colin

id be ok with all of that, although i'd want ot keep williams. mongo would be a good signing if he isn't too expensive, and allows us to cut morse and move mongo to C

im torn on this because brown is a nice weapon when he's healthy. we have too many OK/Decent players soaking up cap and playtime from our young guys, so that would lead me to wanting to cut him. if they don't think he helps them win a super bowl in 2021-2022 season, he's gotta go. also, how much of a cut/restructure would he accept?

he flashes very good ability, and fairly regularly when he's not hurt. the issue is he gets fooled way way too much, and his mistakes offset enough of his positive plays to make you wonder if he's worth the money he will cost. i think a large part of this is that our scheme combined w the players we have is just too limited and predictable. clearly mcd knows that his DL is what matters the most, but we've had 4 giant misses (5 if you count star being out) on that front. i agree w people who talk about edmunds playing on the outside. i think we need a couple more upgrades at DB, or have our back ups improve, so we can vary up our scheme a bit. we need edmunds to make fewer mistakes, but more than anything we need a real impact at our DL. i have honestly never seen a team that would improve more than a young bruce smith being on it than ours.

i was really down on him, but he proved me wrong. like our kicker, and hopefully knowx, ford, edmunds, etc, he has athletic traits that he honed over time into solid performance.

Normally i'd say you are high! but, i think some of what he does looks a bit like John Randle, do you know how the hand size and arm length compares to Myles? it's a different position, and i don't think oliver is every gonna be what myles was walking off the bus, but maybe!

he might be a great piece along w a sick edge rusher on the other side, but on his own while he has the chance to be a solid part of the D, he's not going to be a difference maker. more than anything, we need just savages up front on D. throw a bosa (remember what dude did to us in the Chargers game?) or some such on the line and we are talking a big change on 3rd downs. 5 years ago watt would be a massive impact, i just don't know that he has it in the tank anymore. also, we need to get younger at premium positions. wayyyy to much age on our DL

presuming we can find replacement level players at replacement level prices, i'd ditch them all except houghs and hyde. morse to me, is no better at center for us than two other players we had last year. our issue is a guard. if we sign mongo and flip him to C, ford comes back healthy, and we keep our RT, i think we draft a solid OG in the first 2 rounds and our OL is better in every position in the gut, or at least no worse, and we are paying less or equal for better talent. On DL, some young hungry guys a la phillips can be brought in, they won't produce any less than the 3 stiffs we drug in last year, and at a cheaper number. I'd restructure houghs and possibly hyde as well. we need an impact up front. a top flight pass rusher would go MILES towards that. star coming back, phillips and oliver getting better w experience,health, and better guys around them (star and whatever star rusher we can bring in) will help our DL. if im really picking, id' add two studs to the DL, letting star and houghs walk after a year or so, and replacing all else w draft or street guys

crazy! seems to me josh, the system, and diggs are what makes that possible. it's weak that the best wr team in the nfl, with a deadly running qb, can get stymied with the scheme kc put on us. it's just a glaring hole we have at RB and TE, not to mention internal blocking. the good thing is that is a low cost/value position grouping, so we SHOULD be able to get better there with a quickness

a good poster on here pointed out how our ability to cover tight ends was poor prior to star and our DL cleaning up for 2 years, was solid during those two years, and was cheeks (near the worst) this year. it's pretty clear the difference is made by the DL in this scheme. we pay the most for a reason, we just brought in a bunch of old duds. in carolina, when short and hardy were balling out of control, their d was a monster. they lost luke for a bit and it was still solid. they lost hardy because frankly he may be insane, and it fell off hard. also, beane is reading my posts (lol) because he knows he needs a super star or stars at premium positions to win the big one. we have our CB (fell off a touch this year, but was hurt), our qb, or WR, they think they have their LB in edmunds (MLB in this scheme is set up to cover all kinds of stuff, so when it's not in a good protected position it falls off hard), and they need IMO two just studs on DL. add those studs, milano or 20 guys can look great at WLB. take em out, and you get what we got last year. solid at times, very good once in a while, and just gaping holes too much of the time.

