Originally posted by Giedi:Originally posted by NYniner85:Why morage the future if you don't have to? Who cares about winning 6-8 games? I don't. I want to win 10+ games for the foreseeable future. Also you can bring up past qbs drafted that doesn't mean they're even close to as talent as these three guys coming out. I've seen plenty of comparisons with Sam to luck/rivers, Rosen to Ryan/Eli, and Allen to flacco/Big Ben. It's not a normal QB draft class next yr...that's the whole pt.
The NFL has made the QB the main position and without one you don't have a SB team...I mean if you want to constantly get 8 or so wins that's cool, I don't. Also you bring up mortgaging the future for a QB and then talking about building the whole which makes little sense to me (tough to do that when you give up all your picks for a QB)....why not play your your young players, see if CJ is the future and if not you got a top end pick to possibly get the future?
It's a process and I feel like some fans are trying to skip steps because it happened once to us with harbs...we aren't even remotely close to that team and we actually won 6 games the yr prior, not 2.
I just happen to think that football is a team game and while the QB is a central component to a football team, I think defense and wide receivers and a good running game also affect whether a QB is a successful franchise QB or not. Because *so what* if you have a John Elway or Andrew Luck but your team can't run the ball to convert a 3rd down? So what if you have a Dan Marino, but his O Line leaks like a sieve.
A franchise QB starts with coaching. I don't think it starts with the franchise player. You look at the Dynasties of the past, and the franchise QB's that have populated those dynasties, it starts with good coaching - and good coaches are good because they have a good system. We really don't know yet if ShanaLynch is a good coach, he will be if he gets his FQB. Harbaugh is gone because he never got that FQB - close with Alex, and ran out of time with Colin, but I agree - a franchise QB is worth a lot of high draft picks. They are essential to consistent winning seasons, year in and year out. Maybe they are even worth mortgaging two years worth of draft picks, I don't know, but I'll leave it to ShanaLynch and our resident draft nerds to figure that out. God knows our 2012 draft was equivalent to basically trading the whole draft for nothing.
I think it's still a valid and important fact that two of the top three QB's with multiple super bowl wins were *not* drafted in the first round. That's OK that you don't happen to think that's an important fact. I just happen to think that with the WCO system and the type of players Kyle wants in his version of the WCO, I think that he can find his FQB in the later rounds. Just my opinion, don't shoot me. You know what they say about opinions? They are like arm pits, everybody has 'em and they all stink.
Really nIce post , Giedi. Only comment is to emphasize, not just great coaches, but coaches who are great OCs , are true QB whisperers (unlike harbaw), AND basically have the BW background of coaching experience. Coach Walsh had coached every position on the field, both O and D, by the time he came here. He actually was very well qualified for HC long before he came here. But Paul Brown kept him down by not stepping aside and when a relatively middle aged man finally got his chance at HC it was next door at Stanford. The rest is hx. Whether kyle has actually held the position of every coach on the staff , i don't know. I do know that he can coach every position, O or D, and that he is a true QB whisperer , altho i hate that name....it sure never applied to harbaw. Also being one of the best , if not the best OC is key, in that very often when a DC is promoted to HC, he is 100% dependent on his hot shot OC staying around. And usually if the OC is spectacular, he ends up being HC elsewhere...exactly how kyle got here. And the team from which he came was then left with no OC, or not a great OC. So, HC should by rights be a terrific OC. Coaching other positions, or certainly knowing each of the other positions , is key too, if the new HC is to succeed. Otherwise it is just a revolving door of OCs and to a lesser extent, DCs.
Right now we have the perfect setup for the perfect storm...a storm where we thunder our way back to legitimacy, and routine shots at SBs. The key factors are in place, namely OC/HC and to date, a GM who has excellence written all over him. We have not yet even seen one TC day, but the players know. The sense of greatness is in the air. Joe S, who last yr at this time surely must have thot his shot at a SB had expired...once again senses something great in the air. Already the players know and have commented on how Kyle can diagram every play, teach it, break it down, show who should have been where, and what each guy should have done on that particular play.
If you happen to stumble into one of these guys, the first thing you do is nail them down for a long spell. Jed has done that. The GM, who can ruin or be spectacular , is of equal importance. I don't recall a setup before where the GM was equal to the HC, except in cases where one guy is both. But John and Kyle are co-equals, paid the same, both young, both with LT experience in NFL, and both aggressive, thotful guys. So far has been a terrific tandem, way better than having just one guy be boht HC/GM. Very few have made that work, but here, with co-equals, we get the best and double experience than if kyle were both GM and HC.
