PBF81

No, not at all, I blame all of his assistants that were forced upon him from Carolina, which did nothing while they were there. As the head coach he bears no fault or blame. I didn't mean to insinuate that whatsoever. I don't even understand why anyone would think something so foolish.

I say yes. Despite popular opinion to the contrary, his defenses already were merely average in Carolina with two exceptions, one of which included the easiest schedule in the league from 2011-2022. It was below average in four of six seasons otherwise and had better overall talent. There are already questions out, TBD (to be determined that is) pending this season, as to his overall head-coaching prowess. While the other popular narrative is that he's "comfortable" and "trusts" his current staff, which is all but an entire import from his time at Carolina, yet which achieved even less than we've achieved here over the past three seasons, seasons which essentially resulted in losses largely due to coaching failures, 2021 and 2022 in particular. I'd consider it to be half a miracle if it isn't too much for him. But he thinks he's up to the task, but he's not a control-freak. No. LOL As I've said in the past, IMO this is the season where the wheels come off for McBeane. I'm bullish and optimistic about the offense, but the coaching can easily derail that, so my faith has to be in the talent we have there, which under an offensively well-coached team I would consider to be underachievement if it weren't #1 or #2 in scoring this season. The defense IMO will likely end up being incredibly average. But if the offense does turn out to be well-coached, it won't matter. This season, with this roster, is entirely in McD and his Carolina posse's hands. Any failure to achieve properly and play competitively in the playoffs will come back on them this season. If not, we'll have another AFC CG appearance and hopefully an NFL Championship and everything else will be irrelevant. Again, just my two cents. Well, when it's so clear that none of our issues are coaching related. Good point.

Funny you say that, I've been preaching that for a while, but I've been vehemently reassured that McD has a plan thereby negating any such concerns, and that part of that plan may be all but eliminating the position, because despite all of the 31 other teams having MLBs/ILBs on their depth charts, the NFL is moving away from the position. So we'll see, either McD's a visionary and Beane's astute, or ... not. This season should provide the answer to that. I'm far from optimistic.

As someone in the game-day thread pointed out, the outcomes of preseason games are meaningless. What's not meaningless are the man-to-man matchups and how the rookies play. The former wasn't great, the latter was.

That's business, and let's not forget, it is a business first. The new ticket pricing & PSLs will spell that out quite clearly for anyone not understanding that. Why shouldn't the players get what they can when they can get it. Per the above, that's what good GMs do, they manage that ala good business, or conversely, don't. It helps when you effectively backfill positions in preparation for that via your drafts, and again, conversely, hurts when you don't. Having said that, Poyer will be above-average this season. He's at the top of the profession in terms of intellectual understanding and reacting. That's worth a lot.

Anyone that's honest knows that Beane's drafts haven't been good and that he's not gotten expected value in them. Having said that, this year's crop of day 1/2 picks all played well and came out promising. That's a positive. I'm hard on Beane, but nothing's going to change during the season. It's not even a half of a preseason game so let's let the season play out. The time for discussing Beane will be after the season. I all but guarantee you that if things don't go well this season both he and McD will start seeing their honeymoon be over. I'm expecting our D to be around average this season. Having said that, offense is what carries teams in this league. Dawkins can still get in shape in a few weeks. Can't speak to Brown's issues, he is looking more and more like a bust. Kincaid looked the part, upon asking I was told that both Torrence and McGovern played well, which is cause for optimism. As I see it, our offense should be explosive assuming we can get even average OL play. If coaching doesn't !@#$ it up we should be fine. The skill position talent is more than there.

1. The top rookies looked good out-of-the-gate for a change. 2. If anything holds us back this season it's going to be coaching.

He'll be fine, but on the outside at WLB. He'll back up Milano this season.

One point of interest, I've heard Allen and several other players say fairly often this preseason that they were just "having fun." It might be time to have less "fun" and start working a little harder and taking things more seriously. Just a random thought.

So McGovern and Torrence looked good. That's encouraging!! Thanks!

How did McGovern look at LG while he was in? Anyone ...

Even the NFL is fed up?

AHHH, the humor here!!! I'm dyin' over here!!!

Here's my take, it's good to see the top rookies playing well, that's incredibly important, particularly this season. Hopefully the other starters are just duffing it because it's only preseason. That would hardly be the first time that's been the case. IDK, glass half-full kinda thinking. I can't imagine that they won't be ready for the opener and will come out like this.

Let's hope it goes better than that. If not, then yes, hopefully.

LOL, on the radio, Tasker I think, said that McD's glasses looked like construction glasses or that he was going to the gun range. LOL

JUGS flag machine?

LOL, not as bad as the talk, but yeah, WTH!! Blueblockers? LOL Maybe he's crossed an age barrier in his life where he simply doesn't give a siht anymore.

Waiting for someone to post a pic.

Damn, I'm busting a gut over here! ROFLMAO!!! The humor here ...

Lifestyle change? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe McD will patern the OL on his D sans a MLB and go w/o a Center this season. We'll see.

Well, we'll see. We're told that McD has a plan on D and Beane's got it all down otherwise, and that we don't know what it is and that he's a genius or something along those lines. The notion that he's bit off a little bit more than he can chew apparently isn't a possibililty. Neither is the fact that his entire senior D staff from Carolina is now in charge. So we'll see. Not saying we're screwed, it's preseason, I discount everything. But like someone said, at least the fundamentals and man-on-man stuff should be positive, and it isn't.

Dude, I'm tellin' ya!!! This is better than a comedy club! For real.

Well, if ever a time there was for that, this is the season, eh.