colin

they look like children's pajamas

in 2021 we lost at kc in the 13 second game. tre was out and our d couldn't stop a thing, and it still took a comedy of errors for us to lose that freaking game. in 2022 we lost 3 games all season (by a total of 8 points!!) but the team was mentally shot and damar got hurt and the performances after that (even the wins over the pats to end the year and hosting miami) were cheeks. we were the odds on fav to win the superbowl through most of that season yet we lost our only pass rusher (von) tre came back and was worthless (an analyst said throw to whoever tre is covering, because that person is open) and we brought beez and brown out of flipping retirement (with shakir not getting burn, obv he shoulda) as meaningful contributors to the O. got spanked by cincy as a demoralized team could not run or stop the run for long enough to get into a 14 point hole, saffold barely even bothering to lick the stamp on his mailed in performance. diggs had his annual disappearing act in the second half and zero in the post season in 2023 we were cheeks at what, 6-5? milano down, daquan down, tre white (who didn't suck as much at first) down, knox was banged up, miller was out to start and a literal zero after that. we fired the clueless OC, 911 gate came out and then we went on a miracle win streak. in the second half of the season, diggs went to trash and was a total zero in the post season, but we won games w our new rookie oc and running and spreading the ball around. vs kc at home, we had two too hurt to play well corners, old slow and broken safeties, a barely jag lb in dodson and a literal zero off the couch aj klien. d got shredded. williams came in late as a rookie (see a pattern?) and we had our first and only stop of the entire night, but we missed a couple plays and a FG late to lose by 3. the pattern of this team is pretty clear. we have a bunch of guys either hurt, or just so old or slow they are a huge target for the other team on D, or just don't produce at all on O. our WR room looks worse today than it did last year for sure, but diggs and davis (altho davis was magic vs kc in 2021) were zeroes in the playoffs, davis was out last year and diggs was hot trash. to win a super bowl we need our d to be able to make like 4 or 5 stops in a playoff game, and our o not to just stink. given how bad the "star" guys have been on O and D the past 3 playoffs, we aren't losing much just replacing them w JAGs, and any WR who can show up and play above average in the playoffs is an upgrade to davis and diggs over the past two seasons. i think we are as close as we have been, we need luck and health, but blowing out underperforming losers isn't going to hurt the team.

10 is soft, 4 is a touch aggressive, but as mentioned luck and such will have a big impact. what we do to add talent in the draft and pre/post draft will matter a lot. ayiuk and guys like that being available can make a immediate and large impact on the team, a big trade up could also make a splash (way less certainty tho, of course). If some stops get pulled out and we add some real talent (starters above replacement level) then we could nudge up some. the reality is as banged up and goofy (HC calling DC plays, switching from a 2nd year oc to a rook oc in the middle of the season, aging roster and tons of injuries) as our season was last year, we were a play or two (16 and 14 dropping perfect deep dimes) away from beating kc who were the champs. we have every chance to win the chip this year that we had the past two years.

net net this will benefit the nfl. once the pipeline fills back up, you will have more players with more college experience, so that's free training. you will project a bit less on talent and more on actual productivity, and instead of the player developing on the nfl's dime, they develop on NIL contracts. in terms of shorter pro careers, most players fall off prior to the end of their last contract, and often enough that it matters during a very big contract. all older players get the boot and get replaced by younger players anyhow. i think the view on older vs young rookies now is a comparative one. you don't want to draft a 24 year old who was dominating vs 20 year olds, because it means they were just big fish in a small pond. if the average age fo the best players goes up like 1.5 years, then you have a more apples to apples data set, which makes analysis a bit easier. i'd put it as more joe burrows and dalton kinkaids, and less chris weinkies.

given we ate the cap (making the cap constraint for houston much less painful) and got a next year 2nd, and we had to give away a few picks as well, on the diggs trade, makes me think if sf is not eating as much cap on aiyuk then the draft capital cost for him should be meaningfully lower. also, a lot of other wrs and such have been traded (chargers for example) for like 4th round picks and such. im figuring if we can trade for aiyuk and have to extend him out the gate, it should cost a 3rd or less. i'd do that if i thought we could also trade up (if needed) and nab a top flight wr in the draft. Although we might not trade up, and maybe even trade down, i don't see us not spending at least high picks on a WR this draft, even if we trade in for aiyuk

has potential, but gets hurt too much and has bad hands. been the same player since his rookie year. i'd love him to break out, but he hasn't done so yet

he was great for 2 years, and then great to start, meh to finish, and a zero in the playoffs for two years. not worth 23 a year, so he had to go. his attitude and all of that would be acceptable if he continued to be a top wr, but he just isn't anymore. history will show us that josh made diggs wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than the other way around.

