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This Was Always a Quiet Rebuild


H2o

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A taste of the playoffs last year had us all hoping this was turning around quicker than anticipated. The fact we were only a few plays away from beating a team that was in the AFC Championship piled onto that hope. If Tyrod throws back shoulder to Benjamin, if the defense could stop Blake friggin Bortles from looking like Michael Vick, this, or that, we all contemplated the scenarios. It had us relieved that the drought was over, but we still had that uncharted excitement due to the year we had. The fact of the matter is this has always been a rebuild since McDermott took over and Beane was brought in after last year's draft. 

 

We have basically washed our hands of everything and everyone in previous regimes. Watkins, Glenn, Dareus, Darby, and Tyrod were all traded away. Gilmore was allowed to walk in FA along with Preston Brown, Goodwin, Henderson, and Robert Woods. Eric Wood's injury was an unforeseen wrench thrown in there as well as Richie's personal struggles that led to his retirement. Right there we are talking about 11 starters between the offense and defense which were all on the field for us just two years ago. That is one hell of a turnover. You couple all of these roster moves with the fact we have an aging Shady, Hughes, Kyle on what is most likely his farewell tour, and now you throw in 3 more starters who all may not be on this team as early as 2019. We are going through some serious changes. 

 

We have acquired some key pieces in this time as well through the draft, FA, and trades. The FA side of things is judged by me with Hyde and Poyer. I know the preseason hasn't been what we hoped for, but last year they were arguably the best Safety tandem in the league. Two of the best pickups we have made in quite some time. Teams always make moves their fans or members of the media don't always agree with. I didn't like the Star contract and I still don't like the Star contract, but hopefully he can contribute. We have traded for players like Kelvin Benjamin and Corey Coleman who are still on the team. Benjamin may be a long term piece here and we can't really judge anything on Coleman except the fact we got him for basically a bag of peanuts. Imo, the money has been in the draft. Last year we picked up Te White, Dawkins, and Milano. The jury is still out on Zay Jones, but hopefully he bounces back from all of his on field struggles and off the field incidents to become a productive WR. This year we get Josh Allen who is the future of the franchise at QB, Edmunds who is destined to be the QB of the defense, Harrison Phillips who is basically Kyle Jr., Taron Johnson, and Wyatt Teller. All of these players I feel will be good, if not great players for us in years to come despite Dunkirk Chad's Word on the situation. All of these players we have acquired have also been done so in a way which we haven't parted with anything consequential in the years to come. 

 

This year maybe a struggle and there are some things that have put us in a places we did not expect with this roster, but I still have faith that the Coaching Staff and FO have us moving in the right direction for long term sustainable success. We are projected to have $90,000,000 in cap room next offseason after dropping all of the dead weight. We still have all of our early round picks. We have some really solid young talent as well as a few key vets under contract the next few seasons. I know we enjoyed the little taste of success we had last year, but with a rebuild comes growing pains and that is what this has always been.  

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I don't disagree. The playoffs last year felt like a happy accident, which I am A-OK with. We needed to get the drought monkey off our backs in whatever way possible. I personally always felt it would end like it did, with a wild card round loss to some jackass AFC south team. 

 

With the drought narrative gone, now it can be "how do we get back to postseason consistently?"

 

We're not assured long-term success yet, but it certainly does feel like the first boxes on the long list are getting checked off. 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Dablitzkrieg said:

Last year they were tanking too...:thumbsup:

that too 

Just now, C.Biscuit97 said:

And in the nfl, the rebuild shouldn’t take more than a season or you’re hiring new people.  

when you hire a new coach the rules are different. because each coach wants "his" guys

 

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12 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I just love the narrative that a team that averaged 8 wins in the previous regime needed a rebuild. 

 

8-8 is aids.

 

it's literally the worst possible outcome imaginable.

 

Much better to be 2-14 than 8-8.

 

And that was what Whaley built. A team whose absolute MAXIMUM ceiling was 9, maybe 10 wins in a miracle year. NOT good enough.

 

Edited by joesixpack
forgot a "was"
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10 minutes ago, jimmy10 said:

I don't disagree. The playoffs last year felt like a happy accident, which I am A-OK with. We needed to get the drought monkey off our backs in whatever way possible. I personally always felt it would end like it did, with a wild card round loss to some jackass AFC south team. 

 

With the drought narrative gone, now it can be "how do we get back to postseason consistently?"

 

We're not assured long-term success yet, but it certainly does feel like the first boxes on the long list are getting checked off. 

 

 

This! Well said. Last year gave them some breathing room. Now let’s fix this thing long term. A commitment to mediocrity is no way to run an NFL franchise. Being ‘in the hunt’ loses its luster when you never catch the rabbit! 

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5 minutes ago, joesixpack said:

 

8-8 is aids.

 

it's literally the worst possible outcome imaginable.

 

Much better to be 2-14 than 8-8.

 

And that was what Whaley built. A team whose absolute MAXIMUM ceiling was 9, maybe 10 wins in a miracle year. NOT good enough.

 

Agree with the 8-8.  That’s why if Andy Dalton didn’t help, last year would have been terrible.  

 

But I’d argue that with a franchise type qb, those Whaley teams were SB contenders or at worst, playoff contenders every year.  Can you say that about this year’s team?

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22 minutes ago, C.Biscuit97 said:

I just love the narrative that a team that averaged 8 wins in the previous regime needed a rebuild. 


I just love the oversimplification of not looking at the long term outlook for said team, which was filled with bloated contracts and questionable character. 

I also love that you extol averaging 8 wins a year as a virtue, and as a sign that the team didn't need to be rebuilt.

Edited by Logic
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Just now, Logic said:


I just love the oversimplification of not looking at the long term outlook for said team, which was filled with bloated contracts and questionable character. 

I also love that you extol averaging 8 wins of year as a virtue, and as a sign that the team didn't need to be rebuilt.

 

Agreed, whaley's roster would have been a slow death.

 

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10 minutes ago, FLFan said:

Yes, a team that was consistently mediocre needed a rebuild.

Or a franchise QB

7 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

I agree. And it’s way harder to rebuild from 8-8 than it is from botttoming out.

The Browns disagree

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How many of those are self inflicted wounds by the FO. I totally agree that we have too many holes to cover in an off season. He’ll, I think it probably takes 3. But there didn’t need to be that many. 

 

Dareus is a good example. Between dead cap and salary, we are paying his replacement 23 mil for lesser production. We had an out next year that would have slashed his dead cap money. 

 

It feels like we are trying to clean out the fridge but just throwing perfectly good food on the ground in the process. Now we have to clean up the mess and buy more groceries. 

 

 

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