Thats why I thought many on this board was wrong, when they wanted to WAIT UNTIL NEXT YR to draft a QB! You always draft a QB until you get HIM! CJ is HIM
The way I’d look at it as… there’s not going to allofasudden be a higher rate of HOF QB’s in the league at any given time. Maybe some more will make it eventually from this era as the yardage and TD numbers will go up thanks to rule changes and less emphasis on bell-cow RB’s…. But the position won’t magically evolve to where every first round pick can just carve out a 10 year starting career with great success. Thus it’s still a crapshoot of sorts. The best way you optimize your chances of one day hitting is to keep going after it. Even that system isn’t infallible as there will always be guys who were “given up on” that eventually do go on to have some success (Drew Brees… and now Geno Smith to some degree). And while Stroud is doing some unprecedented things as a rookie… RG3 wasn’t that long ago. But like I said in a previous post, even the cruelest of sports universes’, history doesn’t repeat itself.
I mean, there’s always a sense of “what could have been” if RG3 wasn’t forced back with a shredded knee, etc. etc. etc., which has ultimately been debunked given that he did get plenty of chances when coming back and couldn’t make the necessary adjustments. But he did have an electric rookie season… got that team into playoff contention… and in many ways that debut is probably why they tried to pull out all the stops to get him back even when he wasn’t cleared. It won’t happen again here. Hell, we already had a rookie phenom QB that was sacrificed to the gods so the Astros could win it all in 2017.
WTF is our punter doing all damn week? It seems absurd to me that an NFL punter isn't practiced enough to be a fill in kicker for kicks under 35 yards and that a RB would be a better option. I'm out of superlatives for Stroud, this franchise never does anything right so I'm still having trouble believing it.
Well, he is the holder. Yes, I’m sure Mills could possibly have gotten a few reps as a practice holder while the Aussie-rules punter tried to figure out how to place-kick, but that’s a lot to try and work through during the game. As it is, they decided to let the RB practice his kicks while keeping everything else consistent (rather than changing out two components of the place kick), and he was able to get a 29 yard FG. They really didn’t get burned given how everything turned out… if anything, they possibly benefitted from some more aggressive play-calling in situations where they couldn’t settle for 3.
It will be interesting to see how Levis and the Titans play against the Bucs next week. I'll be rooting for the Bucs to come back from these past losses with a vengeance.
I get you can't do it on the fly during the game, but it isn't as if the damn punter has a ton of responsibilities at practice all week. The punter not being prepped to place kick and kickoff in a pinch, seems ridiculous
No excuse to not have the punter be at least competent at PK and KO. None. This is what NFL teams typically do, and vice-versa. Like as you said: they've got a whole lot of ****ing time to even halfass practice this, all offseason, all training camp, all season long. Oh, and backup QBs are the holder (if not the punter), just like one of the OL is the backup longsnapper, and you better believe they practice that.