Week 12: Jacksonville Jaguars (3-7) @ Buffalo Bills (3-7) - Status Quo

[Tugboat]

6 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

There's a difference between expecting things to go "swimmingly like last year" and having solid depth.

Like I said, what was the alternative option to getting a legit starting caliber at QB? I'm pretty sure that started and ended with Teddy Bridgewater. Even he had tons of questions and we still don't even know if that's true, but we showed zero interest in that whole situation from the get go.

Drafting a raw Lamar Jackson in round 1 doesn't fix that this year most likely (although I'm a big Lamar fan). Getting Glennon or Daniel (lol) doesn't alter that either.

Starting caliber/legit alternative options were not available. If you want to tell me those QB's above were that "alternative plan" than I just don't agree. They may have provided a decent bit more certainty than Kessler as far as what they bring, but they weren't saving our season if Bortles went down let's be real here.

It didn't have to be a legitimate starting caliber QB.  We all know what the options were in that regard, and there weren't many.  We hashed through that plenty in the offseason, looking out for any starting upgrade option.  But there's always a secondary market of capable backups.  That's all they needed to do.  Find a QB that they would trust to take over when Bortles shat the bed so thoroughly as he has this season.  My standards for that aren't that high.  I don't know where their standards are on that...because they don't appear to have even considered it.

 

You keep acting like there's this black/white dichotomy of Starting Caliber player or Depth Filler, with nothing in between.  That's not the case, at all.  Nobody is expecting multiple starting caliber players across the board at every position.  That's unreasonable and stupid.  But that doesn't mean you can't strive for slightly higher caliber depth scrubs, or more capable backups who suck a little bit less.  Guys with some upside who might be able to step in and surprise at critical positions if things don't go perfectly.

Guys like a backup QB that they actually like enough to play, when the Plan A guy has completely busted on the season.  It doesn't have to be a guy who is awesome and rescues the season.  I'd give them credit for just trying, getting a guy they actually believe in a tiny little bit.  Getting a guy who at least might do something.  But they didn't do that.

[DuvalsKing]

3 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

So who we do cut let go of? We maybe sign a #3 WR and cut Mickens instead? Because we clearly weren't letting go of Lee, Chark, Cole, or Dede. Getting that one guy instead of Mickens is what did us in depth wise at WR?

Ding Ding tell him what he's won Bob. ^ That Part!

[.Buzz]

1 minute ago, pwny said:

As a pass catcher, he was more productive as well.

He had an ok year last year, I'll give you that. But we've been moaning and groaning about him as a pass catcher for years prior. He had a couple big games, including that one in London where he had 3 redzone TD's. Great, but still. He is aging and is clearly past his prime. He's a solid run blocker, but to expect what he did as a pass catcher production wise I think is/was far fetched. He's doing nothing in GB right now either.

Even if you think of him as a superior option to JOS, it's not enough to offset the $ we saved imo.

[Adrenaline_Flux]

2 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

It didn't have to be a legitimate starting caliber QB.  We all know what the options were in that regard, and there weren't many.  We hashed through that plenty in the offseason, looking out for any starting upgrade option.  But there's always a secondary market of capable backups.  That's all they needed to do.  Find a QB that they would trust to take over when Bortles shat the bed so thoroughly as he has this season.  My standards for that aren't that high.  I don't know where their standards are on that...because they don't appear to have even considered it.

 

You keep acting like there's this black/white dichotomy of Starting Caliber player or Depth Filler, with nothing in between.  That's not the case, at all.  Nobody is expecting multiple starting caliber players across the board at every position.  That's unreasonable and stupid.  But that doesn't mean you can't strive for slightly higher caliber depth scrubs, or more capable backups who suck a little bit less.  Guys with some upside who might be able to step in and surprise at critical positions if things don't go perfectly.

Guys like a backup QB that they actually like enough to play, when the Plan A guy has completely busted on the season.  It doesn't have to be a guy who is awesome and rescues the season.  I'd give them credit for just trying, getting a guy they actually believe in a tiny little bit.  Getting a guy who at least might do something.  But they didn't do that.

Who could we have brought in as a backup plan at QB who clearly would have been a good option?

[.Buzz]

2 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

It didn't have to be a legitimate starting caliber QB.  We all know what the options were in that regard, and there weren't many.  We hashed through that plenty in the offseason, looking out for any starting upgrade option.  But there's always a secondary market of capable backups.  That's all they needed to do.  Find a QB that they would trust to take over when Bortles shat the bed so thoroughly as he has this season.  My standards for that aren't that high.  I don't know where their standards are on that...because they don't appear to have even considered it.

