stitches

No worries... I will see this through despite Ryan Poles' best efforts to deprive me of every pick... BTW... it's possible by the end of it I might have just a couple of picks

....

I think it's normal for the owner to support his GM in public with whatever decision they are making in the moment. Irsay supported Ballard and Reich about Wentz publicly too, but we now know that behind the scenes he was not sold on Wentz from the start. I guess we would never know for sure if Irsay really wanted us to draft a QB after Luck retired, or if what he's saying 2 years later is revisionist history to make himself look better. I guess it's up for everybody to decide for themselves whether to believe Irsay or not.

I think you are correct... it was after the Wentz thing and it was either in a Holder or Keefer piece where they had a lot of quotes from Irsay, but yah... the report was that Irsay supposedly preferred us to draft and develop our next QB pretty much from the start. I might try to find it later, but it's hard to do 2 years later...

There were reports that Irsay wanted us to draft and grow our next QB pretty much from the start after Luck retired, but he trusted Ballard and Reich and let them proceed with their plan.

And Joe Thomas never was on a winning team and still he was the best OT of his generation. There are good players on bad teams. Frankie Luvu is just the easiest and most obvious example about the difference of what I think we needed vs what we got. I'm not stuck on him specifically. There are other LBs that could have helped with coverage and disrupting the passer more than Franklin. On that I can agree to some degree... the QB is the most important piece bar none. But still ... the QB is still less than half of the equation here. Hitting on a QB affords you opportunities and the QB can cover for a lot of shortcomings of your roster. But still... hitting on a QB doesn't absolve you from the responsibility of building a good roster... because when you go to the playoffs, you will meet other teams with great QBs ... and some of them will have strong rosters in addition to the strong QB. QB play has a strong impact on our play on offense. On D, our roster construction and talent, defensive philosophy and coaching are the things that matter most. Majority of this is on Ballard. BTW not having a great QB play is on Ballard too. And this is not hindsight, either. The moment Luck retired my contention has been that we need to go find our next QB from the draft ASAP. This is another philosophical disagreement I had with Ballard for the 3 years after Luck's retirement. Him and Reich wanted vets...

That's all I wanted to hear from Flacco. Right now having a vet backup with the experience and desire to work with our young QB is very important and he seems to be excited about that possibility.

Hooker was supposed to be that for us. And this seems to be unpopular opinion around here, but IMO he looked like he can actually be that for us, before the injuries hit him.

Umh... no... not really. This is very far from what my point is. I have barely criticized him for misses. I'm criticizing him for big picture stuff - roster building philosophy. I know perfectly well that noone bats 1.000... and I don't expect all his signings to be succesful. But I do want him to build a team based on what wins in 2024 rather than in the 80s. Again. I've never said anything like that. Everything I've said is about prioritization of resources. That doesn't mean run defense doesn't matter at all. And it doesn't mean anyone can do what Grover and Zaire Franklin can do... but I do think there is wider selection and cheaper selection of players who can approximate what they do and even if not playing at that exact level, the gains in other areas will be much more beneficial to wins. This has been the whole conversation here... If anyone's moves consistently don't work they are getting fired. BTW just for the record we've been closer to horrible more times than to contention in the 7 years of Ballard.

Not sure this is within moderators/administrators purview, but whenever I see such trollish behavior I always wonder if this is his only account here?! Because look at it... he logged in, posted, logged out... never to be seen again. Until the next drive by shooting in a few months time.