ya, in some management training stuff i did recently they made a distinction between urgent and important, (some would look at it as big upside vs unacceptable downside). urgent stuff always gets eyes on it, because the kind of people who run organizations in the modern world have a huge bent towards avoiding downside and love to be proactive (i'd say an elon musk type is the exception, where he's always "looking down field" so to speak). Beane is obviously a prototype Type A guy, so he's concerned about the urgent stuff, but that's lead him to over pay to keep poyer, you might say the same about morse, over draft RBs (as we've always had a bit of a hole there) and at times way over pay for rotational D lineman. I suspect he's learning that slight differences between toohils and addisons of the world are not worth the big contract differences when you are throwing them in for a limited number of snaps, but the slight differences between kinkaid and knox are sufficient in terms of their game impact to go out and draft kinkaid when you already have knox, and so forth. i still think we need to have a new real play maker on O emerge (maybe diggs goes back to 2020 form, maybe rookie, maybe cook continues to imrprove, whatever) and we need to add play makers on D vs last year (milano being healthy, von returning to form, aj growing, i think there a few paths there) to get us over, and no amount of medium to good signings (like we used to love) is gonna get us there.

so we now have basically full roster depth at all positions, so we won't NEED to draft a guy due to lack of bodies in a slot. kinda makes sense. the difference this year vs prior years imo is that we used to way over pay depth type positions and marginal starters, at S, OL (staffold!), and always at DL. looks like we are packing in more bottom of the pile contracts.

didn't we trade up for kinkaid? we traded down for tre, but up (i think) for elam. we traded up for josh, and i THINK for edmunds. we've done some 2nd round and perhaps 3rd round (that im forgetting) trade ups too. we traded our first for diggs as well. it's clear to me beane looks at the draft as a place to get talent, and does not see much value in just having draft picks (remember when new england was obsessed with 2nd round picks and traded like every year for them? lol). with 11 picks, i think we are keeping at most 7 players we draft this year, and maybe less (as in, on opening day). the WR, S, DT and DE free agency signings shows me they filled out as much need and depth that they could prior to the draft, so it is a pretty sure bet that beane will target his guys as they are potentially available, and wheel and deal all over the place to get them. most likely, i think there is less of a run on wrs than expected, so he'll trade up to get someone he sees as a like top 4 or 5 wr and a like 12th best player at pick 15-20. i think 2nd and 3rd round trades are likely too, where he grabs someone they think is a stud S or 3 tech as well. OL and big RB are the other things we walk away with earlier rather than later in the draft.

i agree, except i might trade up for thomas, but not at the cost of a 1st or whatever. if we add an actual star WR, someone who in 2 or 3 years is objectively better than diggs, then this team is a problem of the highest caliber. in my barely informed opinion, nabers is that guy this year, and getting him might mean we traded away the 32nd pick

allen is gonna get hip dropped blatantly 10 feet in front of the ref and get called for intentional grounding. that loss (and seemingly every other one in the past 2 regular seasons) didn't really matter tho, we still lost home playoff games, so mer.

compared to the opener of last season (which we lost, at the jets, with allen having one of his worst games as a pro since his initial 2 or 3 seasons at the ver least). we are equal to better at LB (williams exp is better depth, tiny bernard leveled up) better at corner (douglas is better than tre) worse to way worse at safety worse at DE (if von is magically back to who he was before the injury, then we are better, but that's a tall order). on O we are same/better at rb (cook w some burn, but not a big change) qb same obv OL kinda a toss up. if we get injured it's way worse, but our RG has a year under his belt, and they let morse walk who is earing like 4mm a year now, so clearly they think they just got better because we coulda paid him that). if we get decent LG play, it's better TE we are better, kinkaid will be better this season than last WR at this point, i'd say we are flat to down a little. davis could do some things, even tho he got over paid going away. maybe shakir has grown or something, but we can only say better if we get a real WR in the draft who gets burn day one and contributes. coaching wise i think we have a much better stich. brady is at least as good as dorsey, and i think potentially much better. we've gone younger and more aggressive/creative on D, and mcd being just the HC i think works better than him being HC/DC. we improve vs the nfl if we stay healthy, get a couple rooks to play well, and get some kind of production from knox, milano, von, and a bit more even out of diggs. that was heavily missing last year (first 3 in particular). if we are reasonably healthy, i still say we can beat any team on any day.

i remember ngata so clearly, altho there was a 3 tech from florida state or something who i thought would be a better "scheme fit". ngata of course, was a powerhouse for like 12 years in the nfl, and even on the baltimore d was a standout for his intensity and strength. Donte whitner was a slightly above replacement ss for a solid nfl career, and based on how rook contracts worked back then, we paid him for his first 4 or 5 years like he was a multiple pro bowler. we had the absolute worst FO for a while there.

