stitches

Yeah, in a league with limited resources, there are really 3 avenues to add talent to this team - draft, FA and trade. And Ballard by his own volition has decided to pretty much ignore one of those and be extremely limited in the second one, while teams like the Eagles work the full field of opportunities.

IMO at this point we know what we can expect from him. He will have some limited FA activity and try to reinforce the team with bargain bin type of signings. And the biggest chunk of this team's roster building strategy will be drafting. I don't know if this will ever be enough in today's league. Most other teams at the top go way above that in FA and trade AND they draft about as much as we do. He will need one or two draft classes to really hit. Like... 2018 type of hit. Otherwise we will always have talent deficit compared to the best of the best.

IMO it's not about specific number we need to reach... you just need to not be as predictable as we are. You need to introduce some credible threat of mixing it up, otherwise you leave the opponent to operate in their comfort zone knowing exactly what to expect from your defense at (pretty much) all times. And this is especially true when our pass-rush is struggling.

I didn't mean changing the front. I meant changing the blitz frequency. All of Ballard's DCs have been "rush with 4" and don't blitz proponents.

Agreed with this... but I will add one wrinkle - to me it seems like Ballard wants to run a specific type of defense. So even if we replace him, chances are Ballard will hire another coach that wants to run the same type of "rush with 4, heavy zone, limit deep throws" type of DC. I think right now the biggest problem with our defense is our personnel rather than Bradley. I don't think many DCs will be able to do much better with that collection of CBs... but then again... it was him that partially is responsible for having those CBs. We cut a big fast talented rookie for what? For Tony Brown and Darrell Baker Jr? Come on! I understand if we had some great talent and we just didn't have spots for Rush. And he also treated Isaiah Rodgers like some scrub just to push his favorite Facyson. In general, I am not the biggest fan of Bradley, both scheme wise and evaluation of talent-wise.

I am on the record that we should have fired him last off-season and let the new GM pick his HC and QB. But once Irsay decided to keep him, you cannot fire him right after he's picked your new HC and used a top 5 pick on the new QB. I want him to get at least one more year to see his vision around AR through. I don't want a lame duck coach and I don't want a lame duck QB. IMO changing GM now is one of the worst things we can do.

He's signing the best of them to extensions. It's only normal... especially when this is his professed philosophy. Hooker has been pretty good for Dallas, Okereke signed a pretty big contract, Mack played well for us but got injured and noone is giving big money for middling RB coming off serious injury. Walker has been starting for the Browns. I was talking about the usual definitions of hits - players that exceed or match their expectation based on draft position. I disagree with this. He has some pretty good picks... agreed that they have in general not been at positions of high value though...

How does that help the bad secondary?

Grover Stewart Anthony Walker Quenton Nelson Shaq Leonard Braden Smith Zaire Franklin Bobby Okereke EJ Speed MPJ Jonathan Taylor Isaiah Rodgers Bernhard Raimann(at least looks like it so far... too soon to tell) Rodney Thomas ... For this year's draft it's too ealry to tell... Some are showing good things... And if he hits on AR, a lot of other misses might be forgiven. I think Ballard is relatively good evaluator of talent. On the other side - I don't think Ballard has a good grasp of what wins in this league in 2023+. He still parrots that "build from inside out" mantra when in today's NFL what wins is the passing game - QB and receiving weapons on offense and the positions that disrupt passing on defense - CBs and pass-rushers...

Minshew is not terrible. But there is a reason he's a backup in the league.

IMO this is a meaningless "stat", but the reality is that even without it, it's obvious this offense actually can move the ball and can move it even while playing Gardner Minshew at QB and even while playing against good defenses. I never feel like we are about to get shut down by any defense really. And I never feel worried about what our coach is going to call.

The good thing about those loses is that we are losing in all the most predictable ways - namely at the spots we are horribly understaffed/injured at - QB, outside corner... It means that IMO we have something at HC with Steichen and scheme... at least offensively. We just need better talent at certain spots. And we might already have it(but they are injured - AR, Brents, etc.) This roster needs work, but the areas of concern are relatively well defined. IMO this should not be a hard job for Ballard to figure out. Lets see if he does it next off-season.

Maybe a punter? And DEs... and one LB... But like... you don't need to be great at every single position. Every team has weak links. You just can't be horrible at both outside corner spots... and you can't be bad at QB. And you really need some explosive weapons. Downs (last play notwithstanding) is showing a lot of promise.

We are a QB, some weapons and defensive backfield away from being a good team.

He was such an exciting player to watch. Those injuries robbed him off most of his prime. Such a shame... he was on a track to be a hall of famer.

I spent good 10 second looking for Brock Purdy on the graph once I read your post. And... wow! This really does seem like they are playing a different game. On the Colts/Richardson part. IMO it's probably a mix of a lot of all of the above... a bit of the playcalling, a bit of the nature of Richardson as a rookie QB, a bit of our weapons generally not getting tons of separation... and probably not small part is... small sample size. Especially when you split the sample that is already small in 2(for the two QBs).

Hah! Exactly my feelings... both annoy me to no end and still I think the blatant PI on 50-yards TD only getting 15 yards penalty is somehow more egregious. I think the NFL has this one right.

There were legitimate reasons for both of them to fall. Unless he has some serious hidden red flags I don't think he falls. None of them were the level of prospect that MHJ is.

I don't think Frank was a bad coach... he had his strong points, but I don't think he was a great coach either. Ultimately IMO you saw the ceiling with him and I thought he deserved to be fired... and was happy he was fired(not as a person of course, but rather as the coach of the team I'm rooting for). I think at the highest level you need better. And (as I said above) we still don't know for sure Steichen will be good enough when we get to the high importance games and moments, but at this point I feel like he has a chance to be good enough. I'm good with letting it play out and seeing how it all develops. And yeah... I do think Minshew is comparable to Brissett(actually Brissett might be better) or old Matt Ryan...

Because he's doing that with the equivalent of a Jacoby Brissett, (old) Matt Ryan and Sam Ehlinger at QB.

Same. If I had to choose one right now, it would be on the upper end of expectations, but I thought the same early with Reich too, so... At least Reich had Luck early which might have masked a lot of issues, while Steichen is doing wonders with Gardner Minshew and not particularly amazing/established weapons.

This is one of the reasons I thought the way we dealt with Taylor was so bad. Ballard went back on everything he was saying in the off-season and rewarded Taylor for faking an injury, asking out and generally being a nuisance for the team. The players see that and they act accordingly. If they know making noise and drama will get you what you want they will make noise. I would be surprised if this will be the last similar case in the coming years. Ballard set the table and now everybody will want to eat.

And NONE of those were Steichen's fault. And wouldn't have been Frank's fault either.

Imagine if Steichen had called a better game... we might have scored 50 on the best defense in the league.

Minshew has REALLY BAD awareness in the pocket. Well... to be honest with this much problems with protection, I can understand a bit him not knowing where the pressure will come from but... he just has to be better. Otherwise he's a very solid QB... but his pocket presence is one of the worst of any QB in the league.