well, im going to keep up my star player design crusade, and say this is a smart move for the rams. they scheme to get super stars in as many positions as possible (important positions anyhow). they fill in the rest as needed, and use their stars as a weapon/focal point. i like that model, and i think our bills can make like 3 moves and have as many stars as anyone else and win our chip. i think goff is actually a solid qb, but as is often said here the greatest ability is availability. goff is physically slight, and small dings take him out, stafford is a hoss and has played at a high level while legit hurt (shout out to physically small beez, who balled on a broken leg. he's just a different breed). as hapless showed, stafford is also a legit deep ball threat, goff is simply not.

i hope i get proven wrong, and he just burst out soon. he was a 5 star DE (how many of those every year?) and had huge college production, he just measured horribly on the athletic metrics, but sadly i think you are right and he just wasn't a good enough guy. i honestly think if you stick a premier pass rusher on our DL, fix our 2nd cb situation (not a star, just a good guy) add in a top 12 TE (which IMO can be signed for less than what we pay murhpy and kroft combined) and a solid back (and the nfl just seems to be awash in these guys) we walk out of KC w a W. chris simms broke down the game, and said "there is no difference maker in the front 7, diggs is special, and beez is good in his small role". given our WRs were hurt, and our best rb (who is like JAG level+ at this point) was out, that's a shocking star "star" differential. the more i think about it, since we have this like mesh D where every part has to be in place, and we won like 5 match ups all night (where guys flew buy mahomes cuz they were not confident and were pressing) i don't think our D is anything but a liability unless we can get 1 or 2 actual pain bringers in the front 7.

AJ was a non factor this season, which is not acceptable for a 2nd round pick at a position of need. obv he has lots of room and time to improve, but this does speak to the new wave idea of building a team with absolute super stars, and filling in everywhere else w the draft and the odd value FA. because we had this silly notion of a super deep DL where we just rush the passer and blow up run fits with fresh legs, we had players like murphy (8mm a year inactive player) and butler/addison (sub replacement level production at ~9MM a year) taking burn away from the young rookies. if we had a Rams/KC approach instead of a few stars and then everyone else, maybe we'd have a difference maker DE or DT in FA (seems like TB was able to get both of those with Suh and JPP) and while you'd expect the rookie to struggle at first (our over priced Jags did too, and kept it up!) by the end of the season you have a real asset on the cheap. we've signed 5 DL on bigger FA contracts recently (star, murph, and the 3 stiffs last year) and maybe Star is good, the rest not. we signed 2 TEs on not small contracts (klien being expensive, smith being meh) and they blow, we've signed 2 i think linebackers at over 1mm a year (klien over all was not a good fit IMO vs his cap, rest is depth). we signed our two safeties for fairly cheap contracts, total home run. we signed beez and brown to a total of like 12mm a year or so, great (even tho brown is always hurt and will likely walk). williams was a great 1y guy at OT, hope it keeps up, morse is a slightly above average starter payed all pro money, spain was an ok signing, bad extension. if instead of trafficking in all of that trash, we focused on getting stars, and getting max value otherwise, i think guys like epenessa would be better today, and at the very least we'd know more about him.

lol, i wasn't even being sarcastic (can be hard to tell). i legit think he can be a weapon for us. i remember cordale patterson, huge and fast and brings literally nothing else, the pats used him as a change up on O and it stole for them first downs and the odd big play. more than anything, that's what we miss out on as a football team, go to match up breakers that decrease the level of difficulty of what we are trying to do.

i really don't know anything about him, but this thread has me sold! draft him in the 1st, OG in the 2nd, pass rusher and TE in FA, figure something out at LB (i predict milano walks), and get RB and DB help in the draft!

is he straight done, or does he have juice left?

i think 40-47mm per year, 5-10 years, the team friendly bit will be how it is structured so that he gets cash up front, but it smashes the cap in the future, when it will surely be larger.

i dunno about ertz himself, but we need a top flight guy. Diggs showed what trash we had before, and how much he improved everyone. we need to have at least 2 TEs on the roster who can do damage, so we gotta get someone.

