Justin Fields was going to shred our D or anything.

Ahh, so he's saying that running the ball is less ev than passing, right? Got it. Yeah, agreed, generally speaking, but he and I were on slightly different wavelengths, as you can see.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from now, I don't disagree. I read it, again, I'd tweak a few things in that analysis, which would add a tad bit of complexity, but otherwise don't disagree with it. You're focusing on as a philsophy, as you stated or at least implied. I was referring more to merely situationally. Put yourself in the situation of a DC, and we're running on you getting huge chunks like clockwork. 5, 7, , 8, 10 yards at a pop, getting first downs, moving down the field. Meanwhile your fans are screaming at the TV to put more men up front, which, unless you want to allow that to continue, are going to do that. But do that with Allen back there an you'll pay for it. In short, in those games that we were ripping off large chunks like that, which weren't many, four, maybe five, and also not against great Ds as I recall, at least not great rushing Ds, keep doing it until they commit enough men to stop it. At that point, let Allen rip them up. But yeah, as a philsophy, for this team, no, not in the cards, we agree on that. Not sure what you mean by that?

Well, to clarify, and w/o reading that, but I will, I'm not saying that as a philosophy per se to run the ball like that, what I'm saying is that if you happen to be ripping off 8 yards/carry, you're up, why stop running the ball? Keep running until they stop you. That happened a number of times last season, and some of those times we started throwing, at least once turning the ball over via INT, and ending drives. Everyone here was beside themselves. IMO we didn't have the OL last season to be able to feature the run like that on a regular basis even if we'd wanted to. Getting back to my point, that was on Dorsey. It was all on Dorsey and few people were satisfied with him, on that we almost all agree.

It's never a bad idea though to run time out to keep your superstar QB off the field and safe if you're up by a bunch, particularly if your RBs are grinding out huge chunks of yardage. I have no idea why throwing it and risking INTs, sacks and fumbles, as well as injuries to your QB is a better option. That's hardly an outdated concept. Agree that they've never been committed to running the ball, but when it's working like clockwork, they should use it. I hear ya on the prioritization on offense and offensive philosophy. Also, a good running game will without question open up the passing game. That's not outdated either. Not sure why the front office would dictate what McD does on the field though either. Singletary averaged 4.7 ypc and had he gotten 250 carries, which would have been good for 6th in the league in rushing and finished where Dalvin Cook did, and none of us would be talking about needing a RB. We're never going to have a "top RB" that gets fewer than 200 carries. Did I misinterpret or misunderstand that?