You keep not understanding @Superman 's and my worries about asset allocation. Roster construction is a zero sum game. When you put resources in one area this means that those resources cannot be put in another area. When you keep hammering the run defense .... investing and overinvesting and trippling down on it and paying 40M+ for your DTs and 7M for backup run stuffing nose tackle and 10+M for what is essentially run stuffing linebacker, this means that money now cannot be spent on things that are much bigger concerns for this team and coincidentally those are things that actually correlate with winning much more than run defense in the modern NFL. I like Partridge's hire too... but his job is not player evaluation and roster management. His job is to coach the players he's given. That's why I find it so weird that you keep deferring to Partridge's opinion, when we don't even know what his opinion is. It can range from "meh... i'm ok with this guy, probably can work with it but don't sweat it if you can't get him" to "OMG, please, please, please find a way to bring him to me. He's amazing and the missing piece". What we know is that this is Ballard's job to decide whether to pursue him and what limits to set on an offer to him. Well now it's done and whatever visions they have of him, his actual play will depend on Davis's talent, skill and Partridge's ability to get the best of him. Again... don't want to answer for Superman, but this is because of apparent focus in Ballard's roster building philosophy. We complain that they bring nothing to the pass-rush, because it's the pass rush that needs one of the biggest improvements. not the run-stuffing. And by investing in them and not someone else who is more pass-rush proficient, we are again steering this team into a direction that is not conducive to what wins in today's league. A coach can help extract the best out of a player and can help develop their skills. A coach cannot magically turn Grover Stewart into Justin Madubuike or Zaire Franklin into Frankie Luvu or Raekwon Davis into ... I don't know Dorance Armstrong or Za'Darius Smith. Lets be clear here - we haven't really done much in first week of free agency. Well, we've kept our own... that's something Ballard has done in the past. The only two outside moves we have now are Raekwon Davis and Joe Flacco. Last year we signed Minshew on March 17, this year we signed Flacco on March 13... Last year we signed Matt Gay on March 13 and Samson Ebukam on March 14. There really isn't something out of the ordinary that Ballard is doing this year. All those were in the first week of FA last year too... I kind of agree... people are starting to catchup to the fact that no matter the lip service he's done to changing the approach now that we have a cheap QB... Ballard really hasn't changed much of anything about his philosophy. He's doing the exact same things he always does, he focuses on the exact same thing he has always focused on and there is no sign whatsoever that he will be changing anything in his roster construction beliefs. And when the draft comes he will again do what he always does(and BTW this is where I actually am almost all the way there with him) - he will likely trade back for more picks, he will pick high level athletes, he will pick lenght at corner/lb/DL... My hope is that Steichen will manage to somehow convince him to spend big on another weapon.... At the end of the day, the more time passes and the more I see of Ballard the more convinced I get that he is not the guy to get us there. He's too entrenched in his philosophy(one that has not proven to be successful so far). He's not aggressive enough when opportunity and circumstances align and we actually have the chance to strengthen the team around our young QB, who needs all the help he can get. Which is a shame, because in a lot of ways I like Ballard(love his overall demeanor and presence, love his draft strategy for the most part, love that he runs a tight organization and we don't leak like most teams out there, etc.)... but ultimately the results are what he should be and eventually will be judged on. He's the type of GM who will run a solid operation, the team will never be in salary cap hell, the team will never be depleted of draft picks, but he also will never take the big chances to focus extended collection of resources into a window for contention. We will very likely continue to be what we've been with him so far... a middling team that some years miss the playoffs and some years make it only to be hammered by a team that actually has invested into their window for contention. The only real hope I have is that AR turns into somewhat of a monster(top 5 QB in the league) and is enough to keep us in contention on his own(well, with Steichen's help of course)... Those are my current feelings on Ballard's prospects as our GM going forward... I hope I'm wrong.

I don't think it's a huge red flag but definitely eyebrow raising... There is still time before the draft and he can reschedule the workout if he needs to/wants to...

Yeah, I don't mind it. He's a solid backup at this stage of his career and he has had a very good career in the league. I hope he's open to mentoring and helping AR in his growth and not just here for the check...

It's probably based on games played, kind of like Minshew's incentives last year.

Flacco is known for having horrible internal clock. He was 40th of 46 QBs last year in time to throw at 3.01 seconds. With that said, he's still one of the better backups we could have gotten. As long as he's OK mentoring and helping AR, I'm good with that signing.

You mean to tell me you don't trust ... "the feeling" Cam Marino has had?

He's pondering if paying 5M for third nose tackle will be enough to make this defense top 10 in the league.

Another team trying to support their young QB and give him weapons and protection. Good thing AR already has everything he needs so we can focus on what really matters...

You said it...

Wasn't it Tannehill that said he isn't there to mentor Levis last year?

Mason Rudolph to the Titans. One more backup QB off the market...

The Texans are doing what any team with a young talented QB should be doing, stacking the roster and using the cheap QB window to try to create a contention window. Good for them...

We don't blitz a lot... but when we blitz we need that blitz to be super effective. We didn't blitz a ton in Shaq Leonard's better days either... but when he blitzed it was impactful. Luvu has similar playmaking ability. And again... it's not just Luvu. If I said another player(Patrick Queen, Azeez Al-Shaair, Drue Tranquill), people would still find reasons why we shouldn't have singed them. Yes... there is no absolute perfect fit that will hit every single requirement and be super good and super cheap and super available. If we want to find reasons to not sign players we will find them. My point is... Ballard is making the focus of this off-season the same thing that he's been focusing on since forever and he continues to ignore the areas of the team that need most help.

It's 5M for year one with 2.5M dead money if we cut him for year 2... so yeah... it's pretty much 7.5M for 1 year. If you cut him after year one you only save 6.5M, not 9.

Yes. I said already - if it turns out to be a vet min or thereabout, I might change my tune. But AJ Dillon IMO doesn't have that profile of a player who gets vet min. And again - if I turn out to be wrong - I would gladly take back my objection. We've already established that we view that signing very differently, so yeah... lets move on...