2013 NFL Offseason and Draft

Even after releasing Tebow, the Jets are still carrying 5 (five!) quarterbacks. Including David Garrard, Greg McElroy, and Matt Simms. I chuckle.

Merrith_sl said:

It's amazing how many guys manage to hang on in a backup role and get paid good money to do so.

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Pretty much. I think the NFL is devoid of talent at QB. You've got like 8-10 guys who are legitimate starters. Then there are another 5-10 who are decent, but not great. After that, there's just a whole lot of suck. And on top of that, even the shitty guys need a backup. So you've got a shitty guy being backed up by someone who's just god awful. But someone with experience in the NFL is apparently better than grabbing an UDFA college player. That's why a guy like Jason Campbell is still in the league. And why you had Tebow backing up Sanchez last year. It makes no sense.

Titan_sl said:

There is a difference between a good coach and a cheerleader. Sean Payton, Bill Belichek, Harbaugh Brothers, are good coaches. You can count 1-2 wins per season that they don't win if they are not the coach.

Then you decent coaches, Coughlin, Tomlin, Mike Smith, Carrol. These are teams that wouldn't probably be effected either way if they lost their coach. Wouldn't change much.

Then you have coaches like Garret, Andy Reid, Norv Turner, Jeff Fisher, whose teams would probably be 1 or 2 wins more if they had a different coach. Once you accept that those coaches(notice most of them have long careers, because they do JuST enough to keep a job, or those 1 or 2 games don't mean much in the grand scheme of things) exist, you will understand the difference between a cheerleader and a coach...

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I had to go back and read this again. There's no way you can put Andy Reid and Jeff Fisher in the same category as Norv Turner and Jason Garrett. Coaches on par with Turner and Garrett are guys like Mike Martz, Romeo Crennel, Herm Edwards, etc. Just not good coaches. Might luck into a playoff game every once in a while in the years they have a really easy schedule but they are going nowhere in the playoffs, and can't consistently get there either.

Reid and Fischer have proven that they can build a consistent contender and also win some big games in the postseason. They aren't just a flash in the pan with 1 lucky year where they made a run or anything. The sign of a good coach is obviously getting to the playoffs consistently. A lot of bad to mediocre coaches can get a talented team to the playoffs every few years, just because of the way the NFL schedules. You see those teams yo-yo a lot(like Turner with the Chargers), they have a bad year, then get an easy schedule and rebound to make a Wild Card, maybe win a weak division, do nothing in the playoffs, and then right back to being bad the next year when they get that difficult 1st place schedule. Reid has only 3 losing seaons out of 14 with Philly. That isn't just coincidence or lucky scheduling. Fischer had a similar run at Tennessee.

Elurin_sl said:

Pretty much. I think the NFL is devoid of talent at QB. You've got like 8-10 guys who are legitimate starters. Then there are another 5-10 who are decent, but not great. After that, there's just a whole lot of suck. And on top of that, even the shitty guys need a backup. So you've got a shitty guy being backed up by someone who's just god awful. But someone with experience in the NFL is apparently better than grabbing an UDFA college player. That's why a guy like Jason Campbell is still in the league. And why you had Tebow backing up Sanchez last year. It makes no sense.

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Campbell did get a raw deal with his time in the league. Absolutely zero continuity, O coordinators changing every year, played behind a terrible line during his time with the Skins. I think the career backup role is a better fit for his overall talent level, but there was a time when I think he had the skill set to be one of those "decent" QB's that could get a good team a playoff berth. Hell up until last year, his best season passing yards wise (with one of those Skins teams) was only 6 yards worse than Joe Flacco's best passing yards season.

But overall I agree, any QB that's had NFL experience almost gets grandfathered into the "veteran backup" role for teams. Really you probably only have 8-10 like you said that can really take their teams towards possible contender status, followed by that group of teams that are stuck with their "decent" starter that sees them go between 6-10 and 9-7 for a couple years in a row, making it hard to truly improve the team around them. The problem is, it's so hard to go from that "decent" level to the upper level unless you hit a home run in the draft (and not all picks work out obviously), and if you actually give up on a "decent" guy, it's just a wasteland of talent which is going to make your team completely terrible until you are lucky enough to improve at that position.

I'd like him to come play some S/T

It's still too soon to say Garrett is or isn't a good head coach. The players definitely play harder for him than they did Wade, and the last 3 drafts he's had input on have turned out pretty good (Dez, Sean Lee, Bruce Carter, Tyron Smith, Claiborne, etc). He's managed to get rid of all the entitled Cowboys players slowly and replace them with team leader type guys.

He's still terrible at game management, but that is one thing that he can correct. How your players play for you and talent evaluation are not.

If he continues to cost his team 1-3 games a season with bad time management or 4th down decisions, then he'll be back to being a career OC. But for a guy with no prior HC experience, you got to give him more than 2 years to get stuff worked out. Cowboys switching to a no-huddle with Romo calling the majority of the plays should help Garrett quite a bit on the management side of things.

Dolphins WR Mike Wallace Comes Out As Stupid Asshole

The story

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/2...fter-mike.html

joeboo_sl said:

I had to go back and read this again. There's no way you can put Andy Reid and Jeff Fisher in the same category as Norv Turner and Jason Garrett. Coaches on par with Turner and Garrett are guys like Mike Martz, Romeo Crennel, Herm Edwards, etc. Just not good coaches. Might luck into a playoff game every once in a while in the years they have a really easy schedule but they are going nowhere in the playoffs, and can't consistently get there either.

