Antonio Pierce named HC

[FloydFan]

43 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

He's a good fit for the Steelers with their current roster situation. He's able to make up for a lot of their deficiencies on offense but he's also super inconsistent as a passer. Their defense is good enough that they'll never really have to ask him to do a ton to keep them in games. But long term I agree, I don't view him as someone that can take you to a Super Bowl. 

Mike Tomlin deciding to trot Russ out there after he has been hurt all season with a shaky OL, meh running game, and so-so pass catchers against arguably the best defense in the league on SNF is honestly insane.

Don’t know a soul who understands why. 

[Styrian Raider]

8 hours ago, ronjon1990 said:

He's much more forgiving of front office personnel than I am. 

I won't sit here and say the Spanos family is the benchmark of quality ownership, but Tom Telesco's track record with FAs and the draft isn't very good. He got lucky a few times, such as with Herbert, and had a couple of no-brainer can't really screw up picks like Bosa, but overall LA has been garbage for a while, propped up by a couple decent players and guys from pre-Telesco days. 

Supposedly he built a talented roster and was held back by bad coaches the owner wouldn't fire. Problem is, they still look pretty bad with Jim Harbaugh coaching them. They have wins over us and Carolina and Denver- none of which say a lot. A truly talented roster, Harbaugh would have looking far better. He was fired for a reason, and after a decade, hard to say he was a scapegoat. 

We went through the same.last year when he jumped to Champ Kelly's defense. He downplayed, in my opinion, Kelly's roots with McDaniels and Brian Xanders, and made it out as though Kelly was just a paper pusher in his role.as Asst. GM of the Bears.

I'm not nearly as forgiving. I'm not swayed by sweet talk. Guys either have a track record of success, or they don't. Kelly didn't, and we're seeing the results of his stewardship. Zeigler didn't, and we've seen how it worked. I was equally as critical of Mayock, who lacked any semblance of a spine and should have never been made a GM to begin with. 

It's easy to point at coaches on gameday, because they're right there. But we've seen good coaches get fired because a highly regarded draft pick didn't work out, only to later find out the player just sucked. Coaches can't just create talented football players. I certainly won't pretend McCoy, Lynn, or Staley were brilliant head coaches, but it's just not all on them. Same with ownership. Owners meddle, yes. Jerry Jones, the moron in Carolina, etc. Spanos is cheap and meddlesome too, for sure. Given the results and where the Chargers ended up during the 2010s/2020s from where they were, it seems like Telesco also benefited from Spanos being hesitant to fire people- which I don't really buy into as they're not on HC #4 in, what, 6 years? 

Tom Telesco just didn't do that good of a job with the Chargers, imo. I think it takes a lot of creative writing to absolve him of blame for the clown show that franchise turned into, too much to handwave away with a "But the coach and owner". As with Mayock, my question becomes "Then why didn't Tom Telesco?". If he's that much of a pushover, I don't want him either. 

That's where we differ. I'm not cool with retread table scraps from poorly run franchises, he apparently is. And that's not a sleight. I've seen his opinions on HCs, and the inverse is largely true. I'm much more forgiving on the idea of "retread" HCs. 

I think what people like about Tom Telesco right now is that after a long time, draft picks and high-prized FA additions are working out. Bowers, JPJ, Glaze, Wilkins - all of them worked out so far.
We've seen much worse additions in the last years - Tyree Wilson, Jimmy G, Chandler Jones for example from the previous regime or Littleton, Ruggs, Arnette from Gruden/Mayock.
And that's only guys that I have in my mind right now, the list is much longer.

Maybe the guys Telesco picked and signed are no-brainers - but that's far better than the outcome of the previous two regimes.

For now that's okay - but for the direction of the future I'm also a little bit scared.

QB is a good example there:

Herbert was a no-brainer - when the Chargers picked. However, it was reported that he would've taken Tua over him, if he was there. And that's where my concerns begin. Tua and Herbert are just not the same type of QB, they got different strengths and weaknesses. to his defense, trading up for Tua may not have been that easy, since Miami had 3 FRP in that draft.
but still - if you think that player x is the exact mold of player you want, than try to get him and if the price is too high, then don't pick just the next guy on the big board, regardless if he fits that mold.

this is not how you get an identity to your team.

