While I liked some of the defensive picks in this draft and understand why they had to replace all the players they've lost, this draft hasn't really set Gardner Minshew up to succeed.

He needs to make an impact this season, if he's going to make the starting job his own, but was only really given Shenault to improve his offense.

So, he's going to have to over-perform again, with largely the same set of players.

In fairness, I think you probably have to see it as the start of a rebuild and the start of a defensive re-set, but there's little there to suggest they're also trying to rebuild around Minshew and to me it just fuels the theory they're going to look for an upgrade in 2021.

Which I think is a shame, because I think they could have done more to support him and see what they have there.

Anyone else think they could have done more for Minshew?

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Take advantage of NFL Rewind and watch more of last season. Minshew has good building blocks. After spending time to think about things, I think chemistry is going to be an issue this year and standing pat on the oline might actually work. Not sure how much you can coach up drafted and UDFA guys this season. I still am not sold on the coaching staff or front office. This is just one draft in the grand scheme of things.

We will have to watch.

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The Khan Years

Patience, Persistence, and Piss Poor General Managers.

Not addressing LT and RG with more urgency was a mistake IMO

other than that - I’m fine with the off-season moves thus far

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Not addressing LT and RG with more urgency was a mistake IMO

other than that - I’m fine with the off-season moves thus far

I agree but let's say they did pick up someone for either position, how much impact would they have this year with reduced practice and coaching?  I don't think it is necessarily the right decision just possibly making the best out of a bad situation.

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The Khan Years

Patience, Persistence, and Piss Poor General Managers.

It’s a lot easier to succeed as a quarterback when after you score a touchdown in the 4th quarter, you defense doesn’t give up a 70 yard touchdown run and outs all the pressure on qb to score again with less time. Drew brees can’t win with the defense giving up 200+ rushing yards back to back to back games. Minshew has enough. Adequate line, pro bowl receiver and a few weapons at wr. A runningback who can be productive especially during a contract year. The offense has enough as long as it’s not pressured to score 35-40 a game. Take some pressure off Minshew and let him be comfortable and do his thing

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Not addressing LT and RG with more urgency was a mistake IMO

other than that - I’m fine with the off-season moves thus far

I have a feeling they didn't go LT early is because as they have been saying they feel O line is a strength and they obviously feel Cam will do better now that he is healthy. I think with a season under his belt, Bartch could play LT for us in 2021 even with his short arms. I do wish they would have selected a guard though. But by the time it got to the 5th round, it was slim pickings at guard.

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Not addressing LT and RG with more urgency was a mistake IMO

other than that - I’m fine with the off-season moves thus far

I agree but let's say they did pick up someone for either position, how much impact would they have this year with reduced practice and coaching?  I don't think it is necessarily the right decision just possibly making the best out of a bad situation.

Even with a reduced off-season I'd still take some of these rookie linemen over what we have. Tampa Bay is going to be sticking a rookie out there to protect Brady. The Giants to protect Daniel Jones. Miami potentially with Tua, etc. etc. Even with reduced hands on practice, it's about the future. This just puts us another year behind I feel.

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While I liked some of the defensive picks in this draft and understand why they had to replace all the players they've lost, this draft hasn't really set Gardner Minshew up to succeed.

He needs to make an impact this season, if he's going to make the starting job his own, but was only really given Shenault to improve his offense.

So, he's going to have to over-perform again, with largely the same set of players.

In fairness, I think you probably have to see it as the start of a rebuild and the start of a defensive re-set, but there's little there to suggest they're also trying to rebuild around Minshew and to me it just fuels the theory they're going to look for an upgrade in 2021.

Which I think is a shame, because I think they could have done more to support him and see what they have there.

Anyone else think they could have done more for Minshew?

I think people who make that point ignore the way a defense can help an offense.  

A good defense keeps a team in the game, which means the team doesn't have to abandon their game plan.  A good defense gets an offense back on the field quicker, which gives the offense more chances.  A good defense can give the offense the ball in better field position.  

A bad defense puts enormous pressure on the offense to score more points to stay in games.  That allows the opposing defense to ignore the run and pin their ears back and rush the passer.  A bad defense forces a quarterback to take chances he wouldn't normally take. 

So it really doesn't matter how much help you give the offense if the defense can't get off the field, and can't stop the other team.  If Derek Henry is running the ball for 6 yards a carry, the Titans are going to ignore Leonard Fournette and just go after our quarterback.  There's no way we can run the ball if we open the second half down 17 points.

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It’s a lot easier to succeed as a quarterback when after you score a touchdown in the 4th quarter, you defense doesn’t give up a 70 yard touchdown run and outs all the pressure on qb to score again with less time. Drew brees can’t win with the defense giving up 200+ rushing yards back to back to back games. Minshew has enough. Adequate line, pro bowl receiver and a few weapons at wr. A runningback who can be productive especially during a contract year. The offense has enough as long as it’s not pressured to score 35-40 a game. Take some pressure off Minshew and let him be comfortable and do his thing

Yes.  That.  ^

I don't necessarily agree that Minshew "has enough."  I would say we don't want Minshew to have to carry the whole team.

