That may hold the team back but not darnold individually. As for the play not to lose, I don’t remember that being a criticism when Marshall’s and decker were healthy and fitz was balling out setting records en route to a 10-6 record. So maybe the perception that he is purposely keeping games close is just a projection of feelings and the reality is he was getting what he could out of some less than talented offenses. Maybe. Of all the things I am worried about this year and going forward, how darnold is handled is pretty far down the list. I applaud the way Bowles has handled the qb search so far.
Tell you what 101, if I'm a HC and I have "crap for QBs", you better believe I'm beating on the GM's desk to get me somebody better. And please don't try to say the HC has no say in who the GM gets, ESPECIALLY in this situation where they're on equal footing. Bowles is a "D" guy and Macc's drafts reflect this. Bowles isn't without fault in this.
Absolutely you can. A career year for mccown doesn’t mean you let him wing it all over the field. He was able to get the most out of him but he is still a bad qb.
This is a great point and another reason why I feel it is hard to truly evaluate Bowles. His best QB's have been Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh McCown. Both playing the best they ever have in their long, journeyman careers. He wanted Geno, Petty, and Hack to work, but they clearly were not capable. Now it looks like he has a potential franchise QB in Darnold, who is only 21, so it will take him some time too.
He gave Hack and Petty the same opportunities with different coordinators. The only constant was Bowles. The coach decides the amount of reps. He did trust McCown (to an extent), and the Jets were more aggressive last year throwing the ball down the field. However, McCown still lost us a decent # of games late trust gets lost. Fitz lost trust. Petty and Hack never earned it. Right now, you are more-so on a wait and see approach, but so far Bowles has handled the QB situation as best as you could.
Meh... good save I guess. Also you are taking this to the extreme.. not being conservative doesn't equal winging it all over the field.
It wasn’t a save. You took career year to mean good. You failed to recognize it for the relative term it is.
When you have a QB that has a history of making bad mistakes at the end of games, you don't continue to make the same mistakes over and over again as a CS. I guess if you let your friend borrow money from you, never pays you back and you continue to give him money, then surely you should continue to go about things the same way. You tried.
Well sounds like Bowles and Mac felt the same way about the position. You've been saying what I've been preaching the entire time, they are 1 in the same and should be accountable TOGETHER. Both have flaws, but at the end of the day Mac is the one who turns the card in.
I just don't believe in playing scared. A good coach would find a way to still be a little aggressive without repeating the same mistakes. Your analogy is completely off base from what I was saying about playing with scared money BTW.
There's playing scared and there's playing stupid. A good coach, wouldn't put the same player in the same position to make mistakes week in and week out as evident by the videos I posted above. The analogy works in the case of Bowles, because there's something crazy and not smart about making the same mistakes over and over again. Darnold might be different, and Bowles style may change because of it.
Bowles HAS to improve this year, no doubt. If he cannot successfully build on last year with new hope at the QB position, then he's not the right guy for the team.
I am so happy we didnt give him that considering how things turned out. We aren't even in a win now phase anyway and we would basically be forced to overspend on free agents to surround him with talent. Not to mention his contract being fully guaranteed could easily screw us if he gets hurt.
Cousins is young enough to play for quite awhile. I don't think it would have created a win immediately situation by any means. While it's a huge cap hit, we'd be pairing him with maybe Quenton Nelson plus 3 more 2nd round picks potentially filling out some roster holes. My point being, there is a number of different ways to build a team so long as you've successfully addressed the QB situation. The Vikings will be a good team, and I like our future quite a bit with Darnold.
I'm unhappy with the OL and a number of the moves and non-moves that Mac has made/not made. That said, I think to be fair, that the 2015 draft should hardly count as he was having to work with a scouting dept. he neither knew nor trusted and he only had a couple of months to prepare for the draft. I think it is also pretty clear that his hands were tied by Woody his first year. Woody wanted to make the playoffs and had said as much. Thus, Mac didn't have the luxury of tearing it down and starting over his rookie season as GM. He had to try to provide a winner. There was also a ton of cap space that had to be spent. Most likely, that greatly affected his decision making both in FA and the draft. We also don't know if he would have hired Bowles, waited for Quinn or hired someone else. The fact that he made a great decision to trade up this year and got us Darnold yet kept our #1 pick next year should earn him some respect and give him more time. While Mac is trying to build primarily through the draft, the bottom line is getting us talent. Does it really make that big a difference if the talent comes as UDFAs, draft picks, trades or FA? Of course it's better to hit on all of one's draft picks, but that's simply not realistic. Mac doesn't work in a vacuum, either. He has a HC clamoring for defensive players he covets. He has to sift through the scouting reports and desires of the scouts. More than likely, he has to listen to his boss (Woody or Chris as well) and who he wants Mac to draft. Finally, I think those who claim that Mac "lucked" into the good players we have are flat out wrong. The Jets have never been lucky. That alone should dispel that silly notion. A GM has to decide who to draft, whether to stay put, trade up, or trade down. He could have just as easily taken other players, panicked and traded up ala Tanny, or said "screw it, we need more players," traded down and not gotten elite prospects in Williams and Adams. It takes balls, skill, and some wisdom to ascertain the needs and likely picks of other teams and then decide to stay put. We may never know if Williams and Adams were the two players he really targeted or he would have taken another player if that player had fallen to the Jets. He tried to trade up for both Mariota and Goff, and also Tunsil. If he had been able to swing at least one of those trades, the team would look pretty different. Mac also has little or no control over how Bowles and his CS coach, develop and deploy the players on the field. Perhaps under a better CS some of the players who have failed to develop or live up to their hype may have been much better players.
who knows....the uber high 1st round picks on defense (williams, adams) are coma picks - you can wake up from a coma the day before the draft and make the same pick. the lee pick is more jet like and its fair to say that we've been duped. the darnold pick is fine and the trade from 6 to 3 was definitely a shrewd move. the lack of high OL picks is disturbing and the sub par unit may very well end up being the achilles heel of our shiny new QB.
