Breaking: Diggs traded to Texans

[Simpelton]

Let's talk about it after this season. If they hit on #2, no one will be talking about the Sam Howell Era any more.

Sadly if we hit on #3 people here will still be talking about 2018, Tom vs Bill, our miserly and horny old owner, etc.

no, just like they're not talking about the RG3 era.

It's not about Howell, it's not about RGIII, and it's not about whoever the hell else gets sent to the hell that is JFK Arena. "getting a hit" is partially about organizational strength. Teams like Carolina and Washington, who have none, bust out their QB picks. Right now that's the trajectory we're on.

I don't actually think Chase Young is that much worse than CJ Stroud. Stroud happened to land on a roster that was equipped to support him. Young did not. Similarly We would have had more success with Mac Jones if we had put ourselves in a better position to support him. He was looking pretty good in the first year or so before the rest of the offense imploded

Terrible rosters will eventually break even can't-miss prospects like Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence. All of those guys are unquestionably not busts who are now struggling due to incompetence in building the roster around them. Same deal with Andrew Luck. One imagines Teddy Bridgewater, Zack Wilson, and other "busts" might have done better or looked more competent if they didn't spend their first season after getting drafted on their backs. i mean yeah there's also idiots like Johnny Football who earn their meme status, but In a game where confidence is everything you can't tell me that what happens to those kids is entirely their fault.

It is simply NOT true that the rest of the roster is something you can ignore if you happen to get a good QB, and it's a disgusting attitude to me because it allows fans to "no true scotsman" any bust so that their failure is clearly not the team's fault, they just were clearly terrible.

Mac Jones deserved better.

 

[Bill Lee]

no, just like they're not talking about the RG3 era.

It's not about Howell, it's not about RGIII, and it's not about whoever the hell else gets sent to the hell that is JFK Arena. "getting a hit" is partially about organizational strength. Teams like Carolina and Washington, who have none, bust out their QB picks. Right now that's the trajectory we're on.

I don't actually think Chase Young is that much worse than CJ Stroud. Stroud happened to land on a roster that was equipped to support him. Young did not. Similarly We would have had more success with Mac Jones if we had put ourselves in a better position to support him. He was looking pretty good in the first year or so before the rest of the offense imploded

Terrible rosters will eventually break even can't-miss prospects like Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence. All of those guys are unquestionably not busts who are now struggling due to incompetence in building the roster around them. Same deal with Andrew Luck. One imagines Teddy Bridgewater, Zack Wilson, and other "busts" might have done better or looked more competent if they didn't spend their first season after getting drafted on their backs. i mean yeah there's also idiots like Johnny Football who earn their meme status, but In a game where confidence is everything you can't tell me that what happens to those kids is entirely their fault.

It is simply NOT true that the rest of the roster is something you can ignore if you happen to get a good QB, and it's a disgusting attitude to me because it allows fans to "no true scotsman" any bust so that their failure is clearly not the team's fault, they just were clearly terrible.

Mac Jones deserved better.

Two things can be true:
1) Mac Jones deserved better
2) Mac Jones was never going to be a franchise-level QB

IMO if (2) was different I think we'd have seen signs despite not having a great roster. We have with others. Plenty of QBs have had bad starts but showed enough signs to keep around. Some that come to mind are Payton Manning, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw.

We all hoped Mac would show signs of being a good game manager and staying within the limits of his skill set, but, nope, he showed he'd write checks that his arm couldn't cash. There really was only one path to success for him and he wouldn't follow it, unlike his most common draft-day comp Derek Carr who is still making bank as an NFL starting QB.

There's an interesting tension between "focus on QB to the exclusion of other areas" and "you can't win without a franchise QB".

Personally I think almost every team has these suggested "exclusion areas", almost no team is stacked top to bottom.

Overall I think our roster is weaker than it was for Mac's first year, and definitely see areas that need to be improved.

Whether that is due to lack of skill at drafting or lack of luck or some of both is up for debate.

Yet I think our long-term future requires hitting on a QB, and IMO it's so hard to get right you have to take as many shots as it takes to score.

And it does mean preparing to protect that QB ( unlike let's say Andrew Luck ) so if it were up to me I'd be biased towards also focusing on the O line.

Unfortunately for me it seems either our drafting skill, luck or biases have gone against that and favored the defense in general over the offense.

Yet I still root for the laundry, even though many here wax eloquently about how ugly that laundry is.