 

You keep acting like there's this black/white dichotomy of Starting Caliber player or Depth Filler, with nothing in between.  That's not the case, at all.  Nobody is expecting multiple starting caliber players across the board at every position.  That's unreasonable and stupid.  But that doesn't mean you can't strive for slightly higher caliber depth scrubs, or more capable backups who suck a little bit less.  Guys with some upside who might be able to step in and surprise at critical positions if things don't go perfectly.

Guys like a backup QB that they actually like enough to play, when the Plan A guy has completely busted on the season.  It doesn't have to be a guy who is awesome and rescues the season.  I'd give them credit for just trying, getting a guy they actually believe in a tiny little bit.  Getting a guy who at least might do something.  But they didn't do that.

Ok, so what were the options that were out there that you thought were a legit plan B to Bortles?

If you list Glennon, Daniel, etc. than I'm just going to end the argument there because I don't see that at all. None of those were "legit plan B's to what we're seeing from Bortles nor would they have righted the ship to what is happening right now. We paid Bortles, he is/was our guy going into this season. That's just how it was. It clearly hasn't worked out after a solid year last year. Sucks, but we put our money on him and it didn't work out. There wasn't a guy where we were drafting or on the FA market that we could have got that was a legit plan B for this season besides, again, Bridgewater. If you want to be upset about that great. But there was questions league wide about that knee and him ever getting back to normal. A solid preseason hasn't ensured that he will be anything either in the grand scheme of things.

[.Buzz]

2 minutes ago, Adrenaline_Flux said:

Who could we have brought in as a backup plan at QB who clearly would have been a good option?

Been asking that for a while now and continue to not get a name. At least pwny did that, even though I disagree with who he listed.

[Tugboat]

12 minutes ago, Adrenaline_Flux said:

Wide open passes to Marcedes the past few years kind of became 50/50 on if he'd catch them or drop them. lol. He's a solid #2 TE but he had injury issues the past couple years and was getting paid a lot. I don't blame us for getting rid of him, as much as I would have loved to see him here until the end.

I think his struggles were kinda of exaggerated.  But a big part of makes the Marcedes thing stick out...is the way it all happened, and how kneejerk it came across.  It didn't seem like Marcedes was gonna be gone...most people seemed to be kinda thinking he's TE2 and doing a ton of blocking now behind ASJ and that's fine.  Then he gripes a little bit, and they just cut him.  It just had a weird odor to the whole situation, and basically came across as slashing quality depth to put the position group basically right back where they started.  Which is what they seem to do with other groups...but in this case, apparently triggered by a little bit of complaining before camp even opened so they could "justify" it?

[pwny]

4 minutes ago, Adrenaline_Flux said:

I get what you're saying, but it wasn't a case of any of those failing. All of those failed. When Blake was playing well and our OL was doing well (hell, even early, the WRs weren't doing too awful) we were winning. When everything went south, everything went south.

I 100% agree that I don't understand why they didn't bring in another bruising RB. But for the WR and OL, moves were made. They just didn't pan out. 

They all failed because they were all bad bets that were more likely to fail than not. The fact that there were so many and not other things to lean on when they did fail is a problem. 

And it's not just all of the failing is why we're here. We have Fournette healthy and another bruiser to lean on and we're still losing to bad teams and getting stomped by good teams. Pick any two of them, make them *as expected* for the year, and what do you think our record is? Pick three of them, make them *as expected*, do you really think we're the Super Bowl contender we were supposed to be?

[Tugboat]

4 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

Been asking that for a while now and continue to not get a name. At least pwny did that, even though I disagree with who he listed.

You're asking for a name i can't give you.

I mean heck, i'd be starting Kessler at this point.  But they aren't, and they won't.  And that's the thing that ultimately condemns Kessler as an inadequate backup plan.  Not my personal preferences on backup QBs.

 

I could start listing guys if you really want...but i think your insistence on that is completely missing the point.

[.Buzz]

2 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

You're asking for a name i can't give you.

I mean heck, i'd be starting Kessler at this point.  But they aren't, and they won't.  And that's the thing that ultimately condemns Kessler as an inadequate backup plan.  Not my personal preferences on backup QBs.

 

I could start listing guys if you really want...but i think your insistence on that is completely missing the point.

So you are expecting the Jaguars to get a legit plan B but even you don't/didn't see any legit plan B for them to do is what you're saying? Because that's what i'm getting here.

It's great to sit here and say things, but there weren't options for a plan B. If you want to condemn them on keeping Blake and saying we should have signed Cousins, fine. But there was no QB on the market for them to get that would have been a legit plan B to Blake besides again, an injury riddled full of questions Bridgewater who may have not even been that either.

