The ideal situation is to have an exceptional QB like Mahomes, Rodgers, Brady, Allen, Burrows, because that gives you a lot of flexibility in building your team and you can even afford to have some holes because the greatness of the QB can often overcome them. That said, you CAN win with a very good, but not great QB if you build the team on a firm blueprint and stick to it - meaning you always get "your" type of players. Also, as great as the above QBs are, none of them are undefeated. They do lose, so they can be beaten. Someone noted 2008 when there were a group of HOF QBs in the AFC, and yet the next 2 years the Jets almost got to the SB with an average QB. I think the blueprint that Douglas is following is based on building a team that can compete regardless of whether they have a great QB. But he's also trying to build a team WITH a great QB by investing in Wilson. If Zach fails (which would be shocking to me), the team will still be competitive, and it will be competitive for years to come if they follow the blueprint.
many great posts here but adding two cents there is a cap so a big factor in success is maximizing value, getting more talent/dollar. One way you can do that is by finding diamonds in the rough through FA (guys who are not fully appreciated for whatever reason); another is drafting well (since the new guys don't get paid as much), another is developing your assets. but yet another way is to be a bit contrarian in approach, and perhaps a step ahead in figuring out where the league is going as opposed to where it's been. For example, years ago RB was a big deal, paid a lot, drafted high. Not so much now. One can argue you can get more RB talent/dollar than WR. Can the Coach develop a plan to win with RB is a separate question i live up in Boston so i get Patriots "wisdom" shoved in my face all the time, which i hate. But at the same time they do certain things smart and deserve credit. E.g., they've had more success having multiple good receivers and RBs who can catch. It's tough to cover everyone and they've never broken the bank on one guy. This is smart. Opponent can't hyper focus on that one guy (BTW that's what BB does in his game plan -- take away the other teams top guy) and the team is more resilient -- eg season isn't tanked from an injury to a star. Also when you run out 3 or 4 good receivers there's a bit of a multiplier effect precisely because its tough to cover them all consistntly. Take one of those same guys and put them on one of our past Jets roster where everyone else kind of stinks and of course that guy will play worse too because it's that much easier for the opponent to shut down that one guy Likewise, team developed a lot of very quick releases. DOn't need superstar OL. Guys who can run block and do moderately well in pass protection work well enough Likewise (again) many guys get paid for their measurables perhaps overpaid with exceptional athleticism but not so for their intelligence. WHat's a guy make who runs 4.4 versus 4.5 --- probably substantial. Yet a guy can do more than compensate that .1 second with technique, smarts, caginess. I'm not saying mimic the Patriots, but i am saying that our strategy needs to include a heavy dose of how we maximize value. Paying market rate is biased to mediocrity. Trend following is biased to overpaying
very true with the Patriots…for the most part, Brady has been the master of death by a thousand cuts through most of their run…he was pretty much unstoppable at making dump off throws to a back or to players like Walker and Edelman…those little 5 yard throws consistently and just march down the field. Sometimes Edelman would break one off and get 8 or 10 or 15 yards out of it, but even if he didn’t, Brady would just hit those throws all day long. The key was disciplined penalty free play by the OL and receivers, and of course flawless play from the QB with great decision making on who to throw to before the snap, a quick release, and top accuracy. So with that game plan, you don’t really need a stud top #1 wideout….sure it would make it better, like Moss did when he was there, and make the team much more explosive, but Brady did just fine with pedestrian WRs but you need a Brady to make it work well enough to win super bowls…Zach throwing dump offs into the ground or rifling the ball at a receivers back side won’t get it done…
Watching the Chiefs game made me realize how far we are from being a championship team. If KC went through Buffalo for all those points, they would have scored 70 on us. #depressing.
This is an obvious thing to say about an elite QB but I really wish we had Joe Burrow. His swagger has NY all over it. He'd be a perfect fit here and honestly Wilson would be the perfect fit in a city like Cincinnati Joking aside, the right guy can change a franchise and I hope for the love of god I hope we finally found one
Buffalo is trash. They lost to the Jags and almost lost to the Jets. They’ll be a 7-10 team next year or my name isn’t Richard Asfuq.