 

 

[NYRaider]

2 minutes ago, Styrian Raider said:

Maybe the guys Telesco picked and signed are no-brainers - but that's far better than the outcome of the previous two regimes.

For now that's okay - but for the direction of the future I'm also a little bit scared.

QB is a good example there:

Herbert was a no-brainer - when the Chargers picked. However, it was reported that he would've taken Tua over him, if he was there. And that's where my concerns begin. Tua and Herbert are just not the same type of QB, they got different strengths and weaknesses. to his defense, trading up for Tua may not have been that easy, since Miami had 3 FRP in that draft.
but still - if you think that player x is the exact mold of player you want, than try to get him and if the price is too high, then don't pick just the next guy on the big board, regardless if he fits that mold.

this is not how you get an identity to your team.

That's literally all we've needed a GM to do for decades. How many times have we passed on BPA for a project early in the draft and it didn't work out? Ruggs over CeeDee / Arnette over Jaylon Johnson / Tyree over Carter the list goes on forever. My only concern is that his mid to late round drafting was pretty damn terrible and that's why the Chargers depth was always paper thin. None of the guys taken after the third round have made any type of impact at all. 

Just because they preferred Tua as a prospect doesn't mean that they wanted to build their identity in a way that would only support Tua's strengths. The Chargers were set up for any young QB to do well with Ekeler, Williams, Allen, and Henry. 

The Texans reportedly offered the Bears two first round picks to swap #1/#2 so they could take Bryce Young. That didn't work out and they took CJ Stroud who was a much different prospect than Young.

[Styrian Raider]

34 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

Just because they preferred Tua as a prospect doesn't mean that they wanted to build their identity in a way that would only support Tua's strengths. The Chargers were set up for any young QB to do well with Ekeler, Williams, Allen, and Henry.

I mean, yeah there's two ways they could've done it. Pick players that fit to your identity or build an identity around your players. So basically they could say, whatever QB we take, that's the one we build around. (And since Tua is a left-handed QB you have to do the latter one anyhow.)
But that's something you do, when you start the job, and only have a loose vision, how things could work.

Imho you should figured out already what identity you want to have in year 7.

side note:

I just read the Tom Telesco wikipedia entry that said:
"Telesco was hired after long time Chargers general manager A. J. Smith was fired in 2013. He inherited a team that had not made the playoffs since 2009 and been underachieving due to injuries and poor depth."

Looks like the Chargers had the same issues before Telesco as well.

 

34 minutes ago, NYRaider said:

The Texans reportedly offered the Bears two first round picks to swap #1/#2 so they could take Bryce Young. That didn't work out and they took CJ Stroud who was a much different prospect than Young.

If that's true than the Texans were just lucky and when their luck ends, they're again on the bottom of the league.

[NYRaider]

1 minute ago, Styrian Raider said:

I mean, yeah there's two ways they could've done it. Pick players that fit to your identity or build an identity around your players. So basically they could say, whatever QB we take, that's the one we build around. (And since Tua is a left-handed QB you have to do the latter one anyhow.)
But that's something you do, when you start the job, and only have a loose vision, how things could work.

Imho you should figured out already what identity you want to have in year 7.

side note:

I just read the Tom Telesco wikipedia entry that said:
"Telesco was hired after long time Chargers general manager A. J. Smith was fired in 2013. He inherited a team that had not made the playoffs since 2009 and been underachieving due to injuries and poor depth."

Looks like the Chargers had the same issues before Telesco as well.

If that's true than the Texans were just lucky and when their luck ends, they're again on the bottom of the league.

That was a unique situation though because it was basically a guarantee they'd land one of Herbert or Tua just based on the teams picking ahead of them. I think they were probably comfortable with both but Tua graded out higher on their board. If they were that in love with Tua or liked him significantly more than Herbert they would've jumped ahead of Miami. 

The Chargers had only had one losing season in the 9 seasons prior to hiring Telesco and it was a 7-9 year right before he was hired. They weren't a bottom feeder in need of a total rebuild, they already had an established franchise QB with Phillip Rivers. The Chargers were leaving the LT/Gates era and had to retool around Rivers. 

He inherited a team that had missed the playoffs for 3 straight years, they went 9-7 and made the playoffs in year 1, and then missed the playoffs the next 4 seasons.