Just now, Desertbirds said:

Re: 2023

The FO can suck

The coaching can suck

The players can suck

 

These are not mutually exclusive - all three can be true.

Don’t forget the fans suck, or something 

1 minute ago, Miami said:

Source?

 

Just reading the tea leaves with Fletcher and Kelce throwing their support behind him and everything being quite on the firing front.  Patricia might have a bigger voice with the team overall though, not just the defense if I had to guess given his close relationship with Howie.  

36 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Yes... and Epps?   Howie made the choice to go with two new safeties (he let CJGJ's tantrum turn him off) and invest extra money in two aging CBs... both of whom missed significant time, AND he essentially ignored the back 7 in the draft on top of shopping the clearance rack in Free agency.   

 

The idea that Howie is somehow the victim in all this is laughable.  This is HIS master plan and HIS decisions coming back to bite the team in the backside.  Howie chose to let these guys hit the market.  He had opportunity to negotiate with these players before FA started, but he let the market set the price, and as a result, he was left without much left for this team.  He wanted to get these guys back for bargain prices... and we see the result.   And why did he need bargain prices?  Because of how much dead money this team carries due to the structures he uses for these overpriced aging players.   Lather, rinse, repeat with the way he structured the Bradberry and Slay contracts he gave out just this offseason.

 

No worries though, we can walk away from both Slay and Bradberry after ONE MORE season... and only have $24M dead for Slay and $12M dead for Bradberry.   ($36M in dead money for players that are likely going to be killing the team in 2024 while they are ON the roster.)

We have been talking about dead cap for years....and yes while you can always move money into future years, having these huge dead caps inevitably means some of these types of decisions will need to be made. In the absence of huge dead caps hits, we could have brought back at-least one (maybe two) more of Epps or Edwards or White or CGJ

Now, there is a reason Howie is forced to use these structures to keep the team competitive being the disaster that was 2020 and some of the contracts given out to that squad (Wentz, Alshon extension etc) which yes he created himself. But we never went into rebuild and took a year or two to clear it all out and were these structures enabled us to bounce right back and even field a SB squad just two years later. That was the trade-off.

Howie's gonna have to realize sooner or later that all 11 positions on each side of the ball are important.  Some are definitely more important than others but he can't continue to disregard LB and S as much as he has. 

If he's so creative with the cap and all, surely he can figure out how to pay a decent LB and still make the moves he wants to make elsewhere. 

He made some pretty good attempts at fixing the problems he let happen with Leonard and Byard, but how much can you really expect out of them when they're coming into a dysfunctional situation halfway through the season?

Just now, RememberTheKoy said:

 

Just reading the tea leaves with Fletcher and Kelce throwing their support behind him and everything being quite on the firing front.  Patricia might have a bigger voice with the team overall though, not just the defense if I had to guess given his close relationship with Howie.  

No way they can bring back Patricia or Desai.

Siri might back. BJ may even be back but with consultants around him but no way can those guys on D come back.

14 minutes ago, Eagz said:

This. Eyes on him to suitably address shortcomings at LB and DB this offseason.

Raw athletic freak that won't pan out and someone who started 2023 pre season discussions as a potential first rounder but tore every major ligament in his body in separate incidents during the season in rounds 3 and 5 nailed on

5 minutes ago, RLC said:

Howie can be a good GM, and also have messed up the back 7. Both can be true.

3 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

 

Just reading the tea leaves with Fletcher and Kelce throwing their support behind him and everything being quite on the firing front.  Patricia might have a bigger voice with the team overall though, not just the defense if I had to guess given his close relationship with Howie.  

So you expect two of the longest tenured veterans on the team to trash their head coach? They have been company guys for their whole careers. I take nothing they say about Siri with anything but a huge chunk of salt. Until it’s announced he’s gone by the brass, he is their coach. Nobody is going to throw him under the bus publicly. 

1 minute ago, hukdonfoniks said:

Howie's gonna have to realize sooner or later that all 11 positions on each side of the ball are important.  Some are definitely more important than others but he can't continue to disregard LB and S as much as he has. 

If he's so creative with the cap and all, surely he can figure out how to pay a decent LB and still make the moves he wants to make elsewhere. 

He made some pretty good attempts at fixing the problems he let happen with Leonard and Byard, but how much can you really expect out of them when they're coming into a dysfunctional situation halfway through the season?

Byard being an epic failure of a move was shocking and just points to how bad the coaching was. Yeah the dude has lost a step but he is still a starting level player in this league who looked completely lost and no better than Edmunds. When you have a laundry list of guy who were significantly worse than last season it can't just be that they all got old overnight. Slay was worse, Bradberry went from all pro to horrendous, BG, Sweat, Reddick, etc all worse than last season.

34 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

 

Wouldn't it make sense for them to go down to Syracuse or something and practice in the dome?