i think our D scheme needs to be retooled, and our O scheme needs to be adjusted. i say that knowing they prolly get themselves in a bind due to who they did and did not have. zero pass rush from any DL was a bust. i think they went out and bot packs of baseball cards hoping one of them would have a star rookie, instead they got nothing but JAGS. i do think our LBs got hurt by bad line play, but i am still thinking edmunds needs to be an outside guy, and i didn't think that until this year. on O, all our little WRs got banged up at the wrong time, and with moss out the cupboard was bare. diggs is insane, top 2 or 3, and beez is the best slot guy, but beyond that a never healthy brown and banged up rookie davis left us with just no people at skill position, which is why our O looked like it did last year on sunday. we absolutely must find balance and better interior blocking. im not talking 92 cowboys, but some kind of solid push in the gut. TE, RB, pass rush, and we are there.

bro, thanks for that, i did not know that. i don't think it's just star, but i think the idea is the DL get work done in 18 and 19, and that made the near impossible jobs of our LBs much much easier, so they could mess with TEs more effectively. I think going from star to pure trash this year was a big drop off, but addison is toast, shack was better, and phillips while not being a great one gave us bulk and some juice. edmunds got confused in pass coverage and bit like an angry dog on run fits all season, but a tweet from erik turner showed how the goal line run from KC for a TD had butler basically vacate his gap and just be a silly fat tool doing nothing, leaving 2 gaps for the RB and edmunds had to guess. i also recall carolina losing lucky luke for some of a season, and they didnt' drop off too much, but they lost hardy (the vicious kracken!!!) and they REALLY fell off. more than anything, we need a brutal d line, and aside from star and our goofs stepping up (oliver is the best of them, he has to get better, phillips needs to get a whole lot better, and zimmer has to show something to keep a roster spot, and epinesa of course) we need just a nasty disgusting pass rushing force.

of all of the top teams in the nfl, we are the most FA heavy one. i think we will be drafting guys to come up and impact the team, so a first year starter is the target in rounds 1 and 2 (maybe not week one, but by the end). the easiest positions for a rookie to start are RB, CB, MLB, and OG. we kinda need CB, but maybe not, we totally need RB, but maybe not in the first two rounds, and they love edmunds but i hope and pray they move him to a more edge focused roll and bring in a real fast and agile MLB. im thinking we ditch morse and brown (possible restructure i suppose, but given both were not impactful last season and both got hurt, i doubt it), at least 2 of our DL signed last year, and possibly 3, restructure houghs. I think we keep mongo (move him to C) and take a real shot at keeping williams, and in the first 3 rounds we get an OG, LB who can play both positions in our D, and an RB. I think TE, WR, and DL, along w DBs get picked in the rest of the draft hoping to find some starters. In FA, i think we go after a premier pass rusher and top flight tight end. if the price is right it wouldn't shock me if we also picked up an RB with skills that ours don't have. obv josh gets inked up w a monster contract.

he wasn't bad overall, he was awful. just terrible. like, not make a roster bad. he ran slow and into the wrong hole, just prior to the dropped screen pass he had a great avenue and got 3 yards out of it. the dropped screen pass is the kind of play that an undrafted or 7th round guy gets cut from a team for in preseason. he's the 3rd or 4th best RB on the roster.

agreed, but we can't disguise the font as well in our normal formation, and like edmunds biting or one guy filling the wrong gap (butler on the goal line, as erik turner pointed out on twitter) and the whole thing is toast. vs an O with limitations on what it can do, or when we can know what they do (this is where a lead helps) it is a good risk reward D, but it's too balanced for the modern NFL, it defends all of the field decently by design, but when someone is creative or baits us, it creates holes and doesn't attack or take away their strength well enough. that's what i mean about not being anti fragile, in too many instances a single guy getting beat or making a mental mistake kills us. that's why indy was able to truck us for 14 points super fast, and why kc smoked us, and why we didn't stop a TE all season.

i worry this has become an issue w what we are running now too. it's not anti fragile, a single mistake or guys who can't win one on one and we get trucked.

true, and the did it very well. my issue with out D when we fall back to bad habits is it allows for no disguise, and it's easy for QBs to manipulate our LBs who seem to at time be asked to do not just something they can't do well, but the impossible.

something has gotta change, i think our interior blockers are trash. we need at least 2 upgrade on OL, in the interior. i really hope ford can be one.