[.Buzz]

6 minutes ago, pwny said:

They all failed because they were all bad bets that were more likely to fail than not. The fact that there were so many and not other things to lean on when they did fail is a problem. 

And it's not just all of the failing is why we're here. We have Fournette healthy and another bruiser to lean on and we're still losing to bad teams and getting stomped by good teams. Pick any two of them, make them *as expected* for the year, and what do you think our record is? Pick three of them, make them *as expected*, do you really think we're the Super Bowl contender we were supposed to be?

When you're QB is missing guys 5 yards downfield and throwing atrocious looking passes like he did today while also being scared to throw to wide open WR's/TE's down the field than that answers everything. You aren't winning in today's NFL if you show to be that incompetent. This is early Blake bad. Mechanics are atrocious, the ball is even more wobblier than before, he's not taking off and running anymore really. He is scared to hit clearly open guys or just not reading the field and seeing these guys, etc. 

It's bad. It's really, really bad.

[.Buzz]

2 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

So you are expecting the Jaguars to get a legit plan B but even you don't/didn't see any legit plan B for them to do is what you're saying? Because that's what i'm getting here.

It's great to sit here and say things, but there weren't options for a plan B. If you want to condemn them on keeping Blake and saying we should have signed Cousins, fine. But there was no QB on the market for them to get that would have been a legit plan B to Blake besides again, an injury riddled full of questions Bridgewater who may have not even been that either.

Also, the season is lost. They just paid Blake and have a solid cap hit on him next year still. I don't agree with him staying in there (clearly), but I think this has less to do with Kessler being a competent guy to come in and more about trying to salvage anything you can with Blake.

[Tugboat]

16 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

Ok, so what were the options that were out there that you thought were a legit plan B to Bortles?

If you list Glennon, Daniel, etc. than I'm just going to end the argument there because I don't see that at all. None of those were "legit plan B's to what we're seeing from Bortles nor would they have righted the ship to what is happening right now. We paid Bortles, he is/was our guy going into this season. That's just how it was. It clearly hasn't worked out after a solid year last year. Sucks, but we put our money on him and it didn't work out. There wasn't a guy where we were drafting or on the FA market that we could have got that was a legit plan B for this season besides, again, Bridgewater. If you want to be upset about that great. But there was questions league wide about that knee and him ever getting back to normal. A solid preseason hasn't ensured that he will be anything either in the grand scheme of things.

Then just end the argument, because you're clearly not getting it.

Glennon, Daniel, McCarron, Henne, Gabbert, Teddy, make a trade for someone else's guy instead of Kessler even if it costs a little bit more...or best of all...maybe just a draft pick who isn't totally useless like Lee.  There are all kinds of options i would've preferred.  To say nothing of more aggressive plans like spending a 1st on a QB or throwing money at one of the big fish.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't mean squat what i would've preferred.  It's about them not even wanting to look at a "Backup Plan".  It was Bortles all day every day, from Day 1 until the season either ended in a Super Bowl and went completely down in flames.  Kessler could be the best backup QB in the league for all it apparently matters in how interested they are in a real "backup plan".

[.Buzz]

1 minute ago, Tugboat said:

Then just end the argument, because you're clearly not getting it.

Glennon, Daniel, McCarron, Henne, Gabbert, Teddy, make a trade for someone else's guy instead of Kessler even if it costs a little bit more...or best of all...maybe just a draft pick who isn't totally useless like Lee.  There are all kinds of options i would've preferred.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't mean squat what i would've preferred.  It's about them not even wanting to look at a "Backup Plan".  It was Bortles all day every day, from Day 1 until the season either ended in a Super Bowl and went completely down in flames.  Kessler could be the best backup QB in the league for all it apparently matters in how interested they are in a real "backup plan".

........

None of these are legit plan B's to having someone out there instead of Bortles. We would have picked top 5-10 with or without them.

[pwny]

7 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

When you're QB is missing guys 5 yards downfield and throwing atrocious looking passes like he did today while also being scared to throw to wide open WR's/TE's down the field than that answers everything. You aren't winning in today's NFL if you show to be that incompetent. This is early Blake bad. Mechanics are atrocious, the ball is even more wobblier than before, he's not taking off and running anymore really. He is scared to hit clearly open guys or just not reading the field and seeing these guys, etc. 

It's bad. It's really, really bad.

I don’t disagree. But let’s assume Blake is 2017 Blake for just a little bit.

The Receivers are what they are, the OL is in the situation it is now, the run game is where it is. What’s our record?

What’s our record if you add a healthy LF, but we have no Carlos Hyde?

To be the team we were supposed to be, I’m certain we had to hit on all four of those position groups. And that’s just ridiculous to expect.