PBF81

None of the other coaches had Allen however. Give Allen to Marrone's offense and he does what we've done. Gunner even stated to me in discussion that had Marrone started Orton instead of Manuel we likely would have made the playoffs that season, .... with Orton, whom he argued was a solid if not average NFL QB, which I do not argue with. But put Orton on this team and anyone really think that McD makes the playoffs? Conversely, put Allen on that team, IMO we do better than we've done here with him under McD. As to talent he had there, it was actually quite decent. Davis at LB, Kuechly as you mention. Charles Johnson was a very good DE. Lotulolei played much better than he ever played here, which appeared to be a vacation stint for him. Addison as well, who was back-9 by the time McD dragged him here. Josh Norman was there too when he was good and before he fell off for who knows what reason. They had a very good D roster.

As I said, I find it difficult to believe that they could be "much worse" than Brown. Brown's a cut above a turnstyle. If they were even comparable, even slightly worse, considering that neither has ever played the position, at least it's a higher ceiling.

I'm wondering whether Bates or Torrence could slide over a spot. Coudn't be much worse than Brown. I realize it's not likely, just sayin'.

Just wait, with the QBs that we face this season, opening up the running lanes, and us w/o a MLB, ... LOL Anyone thinking that our rushing D has been problematic against even teams with mediocre RBs had better buckle-up. I don't see our rushing D going well this season.

Agreed. It's a tall task for anyone, even for those that have mastered one or the other, HC or DC. He hasn't mastered either. Here's the thing, there's this perception out there that McD was some sort of fantastic DC in Carolina. I'm not seeing that. I see a DC that on his watch in 6 seasons averaged 17th in Scoring D and 13th Yardage D, which is purely average. In Scoring D he finished 18th, 21st, 26th, and 27th in 4 of 6 seasons there, and that 26th was his last season there, not his first. The following year Steve Wilks, who's a nothing coach that gets no particular respect, took the same 26th ranked Scoring D from McD's tenure and turned it into the 11th Scoring D, and went from 21st in Yardage D to 7th, up 15 and 14 spots, with a notably tougher schedule!! It doesn't say much when some schlep can come in and do that with what you had. One of the two seasons that McD's D ranked well there, the Panthers had the easiest schedule that any team in the league had from 2011 - 2022. I'll put that another way, of 384 (12 seasons x 32 teams) different schedules from 2011 - 2022, McD's Carolina had the easiest schedule of any NFL team during that 12-year period when McD's D was good. That leaves one single season as having been great there all other things being comparable to his peers. So is he really proven to be some great DC? I don't nor ever have seen it. We'll find out this season, but it should be pretty clear that he's not Parcell's or Buddy Ryan. Has he even really ironed out his head-coaching yet? "13-Seconds"? Last season's ridiculous debacle in the playoffs. OK, fine, we can write it off as "lots having gone down late in the season," but that doesn't give him a free-pass to Head-Coach-of-the-Year or greater, nor was he. He's arguably the worst coach in the playoffs, indisputably, for teams that reach the Divisional Rounds. But Carolina's playoff pattern was about the same. Underachievement once they got to the playoffs. Maybe it's a Rivera coaching tree thing. LOL So in questioning whether or not he can handle it, it's marvelous that he's got the "culture" thing here worked out, and that he's what used to be called a "player's coach." "The Process" is still some ridiculous mystery that no one on the planet can define or explain, it just gets laid out anytime anything goes off the rails, ... "Trust the Process." Notice it hasn't been said recently. There's a reason why not. But otherwise, without Allen, he's nothing. Even now everyone's saying if Allen were to go down we'd be in the basement. Believe it. Honestly, I don't see this team winning more than 7 games w/o Allen the way McD's got it going. That's par for how everyone before him was, everyone that also didn't have Allen. Who knows, perhaps he'll morph into some monster HC/DC combo this season, all I'm saying is that there's not even a basis for any notion that he's even a top-10 DC, nor a top-10 HC arguably, but both? ... at the same time? It takes a real reach to think that that's going to happen. He is routinely outcoached by the better coaches in the league, even in wins for us at times. As to the "situation," if he had fired Frazier instead of pandering to him for whatever his reasons were, then perhaps a decent DC would have come here. I'm of the opinion that much as people don't hire people better than they are for fear that they'll end up taking their jobs, that's why he didn't hire another DC. But who knows, again, JMO based upon how I view things. But there isn't one assistant coach on the team that is even remotely slated to get a head-coaching position, and they all owe him and are loyal to him after he brought them here and promoted them. Is that what's best for the team right now however? Yeah, we all get it, those are coaches that "he's familiar with and trusts," by why? What are their above-average achievements and accomplishments? The short answer is not much if anything significant at all. What we do know is that the NFL is a business, not some jobs program designed to keep people employed. Taking Frazier's responsibilities without firing him raises questions. We'll see how it works out, but once again, we don't have an easy schedule here this season, and his track record as a DC with a more difficult than not schedule as a DC is 2nd, 18th, and 26th. That's not Parcells. But even McD's 2nd ranked Scoring D season is skewed. The Panthers played a lot of low-end scoring teams that season. 30th (twice), 29th, 28th, 26th, 22nd, 21st, 20th (twice), the 17th, and 15th for 11 of their 16 games. That's also a third of their schedule solidly against 5 of the 7 worst offensive teams. Of course the defense ranked well. But we have the polar opposite here this season. Should be interesting to be sure. More proof? The Saints had the 4th ranked Scoring and Yardage D that season, wedged in between 31st/32nd & 28th/31st seasons. The Bucs defense was also ranked somewhat higher at 21st/17th, wedged in between 23rd/29th and 25th/25th seasons, up by 10 on average in Yardage D. Atlanta, a team perennially bereft of defense remained about the same. And funny, isn't it, that was Rob Ryan's only "good" year as a DC (New Orleans) too. Pure coincidence? If we discount that season, on paper, from McD's dossier, to put it mildly, he was not good as a DC there ranking 20th in Scoring and 15th in Yardage on average, with the former lagging the latter, which is also not a positive indicator. My opinion is that's about what we're going to see here this season. And once again, as the 2nd seed in the playoffs in that 2nd-ranked season, against the Niners' 11th ranked Scoring team, 24th ranked Yardage Offense, and 30th ranked Passing Offense led by Kaepernick, McD's D allowed 23 Points and 315 Net Yards, along with scoring drives of 80 (TD), 77 (TD), 73 (FG), 49 (FG), and 31 (FG), and losing embarrasingly to the 5th seeded Niners in the Divisional Round as their only playoff game. That's 310 net yards of scoring drives. In short, another below-average playoff performance defensively speaking, against a very average offense when he had the 2nd-ranked D, both Scoring and Yardage on the season. So where is it that this narrative that he's some great Defensive mind comes from. It's not from that.

Birkenstocks and one of those T-shirts that looks like a tux.

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.