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He has a veteran OLine. We picked him up a WR in round 2, a TE in free agency (with a returning 3rd rounder), and retained the RB that rushed & received for 1600 yards last season.

Meanwhile, our D finished the 2019 season starting 7 non-drafted players.

I think we had to do a little of everything but focus primarily on the D --- they've done with attempting to fix the OL in the top of the draft and FA in the past few years.

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I had the same thoughts on opening night and throughout the weekend but I was able to settle down a bit and understand it a bit more. There's a number of ways to look at this. For starters, the defense was historically bad in 2019. There's just no other way to get around that. The run defense had to improve. The secondary play had to improve with Ramsey and Bouye now gone.

I am hoping Wash is able to get outside of the box this year and get more creative. Hoping for man-to-man coverage and more blitz packages from the front seven. I think with Jack back outside playing opposite of maybe Williams / Jacobs and the comfort being there in the middle with Schobert allows them the ability to be a lot more aggressive in 2020.

With or without Ngakoue. I think Allen and Chaisson will be a formidable pair of edge rushers. And having the ability to sneak Jack or Williams off the edge is there as well. But they had to get a cover corner to compensate. Hayden and Herndon will be better being knocked down a peg on the depth chart with Henderson involved. And with J.R Reed in the fold? I think they'll have some options. Especially against the run game.

Offensively? I feel like they had some good chemistry going with Conley and Chark last year with Minshew at QB. What hurt was the decision to bench him for three weeks for Foles woeful return into the starting line up. I think with Jay Gruden and Ben McAdoo involved this year that we'll be seeing a lot more balanced games called and a lot more creativity that should have a big committee effort being made between the RB, TE and WR position with Chark being the feature.

Shenault has some "dog" in him. I like what I see out of him YAC wise. I think he's going to be manhandling CB's over the middle and eating up big plays after a 3 - 5 yard little catch. I am going to keep my optimism high. As long as the offensive line can hold up physically we should be manageable.

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

Sorry to be the cold water again but i havent seen anywhere near enough to address my concerns with O. The O was god awful last season and i get the logic of a good D helps the O but where you been the last 2 years? Having an O that cant score means you could have the '85 Bears back there and still lose.

I know we had the whole Foles/Minshew situation but our 1st half O was so so bad.

9pts in 3Q's against winless Bengals week 7
3pts in London against Houston week 9
11pts 3 Q's @ T*tans week 12
11pts against Bucs week 13
10 pts against Chargers week 14
6 pts in 3 Q's @Oakland week 15
12 pts @Atlanta week 16

Now i know we have Gruden coming and hopefully he can somehow make this unit click. Yes we have some good players and players that should be getting better but we need more points. Cant win games scoring 10pts.

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Eh, I think too many people are reading doom/gloom into this. Minshew wasn't terrible last year. Did he have bad games? Yeah, but he was also a 6th rounder who go almost NO reps with the ones until he was thrust into the starting role. As much as people bag on Cann, he is gonna be what he is going to be. We cant expect to have world beater All-Pros at every position. PFF (not the best reference, but I digress) has him down for 3 sacks and 2 penalties in 2019. He seems like the type of guy who as long as you don't hear his name called, you kind of forget about him. That's not a BAD thing for an OL. Taylor really came on in the last few weeks on the season. He looked STOUT AS HECK against the Raiders. Per SI.com, "On the season, Taylor surrendered eight sacks, according to Pro Football Focus - two in the final 10 games of the season." He had a baptism by fire against some pretty good pass rushers to start his career and got better as the season went on. Linder is pretty solid at Center. He had an off year last year, but overall body of work is pretty stout. Norwell has struggled but I believe the majority of his struggles have been due to sliding over picking up the slack for the garbage we had at LT in 2018 and Cam coming back from a torn ACL last year. I firmly believe that Year 2 of recovery for Cam, Norwell focusing on his own assignments, Linder, Cann/Richardson, and Taylor will be MARKEDLY better in 2020 than they were in 2019. That will do loads for Minshew being a better QB. If we don't trade Fournette, he's a solid back. Chark/Shenault/Conley/Westbrook/Johnson (GOOD RZ target) is a pretty good crop of receivers. The TE position will be better this year than last. Eifert has a questionable history, but he did play 16 games for the first time in his career last year. Oliver should be full strength and show good things. O'Shaughnessy will brought back slowly from his ACL tear. Looking at the team last year, short of that five game stretch where they flat out could NOT stop the run, they were competitive in 3 of the losses (lost by a TD).

First Houston: If we kick the XP and go to overtime, I think we win that game.
Carolina: Stop CMC, even ONCE...we win that game.
NO: we were playing a back up, but Gardner couldn't get out of his own way and we lose by a TD.