Reid and Fischer have proven that they can build a consistent contender and also win some big games in the postseason. They aren't just a flash in the pan with 1 lucky year where they made a run or anything. The sign of a good coach is obviously getting to the playoffs consistently. A lot of bad to mediocre coaches can get a talented team to the playoffs every few years, just because of the way the NFL schedules. You see those teams yo-yo a lot(like Turner with the Chargers), they have a bad year, then get an easy schedule and rebound to make a Wild Card, maybe win a weak division, do nothing in the playoffs, and then right back to being bad the next year when they get that difficult 1st place schedule. Reid has only 3 losing seaons out of 14 with Philly. That isn't just coincidence or lucky scheduling. Fischer had a similar run at Tennessee.

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I agree on Reid, not quite so much on Fisher although he's certainly preferable to guys like Norv, Herm or Romeo.

Jeff Fisher:

Regular season:150-128-1, .539 win % over 18 seasons.Post Season:5-6, .455%, six seasons out of the 18 appearing in the playoffs, one superbowl loss, one conference championship loss.

Andy Reid:

Regular season:130-92-1, .585 win % over 14 seasons.Post Season:10-9, .526%, nine appearances, five straight and three straight appearances, five total conference championship games three of them in a row (four in a row counting the superbowl year), one superbowl loss.

Fisher had six losing seasons out of 18 and five total 8-8 seasons, leaving only 7 winning seasons, less than half. Granted some pretty good runs in some of those winning years, three times 13-3 two of them in a row and three divisional titles. Most recent winning season/playoff appearance in 2008, Reid's in 2010.

I'm not sure I place them in the same category. I just had a bartender last night who was from Philly and saying how glad she was Reid was gone. I had to remind her how much success he actually had, but that's Philly fans for you. She said she won't miss the playcalling which does seem to have been a sticking point with him and Eagles fans. If he had just one ring or a SB win and a loss or maybe even a second SB loss he would be viewed a bit differently. That's a pretty elite coaching resume all things considered. Yeah he's got some really bad moments, IDK maybe he doesn't deserve as much credit for his Eagles career as it looks. Don't we have any Philly people here?

Fisher is utterly and completely competent. That's about it.

I respect the guy but I'm glad we moved on, even if it takes us a couple of coaches to find another good one.

I'm pretty sure Eagles fans believe they'd have won at least one Super Bowl had they had a coach other than Andy Reid. You obviously can't ever know for sure.

He was absolutely terrible at clock management, and I know for a good portion of his career there would call an insane ratio of pass to run (60 passes to 20 rushes, for example). Which, if you were a fan of another NFC East team was great. But when you've got Lesean McCoy and Vick, and you're passing 3 times as much as you run...well, that's gotta be fucking irritating. Or McNabb, and of those 60 passes, 20 are into the dirt.

Good with the bad though? What was it 5 Conference title game appearances over a 10 year stretch? Obviously when you're contending that often it hurts to never break through and win one but many teams would kill for that level of steady success.

Elurin_sl said:

He was absolutely terrible at clock management, and I know for a good portion of his career there would call an insane ratio of pass to run (60 passes to 20 rushes, for example). Which, if you were a fan of another NFC East team was great. But when you've got Lesean McCoy and Vick, and you're passing 3 times as much as you run...well, that's gotta be fucking irritating. Or McNabb, and of those 60 passes, 20 are into the dirt.

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Well, this is partly a system/west coast thing right? And of course the McNabb factor.

Grimmlokk_sl said:

Dolphins WR Mike Wallace Comes Out As Stupid Asshole

The story

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/2...fter-mike.html

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Give it two weeks before the season starts and he's kicked off the team.

I'm really hoping Miami picks up Tebow. We're rootin' for ya, big guy.

My point on the coaching thing still stands. Fisher was with the Titans for way too long. They definitley stagnated his last few seasons there. He would have been fired if he were some no-name coach, but kept his job out of respect, because he did enough to not warrant being fired. A lot of coaches do get fired, even when it probably isn't warranted. Reid is the same way, without that Vick miracle season, his last couple were not overly great. He makes some terrible clock management decisions aswell. Any other coach, and he is fired before he gets to where he was last season. Hell, Turner had some pretty good seasons when he rode LT into the ground, and Phillip Rivers knew how to throw a football. He was doing enough to stay the coach, but still made some really bad decisions. Thats my whole point. Career wise, People like Reid and Fisher get the benefit of the doubt. They've undoubtedly had good coaching careers, and deserve a season or two of being not good before they're tossed. Garrett is somehow, already in that category. Hell, Wade Phillips was in that category too.

Its not a knock on their career, its a knock on their most recent seasons. Garrett gets the benefit of being in an organization run by Jerry Jones. That guy hates admitting he made a mistake more than the Lakers do. Whats funny is how eerily similar their offseason is going to be. Lakers keep Dantoni, and sign Dhoward to a 110+million Contract, when both are a bad idea!

In far more important news: Tebow finished his Jets career with 2 fewer TD passes than Curtis Martin.

All this coaching talk about getting the benefit of the doubt, but the one guy who probably deserved it the most never got it.

Gilgamel_sl said:

Fisher is utterly and completely competent. That's about it.

I respect the guy but I'm glad we moved on, even if it takes us a couple of coaches to find another good one.

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Seemed like the problems for the Titans had more to do with Bud than anything.