If I’m Chris Ballard, I’ve got to decide if this year’s squad…
 

Has real Super Bowl potential or is it a team that will get to the playoffs and go one and done?

How you see the team has real implications for how you spend the rest of the offseason, who or if you add before now and the first kickoff of the season.

That question didn’t much factor into the pursuit of Trey Hendrickson. Hendrickson wasn’t a one year stopgap, a way to jury rig the roster and spackle over a hole. He was young enough, with enough left in the tank, to offer production for another few years. You could add him to the roster in preparation for a real run in 2027.

What’s left on the market, now, are a bunch of players best described as once were’s. You might get a decent short term return if you sign a Clowney, but he’s 33 years old. Calais Campbell is 39, Von Miller 37.

If you truly believe, you sign one of those guys, assuming that he’s the piece that shoves you over the finish line. If your expectations are more modest, you hold the hand you’re dealt. You hope to scheme your way to a pass rush, explore whether Tuimoloau, Cumbs, or Curry have the right stuff. If one of them does, you’re playing with found money. If they don’t, you go into next year’s free agent class and pay whatever price is needed to snag your guy.

To a certain extent, the same logic applies to Wide Receiver. Do you ante up big bucks for Jauan Jennings to be a number two? Do you bide your time and hope that an upper echelon option emerges before the season, an AJ Brown or a DK Metcalf? Do you explore the upside of guys already on the roster? How good is Aston Dulin, can Laquon Treadwell live up to his 1st round potential, how much does Westbrook-Ikhini bring to the table, does the Burks kid have what it takes to morph into TY Hilton 2.0?

"

I'd still go after Bosa.

I would have to ask myself if this team is good enough to win it all. There are probably 6-8 teams every year that fits into this category. If I felt it was good enough (not today, but at the start of roster cut-downs), then I would have to ask myself a follow-up question: Is this team ready to absorb injuries, because they are coming. Every team gets them, and usually it is the team with the least, or the best depth that wins it all. If I felt it was not good enough, I would have to ask myself which players fit into the 3-year window, or if it was time to offload the aging players and start over (likely with a new coach and GM).

What does it take for him to keep his job?

I personally think it should be a division title and a home playoff win. That would be an improvement, and should give him some grace for another year. He might get away with just a playoff win, since the organization (Outside of McAfee on draft night) has not made it clear that a division title is absolutely necessary. IF they have, I haven't seen it.

Ballard should be expending every resource possible to field the very best team he possibly can this year.

I disagree, i think the teams that win the Superbowl are generally the least injured teams at the most important positions. No team can absorb any significant amount of injuries to their top level guys.

Depth is only so good at certain positions.

If you lose your starting QB, or a top level LT, Pro Bowl DE or CB, the drop off in talent gets really hard to replace to any suitable standard.

Losing a star receiver hurts, but an opposition can't "target" that weakness, as an offensive co-ordinator or head coach you adjust your playbook accordingly. But a CB replacement will immediately get targetted. A DE means your pass rush is no longer elite and is now mediocre and the QB gets longer to throw. A LB missing can be patched up to some extent and differing schemes deployed. A RB, you throw more often etc.

Steichen was brought here in part because he was able to win a Super Bowl with a back up QB (Nick Foles). While I think you are absolutely correct that the least injured team has a huge advantage, depth is also a huge factor. Missing on all those athletic non football player types with so many high draft choices has hurt. It may be that Ballard is changing his ways with new ownership and years of mediocrity. He never would have drafted an end with short arms like he did this year and this wasn't an all RAS draft. He seems to have gone more for actual football players. Gives me some hope

That, I'm afraid is incorrect. Steichen was coaching as QB coach with Chargers, when Foles and the Eagles won the SB.

You actually agree with me. I just worded it wrong.

Sounds like a solid road map to becoming the Jets 2.0.

Please explain.

Gutting rosters, firing coaches, purging GM’s and staff, simply because there’s no realistic hope of winning it all, is something that bad teams do. Beyond that, I think that judging the state of your team through the lens of how well they’ll perform should catastrophic injuries occur is too high a bar.

The Ravens, the Bengals, and the Chiefs all saw their seasons implode after injuries struck. Should they start over?

That's not what I read him saying. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I pulled that he was saying players that don't fit the three year plan should be looked at further, assuming Ballard doesn't think he has a championship level team.

I didn't read him suggest throwing out the baby with the bathwater was the better plan.

What he said was that on cutdown day, a GM should look at his roster and decide if the talent level is such that his team can win the Super Bowl, even after sustaining a rash of injuries.

That, if the answer is no, they should unload any player who wouldn’t still be effective in 3 years. Further, in addition to cutting anyone over a certain age, presumably 28 or so, they should purge the front office and coaching staff and start over.

I think you are taking my statement much further than I meant. What I am saying is that we made moves for last season. If they see Buckner not returning to form, Ward retiring due to another concussion, and DJ not recovering to play as last year, it might be time to start a new window of opportunity with guys who can replace those three. If thy think they are on the roster now, no need to gut the team. If they do not see it happening soon, it would be time for a rebuild. Maybe Carlie sees Ballard and Shane as the guys to maneuver through it, but a lot of fans will bail on the team.

I was using cut-down day as an example as opposed to how some fans think it needs to be done today. It could be the trade deadline. My point was it was not something to be done today.

In fact Frank Reich was the OC on that Eagles SB winning team. But, Frank had never called plays, even on that SB winning team. Doug Pederson was the play caller. I wasn't a Reich fan as a play caller. I think the Jests, and in particular Aaron Glenn will rue the day they hired him. I mean, look how much he had Bryce Young screwed up in Carolina.

I believe, that Steichen has always called the plays when he was the OC at San Diego and Philly.

For that reason, and many more, Steichen is very respected in the NFL as a play caller. Steichen usually has 3 to 4 plays a game that are called to produce mismatches that have the opportunity to provide chunk plays.

I was more saying i disagree about the depth part of your comment.

OK