Will this team compete for the playoffs next year? I don't think so. Will this team be the worst team in the league and have a top 5 draft pick next year? Once again, I don't think so. Then again, i've been so abused by the team over the past 25 years...maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome...

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“Motivation alone is not enough.  If you have an idiot and you motivate him,now you have a motivated idiot.” Jim Rohn

 

Eh, I think too many people are reading doom/gloom into this.  Minshew wasn't terrible last year.  Did he have bad games? Yeah, but he was also a 6th rounder who go almost NO reps with the ones until he was thrust into the starting role.  As much as people bag on Cann, he is gonna be what he is going to be.  We cant expect to have world beater All-Pros at every position.  PFF (not the best reference, but I digress) has him down for 3 sacks and 2 penalties in 2019.  He seems like the type of guy who as long as you don't hear his name called, you kind of forget about him.  That's not a BAD thing for an OL.  Taylor really came on in the last few weeks on the season.  He looked STOUT AS HECK against the Raiders. Per SI.com, "On the season, Taylor surrendered eight sacks, according to Pro Football Focus - two in the final 10 games of the season."  He had a baptism by fire against some pretty good pass rushers to start his career and got better as the season went on.  Linder is pretty solid at Center.  He had an off year last year, but overall body of work is pretty stout.  Norwell has struggled but I believe the majority of his struggles have been due to sliding over picking up the slack for the garbage we had at LT in 2018 and Cam coming back from a torn ACL last year.  I firmly believe that Year 2 of recovery for Cam, Norwell focusing on his own assignments, Linder, Cann/Richardson, and Taylor will be MARKEDLY better in 2020 than they were in 2019.  That will do loads for Minshew being a better QB.  If we don't trade Fournette, he's a solid back.  Chark/Shenault/Conley/Westbrook/Johnson (GOOD RZ target) is a pretty good crop of receivers.  The TE position will be better this year than last.  Eifert has a questionable history, but he did play 16 games for the first time in his career last year.  Oliver should be full strength and show good things.  O'Shaughnessy will brought back slowly from his ACL tear. Looking at the team last year, short of that five game stretch where they flat out could NOT stop the run, they were competitive in 3 of the losses (lost by a TD).  

First Houston: If we kick the XP and go to overtime, I think we win that game.
Carolina: Stop CMC, even ONCE...we win that game.
NO: we were playing a back up, but Gardner couldn't get out of his own way and we lose by a TD.

Will this team compete for the playoffs next year? I don't think so.  Will this team be the worst team in the league and have a top 5 draft pick next year? Once again, I don't think so.  Then again, i've been so abused by the team over the past 25 years...maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome...

Indeed.
Slight improvement from Minshew and the OL and we're going to be in good position.
If we get ANY production from the TEs and Shenault, even better.

If Minshew doesn't improve, we have our question answered about if he is "the guy" and we move on next year (and everyone gets to fawn over Lawrence or Fields).

Fournette played well last year. Chark emerged as a top tier true #1 wideout. Minshew showed promise with some magic (as a 6th round rookie, playing in a playbook built for Foles by a coach hired for Foles)
Barring the unfortunate event that absolutely no one gets better our offense might actually be exciting.

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I honestly think Eifert was the best pick up so far

Minshew is gonna shine with a TE don’t you worry

Pass Pro will be better too

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I honestly think Eifert was the best pick up so far

Minshew is gonna shine with a TE don’t you worry

Pass Pro will be better too

He's gotta stay healthy, but a pass catcher in the seam should be really beneficial.

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I honestly think Eifert was the best pick up so far

Minshew is gonna shine with a TE don’t you worry

Pass Pro will be better too

He's gotta stay healthy, but a pass catcher in the seam should be really beneficial.

Hopefully Oliver and O'Shaughnessy can stay healthy along with him. Should have an interesting trio to work with here in Gruden's offense.

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"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."

He's gotta stay healthy, but a pass catcher in the seam should be really beneficial.

Hopefully Oliver and O'Shaughnessy can stay healthy along with him. Should have an interesting trio to work with here in Gruden's offense.

Tyler Davis looks like he has tons of potential too. We just might have weapons at the TE position for the first time in pretty much forever.

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Staff wants to prove that they can find the franchise QB, not luck into him in the 6th round.

The search continues

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He's gotta stay healthy, but a pass catcher in the seam should be really beneficial.

Hopefully Oliver and O'Shaughnessy can stay healthy along with him. Should have an interesting trio to work with here in Gruden's offense.

Maybe our best off-season signing was Gruden as OC.

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Fix the O-Line!

Hopefully Oliver and O'Shaughnessy can stay healthy along with him. Should have an interesting trio to work with here in Gruden's offense.

Maybe our best off-season signing was Gruden as OC.

I sure hope so

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The Khan Years

Patience, Persistence, and Piss Poor General Managers.