5 minutes ago, kiwieagle said:

We have been talking about dead cap for years....and yes while you can always move money into future years, having these huge dead caps inevitably means some of these types of decisions will need to be made. In the absence of huge dead caps hits, we could have brought back at-least one (maybe two) more of Epps or Edwards or White or CGJ

Now, there is a reason Howie is forced to use these structures to keep the team competitive being the disaster that was 2020 and some of the contracts given out to that squad (Wentz, Alshon extension etc) which yes he created himself. But we never went into rebuild and took a year or two to clear it all out and were these structures enabled us to bounce right back and even field a SB squad just two years later. That was the trade-off.

And sometimes you just need to pay the price to fix a problem, rather than just kicking it down the road.

4 minutes ago, kiwieagle said:

No way they can bring back Patricia or Desai.

Siri might back. BJ may even be back but with consultants around him but no way can those guys on D come back.

If Sirianni and BJ are back with consultants around them, we're Fed regardless.

8 minutes ago, T-1000 said:

I'm going on record right now as saying it will fail miserably and we just got Brandon Staley'd. 

It will be an eventful 2024 either way. I just don't see a middle ground.

It will either be that the issues were indeed the playcalling / schemes, Siri reflects on some of the shortcomings and adjusts with better support around him. The talent this team has manages to turn it around and have a decent run with 10+ wins and a decent run in the play-offs.

Or they start poor, and the wheels are going to fall off and we end up a bottom 10 team.

I don't see a 7 - 10 win type season with Siri next year. 

2 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

So you expect two of the longest tenured veterans on the team to trash their head coach? They have been company guys for their whole careers. I take nothing they say about Siri with anything but a huge chunk of salt. Until it’s announced he’s gone by the brass, he is their coach. Nobody is going to throw him under the bus publicly. 

Let’s ask Penny 

3 minutes ago, kiwieagle said:

No way they can bring back Patricia or Desai.

Siri might back. BJ may even be back but with consultants around him but no way can those guys on D come back.

There's no way you can fire Desai for not doing enough with the bin fire of a back 7 he had but bring back Johnson who made a giant turd pile out of the solid gold roster he had.

10 minutes ago, RLC said:

Howie can be a good GM, and also have messed up the back 7. Both can be true.

Sure, but he’s so high variance it’s crazy. This was the exact opposite of the 2017 offseason. 

1 minute ago, kiwieagle said:

It will be an eventful 2024 either way. I just don't see a middle ground.

It will either be that the issues were indeed the playcalling / schemes, Siri reflects on some of the shortcomings and adjusts with better support around him. The talent this team has manages to turn it around and have a decent run with 10+ wins and a decent run in the play-offs.

Or they start poor, and the wheels are going to fall off and we end up a bottom 10 team.

I don't see a 7 - 10 win type season with Siri next year. 

I agree. Maybe I am pessimistic but I just see more of the same from the last two months next season if the head coach is back.

39 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

 

How many games are they going to be playing?  Best of 3, best of 5, or best of 7?  

 

1 minute ago, T-1000 said:

Byard being an epic failure of a move was shocking and just points to how bad the coaching was. Yeah the dude has lost a step but he is still a starting level player in this league who looked completely lost and no better than Edmunds. When you have a laundry list of guy who were significantly worse than last season it can't just be that they all got old overnight. Slay was worse, Bradberry went from all pro to horrendous, BG, Sweat, Reddick, etc all worse than last season.

Coaching is 1,000,000% the problem with this team.  Desai at least showed flashes (the Miami game) but him and BJ are both absolute train wrecks.  Patricia I don't know how he still manages to catch on anywhere. 

Lurie *has* to clean house.  He can't save this or rationalize what happened to this team this season. 

2 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

And sometimes you just need to pay the price to fix a problem, rather than just kicking it down the road.

I was all for going in and fixing the issue for the long-term as I didn't think the team was built to bounce back that quickly.

But the SB run last year proved me wrong....

I agree we will need to pay the price at some point but I'm not sure if you do that yet with all the offensive talent we have heading into their prime. You have to make the most of the Hurts / Brown / Smith window while you have a shot.  

1 minute ago, LeanMeanGM said:

 

Well, good news is he’s still referring to fixing the offense as "we” meaning he’s still part of the team as of now. 

2 minutes ago, T-1000 said:

I agree. Maybe I am pessimistic but I just see more of the same from the last two months next season if the head coach is back.

I think that is a highly possible and realistic scenario. Then you are blowing the team up in 2025 and taking your dead cap medicine, restarting with a new young core.

2 minutes ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

There's no way you can fire Desai for not doing enough with the bin fire of a back 7 he had but bring back Johnson who made a giant turd pile out of the solid gold roster he had.

Sure they can.  He was horrible.  Maybe he can get better but if he does it elsewhere, whatever. 

1 minute ago, kiwieagle said:

I was all for going in and fixing the issue for the long-term as I didn't think the team was built to bounce back that quickly.

But the SB run last year proved me wrong....

I agree we will need to pay the price at some point but I'm not sure if you do that yet with all the offensive talent we have heading into their prime. You have to make the most of the Hurts / Brown / Smith window while you have a shot.  

Yup... and that's how we ended up like this...  2018... turned to 2019 to 2020 to 2021... later rinse repeat.   And the can keeps getting kicked.