Boy, you said a mouthful there. Agree with you fwiw. Allow me to elaborate a little bit. It's easy this time of year to think that your draft just provided the "missing pieces" and automatically assume improvement. I think we have a little of both, and JfR in another thread opined that it appears that McD's been told to work with what he has (given the resources pumped into D to date) while they revamp the Offense. Sounds right. As you implied or outright stated, there are a lot of variables above. Offensively, on paper there's absolutely no reason why it shouldn't make leaps and bounds. I can visualize Allen surpassing Manning's 2013 season in Denver of 55 TDs on 5,477 Yards. Would I put money on it happening? No, but Manning did it with Demaryius Thomas, Decker, Julius Thomas (TE), and Welker, with Moreno and nothing Monte Ball as the RBs. Contrast that with Diggs, Davis, Knox, Kincaid as WRs/TEs and Harris and Cook as the RBs. Having said that, Dorsey can't seem to figure out what's best. There were times last season that we all saw, where our RBs, even if typically against crappy rushing Ds, were carving out HUGE yards-per-carry, 7, 8, or even more, and Dorsey stopped running them despite us being up, thereby shortening or even ending drives. It was mindboggling. To your points, the variables ... - The interior OL improvement should help the OTs. Dawkins is fine, hopefully it takes some stress off of Brown. - Per above, the running game is entirely dependent upon Dorsey. He could snuff it, or he could have it be league leading given the heat that our passing game will provide. Which way will the cards fall. - Allen's elbow, is it better? The short answer is that we don't know. He and the team are going to say that it's fine and 100% even if it isn't. He didn't have surgery which is bothersome. As we all know, some doctor explained that his injury limits his ability to throw short and throw short accurately. Which way will the cards on that fall. - Hyde and Poyer are back, but Poyer, unless I missed it, did not have surgery, and has Hyde's back issue gone away entirely? He's already told us that it's been a chronic issue. Will the knee bother Poyer as the season wears on? The short answer is that we don't know. Both are 32 and out of their primes which doesn't help and which typically sees players start to decline. Which way will the cards fall. - What about White? He wasn't good last season, below average. It stands to reason that he'll be better this season, but will he get back to his dominant impact self? Which way will the cards fall. - As to Miller, he suffered a similar injury to what White had, and it's common knowledge that players are not themselves the season following and often never fully recover. He's also 34 and out of his prime whereas White's at the beginning of his. If that's a harbinger it's not good for Miller. It's a safe bet that he's finished as an impact player. We'll see. - While McD is now coaching the D, how will that impact his overall coaching of the team, which has been highly questionable at times, often key times w/o regurgitating them. Can he do both? Will the offense be better or worse w/ less of his input as I suspect he'll be more preoccupied with the D now. Which way will the cards fall there? I'll add the defense in general. They play of the D before and after Miller went out was pronounced. Our pass D played to a well below average after that, even if the Pats game (post-Hamlin) is not considered, and our metrics dropped significantly. Our defensive rankings extrapolated out for an entire season in those last five games were 18th in passing TDs allowed, 12th in INT generation, 23rd in Sack generation, 24th in Sack %, and 26th in QB Hits. Here's the thing, last season we played the following QBs: Before Von's injury: Stafford, Tannehill, Tagovailoa, Jackson, Pickett, Mahomes, Rodgers, Wilson, Cousins, and Brissett. After Von's injury: Mac Jones (twice), Mike White, Tagovailoa, and Zach Wilson. That doesn't bode well. Adding additional question marks to this season, here are the QBs that we face this season: Mahomes, Herbert, Hurts, Burrow, Rodgers (twice), Tagovailoa (twice), Lawrence, Prescott, Daniel Jones, Garoppolo, with the weaker ones being Mac Jones (or Zappe), Wilson, Mayfield, and whomever is starting for the Skins. That's a much rougher slate of QBs and offenses that we face than last season. If our defense plays more to the post-Miller-injury standard than to the pre, we could see a significant regression in the play of the D, which would put more pressure on the O, which in turn will probably boost the offensive stats. We'll see what happens. There's reason for optimism but also some more minor cause for concerns. My position hinges on whether or not Dorsey can piece things together this season to get the most out of what is arguably the most talented set of receiving options we've ever had, while utilizing the running game to capitalize off of that. There's no reason why we cannot lead the league in ToP and drive stats. But will Dorsey do the things that are required to achieve that. He's the biggest wild-card in the batch.

Just pointing it out, but you do realize that we've said similar about the WRs & OL every year since we signed Brown & Beasley, right? I can see us being the best offense in NFL history, or being about the same with specific issues here and there. So much of this depends upon Dorsey and I'm not very confident in that regard. Give us a to notch OC and I see this offense rivaling the best in NFL history. Time will tell as always.

So much depends upon Dorsey.

Speaking of Allen, I hope his elbow has fully healed.

About a third of his carries were when his team was behind 9-16, those resulted in about 43% of his yards. He averaged 3.7 under more competitive circumstances otherwise. I wouldn't expect too much. Cook and Harris will be the beef in our backfield, not sure that Murray's gonna get many carries at all. I hope that Dorsey gets Hines involved in the passing game. If Dorsey does this right we could be an absolutely offensive powerhouse. He's the wild-card. It will be quite interesting to see how Singletary does in Houston sharing time with Pierce. Hopefully the chemistry on our OL gels so that we have a synchronized OL limiting the need for extra blocking most of the time.