(11-22-2023, 12:02 PM)SeldomRite Wrote:

(11-22-2023, 11:44 AM)NYC4jags Wrote: Just look at the win column and quit tying yourself into a pretzel trying to find a way to misinterpret that.

We're talking acceleration, here, not velocity. The team is good right now, I just don't see them as ascending, anymore.

At this point they need to get lucky with a draft pick or two turning into an elite player if they're going to get better, because they're at the point where picking middling players won't overcome normal attrition and they won't have cap space to sign elite guys in free agency, and taking middling players is what Baalke does on a good day.

They need to hit on a couple of picks in the next draft. Sure.
So that means they are not ascending? 
Meh - I don't know. 

They just hit 7-3 at week eleven. 

They have only won 7 games in an entire season 3 times in the past 13 seasons. Don't overthink it. That feels like ascent. 

Baalke needs to oversee a difficult offseason with big contracts to sort, a cap to finesse, and he'll need to hit on a couple of draft picks.  It really doesn't seem insurmountable for him IMO. Not easy, not impossible. 
 If he mismanages the cap and lands another Brenton Strange/Luke Fortner type pick or two - then we can start pumping the brakes on our "ascent" 

But if he gets the deals done with room to work, adds talent to the OL, and drafts guys more like his Cisco, Lloyd, Campbell type picks, then we are still onward and upward. 

Personally - I'm concerned with player development on that OL as much as acquisition. 
We need a line coach that can get production out of Fortner/Shatley types like DeShea Townsend gets out of Herndon/Junior/Brown/Wingard.

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