A final touch is that both GM and HC know how to evaluate talent , especially at Qb. One has learned from the ground up, beginning as a ball boy for his dad, a former 9er OC. Then he worked his way up the NFL coaching chain, from one position coach to the next. But always, he had the experience of his dad, a whiz bang OC , to fall back on. The other learned on the field en route to 8 or 9 all pro yrs at DB and then in a melange of sports broadcasting, having a good buddy like Elway who encouraged John L to get into GMing, and then having the smarts and personality to know the right people, learn all the right things...along with his 9 yrs of NFL knowledge acquired on the field.
Both our guys have the pedigree, and currently are good friends, not one guy lording it over the other. They are two units, working together to come to decisions both agree on. Also, Lynch is smart enough to re-look at a player(s) that he had removed from his list , but Kyle wanted both badly.(CJ and Williams).
If one were to sit down and draw up the one best way to build a team for many championship runs,(not to mention titles), it would be hard to beat the path these two have followed and ended up with one another. Sure we have yet to see one ball snapped in PS, but right now, from here, looking at progress made from last yr...we are so far ahead of the curve it is ridiculous. True the big acquisition is FR QB , but wisely both GM and HC deferred on that this yr, there being no qualified QBs in the top 8 that were worthy of a rd 1 pick, let alone a #2 pick in the draft. Prior to draft they settled on a guy who kyle had previously coached, who had good fundamentals, and knew his WCO . So passing on Trubs et al was a very wise choice, AND they got their #1 pick from amongst the FAs available. The Cousins thing is still out there, but kyle and john have moved on...if Cousins ends up here next yr, fantastic, IF not, they are planning for that also.
As Giedi points out above, a FR QB with no O support around him (eg Marino with no OL), or a hotshot QB with no D support(Brees most of the time except one yr), just finding a FR QB isn't the whole deal. The remainder of the pieces have to be in place also. With something like a handful of bona fide players at end of last yr, we needed something like 8-10 starters on O and 8-10 starters on D. Post FA and draft, we now are missing an obvious FR QB, #1 WR, 1 or 2 ERs, and an all pro center. Also throw in a an all pro CB. And that 's it. To come that far in this short of a period of time just seems impossible. But yet here we are, just a handful of key players away from having a SB contender. Granted the missing pieces are at key slots, but we went from a handful of starters to a handful of slots left to fill...a remarkable feat by any measure.
Instead of needing players everywhere, it is now down to a mere 4 or 5 key guys. We have tons of cap space ($62mil), we have a shot at a quantum leap in QB sitting over in Wash, who wants to come here,(except dan snyder doesn't want him to), we have next yrs draft, we have FA next yr, we have a potential FR QB in Hoyer (maybe), and a potential developmental FR QB in CJ. That is 5 different avenues we have to come up with a FR Qb. So whereas we don't have our FR QB, we do have most of the rest of the O and D we need, and we have at least 5 different routes by which to get a FR QB. There may be none next yr, or one and we don't get him. Meantime our QB this yr(Hoyer + backup Barks) as well as a developmental QB in CJ both have the yr to show us if they are qualifiers for the job. We have given them a great HC/OC, a great GM, and very solid D and O( on paper only to date)...all the requirements are in place to get the QB we need. If we end up with none, then we add to our weaknesses, and play thru the yr WCO , solidifying everything we need for a QB to be successful.
Who among us could have even imagined half of what has been done to date? Certainly not I. Deferring our first pick for FR QB was a brilliant move, and cementing the best FA Qb for Kyle's WCO early on was another . Rebuild of the D is just unimaginable. We had over half the team being legitimate deadwood...all now gone. All those 2nd stringers that were starting...gone or now relegated to the bench.
Giedi mentions "team game". Well, that's what has been moved, cut, pieced together, bought, traded, or drafted. With 75 man cuts deferred until Sept (en route to 53)., we may yet have another player or two from another team's cuts. The extra time has allowed us to learn as much as possible about our cuts, and whereas we will be cutting some guys who start elsewhere, other teams may very well provide us with an upgrade or two ...so it cuts both ways. To have gotten our FR QB right off the bat would have been an almost impossible feat. But we made up for it by shoring up as much as possible boht O and D, around the FR QB slot. And who knows...maybe CJ IS the one...or to a lesser extent Hoyer. They will both have an opportunity over the next yr to earn the starting role as FR QB...or it may come via WASH. Whatever happens, we have gone from dreck to being well placed to find and acquire a FR QB next yr...or the yr after. That part is purely luck, as well as the ability of GM/HC to determine if a potential FR QB is truly legit...or not. The rest is well on the way to recovery...and possibly greatness. Now let's see what we have on the field.
[ Edited by pasodoc9er on Jun 21, 2017 at 8:28 AM ]