takeitdown

Yeah, when you get into most of these being 3rd down situations, you realize those balls shouldn't have been thrown away. You should hold the ball and try to make a play on 3rd down, because otherwise the other team gets the ball back. The exception being the one in field goal range. What was clear was that the passing game/scheme wasn't working at all.

Yeah, the reality is, things are more alike than different. Someone who is a great hedge fund manager or incubator can likely be taught to be a great GM. It's a way of thinking that can be applied to various disciplines. You can't make someone think that way that doesn't. But you can fairly easily incorporate knowledge about a specific area or industry and apply that thinking to it. I've been surprised more of that hasn't gone on...and it is going in that direction. GMs have to be smarter than they used to, and we're seeing that OC's have to be smarter. It's all becoming much more of a

I don't think that's the worst idea. You can always hire high level scouts to know the ins and outs of what a player can and can't do. The GM could be the strategist that knows how to put all those pieces together to make the best unit. GM is as much about knowing value and being someone who could succeed as a hedge fund manager as it is about knowing the ins and outs of scouting. You need both, but if I had to choose 1, I'd rather have someone with a great head on their shoulders for how you build things, and have them learn the scouting, than have a good scout who doesn't hav

He's performed for sure. If we'd hit on any of the DE's we'd taken, we could've had a formidable line.

I think aside from coaching, which is huge, a lot of this comes down to the non elite guys. Do you have a bunch of near pro bowl players? You're probably good. Do you have a bunch of guys who wouldn't even get snaps on other teams? You're probably not. Pitt and the Ravens do a very good job of drafting for what their defense is, and even their "ok guys" would generally make bank in FA. We've often had one elite guy and just a lot of JAG beside them. Think we need that near elite at DT, LB, FS, edge yes. But we need 6-8 other guys who are mostly above average players. We've

The whole concept most NFL teams work under (including the Patriots) is do YOUR job. When you start trying to do other people's jobs, then it causes a mess. Whether that's the LB trying to do the FS job, or the RB trying to block who the TE should. If a QB starts kneeling when the coach called in a play...that's just not what you do. You try to perform what was called to the best of your ability. If they're calling the wrong things...that's someone else's job. When everyone worries about doing their own job, it's easier to tell who is doing the wrong thing and fix it. If eve

We never HAD to have a top 5 defense. It's always been the case for the last decade or so, that with a top 10-15 defense by any points/drive, EPA, etc type metric, we would have been a great team. But you just can't be great with 5th worst defense. You can be offense oriented, but you still have to field a defense that can do something. And it's hard to fathom we've had such trouble doing it.

The most charitable take on this for Dimitroff is he thinks he knows what was wrong, and it was coaching, but he doesn't want to throw DQ under the bus. I'd imagine he thinks "I got him the safeties we wanted, grabbed several new corners and our coverage still sucks."

The secondary is a mess. If that weren't the case, I think we'd be middle of the pack. But the secondary would have to make a 180.

I want to hear about how our next head coach breaks down the other team and identifies their weaknesses and adjusts accordingly. How he is a master strategist. How he puts his players in positions to succeed. I don't really care about most the rest.

This one is actually a better point than my original one...because it hits a larger number of games. I knew of these stats but was too lazy to look them up. If your point is solely Ryan played badly in these 5 games in the 4th quarter...OK. If your point is Ryan is the reason the team loses a lot of those games when the offense scores a lot of points...you're going to have a much harder time.

Well, given that I was speaking about the change over the last few years as compared to previously, there've only been two...Sark and Koetter. Neither has shown to be great. I mean that's really the issue. Each OC who has coached Ryan has gotten promoted...and each time excluding Shanahan, they've shown they weren't deserving. So the balance there tilts toward Ryan making his OC's look better than they are. But I was speaking about...in 2012, 2015, 2016...I felt we'd make the comeback. I saw when he had time in the pocket and knew it would be a big play. Granted this is emotiona

This I agree with. And I've tried to dissect if it's Ryan or OC, but honestly can't tell.

I think it's because on balance we've had about the 8th best passing offense and the 25th best defense. It's clear where the bulk of the blame goes. And I'm pretty much always going to go to coaching and OL, because I think "skill players" can't do a ****ed thing without both. If you look at the end of any game we lose, even if Ryan played a very good game there will be blame on him. Maybe people don't think he's the aggregate problem, but will blame for each game. There was a time recently where if Ryan had time in the pocket, I was very confident it was going to be a big

No, that was just an honest mistake. I do defend Ryan after the sort of off balance blame he takes in general. He wasn't who I wanted to draft, and isn't my type of player. But he has been the most consistent top level player we've had throughout. And I can provide scores of data around how other QBs, when they have over 100 QB rating or throw 3 TD and no INT or play to some level, their team nearly always wins while that's not true of Ryan. So on balance, the team lets Ryan down more than the reverse. And I get tired of the "if this were A rod, etc. narrative." The reality is t