we now have two DEs on heavy incentive contracts (von obv, but marino reported that AJE can hit 10 a year vs 6 if he hits game and sack numbers), and groot who is looking for his first big contract too. part of me thinks most players should be on incentive based contracts, but the reality is stats that trigger payouts don't always reflect quality of play, and these guys take significant injury risks, so it's not exactly a totally fair situation. I think this is quite unique in pro football. does anyone else recall players with massive incentive based pay, or multiple ones on a single team in a single season before?

we have 4 de's (kingsly, miller, aje, groot) and 2 DTs (oliver, jones) on the entire roster. we'll go with 8 or 9, i suspect 8. we'll add like 4 or 5 guys via street FA guys and the draft. i think we spend a top 4 round pick on a DT, maybe as high as 2nd, and then there will be a fight between who's left to prove to the FO that we should run with 9. if we sign another reasonable DT, like the one mentioned above, i think it guarantees at least one trade up in the draft. FS, WR, backup OT and interior OL, and any kind of super high RAS guy they like will be the draft picks. could also see a DE get drafted if they have upside and play special teams. if we don't sign another kinda starter level guy, then we will draft as many as 3 DL IMO.

i read this in a backhanded way, where the implication is that mcd can win after we fire him, long into the future. i chortled.

7mm 1y w an option to make it 2 years for like 5-6 more, effectively. that's cheap and basically gets paid out by what we save trading bates. they like him and rapp, so it makes sense (both deals)

before he got hurt, T bernard was filling up the stat sheet like a monster. douglas had sick stats for us for how short he was with us, he looked the part too. oliver had top level DT stats. allen speaks for himself, and the sack/win rate % for our Oline shows them to be a top tier unit. cook had as mentioned top 3 YFS, and he kinda didn't play for the dorsey part of the season. not to mention Taron who was voted 2nd all pro, and milano who in the prior season was an all pro. im not saying these guys are elite (except josh, who i fully think is the goat) but in terms of observed performance they were in the proximity of the category at least. we have to fill in a starting safety, find some way to (continue to) rush the passer, and get another playmaker (a real one) in the passing game on O and then we have the roster we need to have won it all the past 3 seasons. on D, we have to smarten up and not become total pushover goofs in the playoffs, injuries basically made us crap out vs kc, but my boy dorian came in and showed us aj klein shoulda been fishing, not playing.

my read is we run a scheme that takes away the big long stuff and is open to being misdirected and eaten up underneath (see all of our playoff losses vs reg season stats) so i think our brain trust figures they can scheme decent guys up to run the system, but need play making ability because if we don't make plays we just get ground up. rapp seems to be out of place in coverage but has a green light and brings some lumber, so i suppose they figure he's going to improve in the former, but keep the latter in his second season w us. our safety play was garbage in the kc home game, save one lucky hit by poy to get that turnover.

i'd extend (2 years i recon) and spread that cap hit out.

mccoach obv hates starting or even playing rookies on D. there have been a couple exceptions, but that's the theme. based on that, and the fact that i presume tre is gone and douglas, elam, and benford will be getting a ton of burn, we have a fairly young secondary. i'd expect a rookie safety paired with poyer (maybe on a cut, maybe on a restructure, i dunno) to be the most likely outcome. similarly on the DL, i think we sign at least 2 FA vets (maybe even 3) and draft 2-3 guys and play the vets more, at least until it is blindingly obvious that the rookies are better than the vets.

if one of the big 3, or if the bills see it as a big 4 or something, are there at 12, im quite certain that BBB will at least kick the tires on what it would cost.

the 2025 savings matter, contracts and dead cap can be shifted there. this is the quintessential getting younger and cheaper. they are looking at places to avoid putting out contracts that don't get value. the obvious ones are tre, miller, knox and to a much lesser extend milano (bad value last year, as he was hurt, and is often hurt, but is a legit stud ow). but every little helps, and saving 5 sticks on a guy in 2025 who they think doesn't help the team more than the RFA they have on the roster now opens things up. we are going to have to put some cap money into the dline. maybe draft 2 or even more guys, but we have like 4 guys on the roster, and need 7 or 8 at a bare minimum. we will not be having 2 and 3 rookies on the DL in games on a consistent basis, so either throw money at d'quan (i dunno, older and hurt might scare them off) or some other 1 tech, and we need another back up 1 tech, and a back up 3 tech, and at least 1 more DE too. that money has to come from somewhere.

so, does anyone have the specifics of how much of a jerk or whatever he was?