That's why I thought the whole "gotta start over if Zach is a bust" statements were silly. No smart GM builds a team around one player.
QBs develop when they have the same Hc and OC for multiple season. That is why Fields and Trevor will not take a big step next season and Zach will. Zach does not have to learn a new system
There is no one right way or blue print to build a top team and simply saying follow the Chiefs method or emulate the 49ers, doesn't provide any insight. That said, there are some trends, I've noticed. 1. You can't have too much depth at the offensive skill spots. Mahomes and Allen completed passes to 8 different guys on Sunday. Stafford, Brady completed passes to 7 and that's with both losing multiple key guys during the season. Buffalo in particular is one where the depth was on full display. Even with Diggs essentially shut down, the offense was running on all cylinders because of that depth. Gabriel Davis started the year as the Bills' No. 4 receiver. Isaiah McKenzie was the No. 5 and when injuries/Covid hit, responded with an 11-125-1 against the Patriots. By comparison, look how impotent the receiving corps looked towards the end of the season. 2. Teams build upon strength. Whether its loading up on receivers who can stretch the field (Bengals), guys with the speed to rip off massive YAC (Chiefs), physicality at the skill spots/moving guys around to exploit that power running (49ers), making the strength so overwhelming that opposing teams can only slow it down so much. The Giants passer rushers on their Super Bowl teams is an example on the other side of the field. 3. Even teams that have one dominant side of the ball are able to stay afloat on the other side due to a handful of impact guys on the other side. Yes, the 49ers are built on defense, but between Kittle, Deebo and Trent Williams, there's 3 legitimate blue-chip guys on offense. The Chiefs still have Mathieu, Chris Jones and Frank Clark as big play makers on defense. Etc.
Where was that build it like the Bengals thread? JD better figure out if Garrett Wilson is WR1 level. Get an elite RB too. Nixon is a beast.
The Jets pay way over market when they actually get a good player to come here. Then because they tie up a lot of the cap in these types of transactions they're near the top of the cap dollars injured list every year because mid and late career vets have a higher tendency towards injury than younger players and they also lose more time when they do get hurt. They also get the downside of free agents careers relative to cap space vs productivity on a regular basis. 2014 Eric Decker 2015 Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie 2016 Ryan Clady, Matt Forte 2017 James Carpenter, Mo Claiborne, Buster Skrine 2018 Trumaine Johnson 2019 C.J. Mosley, LeVeon Bell 2020 Several $18-30M contracts for offensive linemen who did not work out 2021 Carl Lawson, Corey Davis It's like a long-running comedy show of flops, underperformers and outright disasters, with many millions spent every year on no discernable return on the field. If the Jets never signed another free agent they'd be ahead on the deal by probably $40-50M a year with no downgrade on the field and that's no exaggeration.
Watching the playoffs, it’s undeniable what a top WR 1 can do for a QB, even behind a weak OL. If there is anyone somewhat close to Chase in this draft, please, please, please use a number one pick and pull the plug.
I only watched the 4th Qtr of the Chiefs-Bengals, but I noticed something really strange...both of these QBs actually made some bad throws and made some mistakes! In fact, the consensus HOF Lock Mahomes got sacked twice and was lucky to have not lost the fumble he had! How is that possible? I thought all QBs except for Wilson were infallible. And there was going to be no way we could EVER beat either of these teams? We obviously need to blow this team up and start from scratch.
Keep Mahomes in the pocket, cover his targets like glue, and coverage sacks are possible. We had a few against Brady in our last playoff win in NE.
Unless Stafford throws three pics the Rams will run away with this game. How is the Bengals O-Line going to handle Donald and Von Miller? The cinderella story ends Sunday unfortunately. "Build like the Bengals" is not necessarily a great idea, we will see how much-sustained success they will have. They are where a 10-7 team that lost to the Jets. I think they will get better but this run was a bit lucky. You never know what happens when you get into the tournament. I am not sold just yet on the Bengals long term.
Tend to agree. This is what I expect to happen, I guess it's what almost everyone expects to happen, but it's a one off game so almost anything can happen.
