I would probably go with that also. Although I think most everyone settled on AR bc of talent and gambled on developing him. Ballard liked Allen and Firlds previously. I do think Irsay demanded they draft a QB though.

The best post this century, and is undoubtedly the way shit went down.

Don't get me wrong C&O. I love you to death, even though my posts don't usually express that. But do you even have a life dude? How can a human being have time enough to type as many words as you do?

I say this with absolutely no disrespect.

It makes a lot of sense.

o

I don't type as much as you might think. I copy and paste those long articles that are behind a pay wall on The Athletic.

Regarding a life, I have about half of a life. I am a lifetime long-distance runner, competing in races from the Mile to the Marathon, and everywhere in between. My fastest 5-Mile race is 26:54, and my fastest Half-Marathon (13.1 Miles) is 1:15:27.

Right now, I have taken up towerrunning, which consists of racing to the top of skyscrapers. My training consists of running almost 6,000 floors per week on the stairmaster, 1,000 leg-lifts per week, and some weightlifting. I'm at the gym about 22 hours per week.

So as I said, I have about half of a life. ) :o

o

Fair enough, but what I've bolded can be said about a lot of what we discuss on here :D. All joking aside, I suppose a lot of us on here like to debate these sorts of things. And make no mistake I don't think anyone on here is not enjoying this season.


Interesting stuff. Especially the part about number of starts. Been trying to think of successful NFL QBs who started 1 or fewer years in college and couldn't really come up w/ any to speak of. Googled it and Google AI listed Kyler Murray and Cam Newton. I suppose Murray mostly fits the category since he only started 1 year in college and has been somewhat successful in the NFL (at least from a stats standpoint). Newton obviously had a successful career, but he started for his Juco team in between UF and Auburn so IMO doesn't fit the category. For the record Google AI also listed Caleb Williams and Bo Nix, so goes to show how much you can trust AI.

Agree on Wentz, and I can see DJ. Maybe I read too much into the post '23 draft comments, but seemed to me it was obvious that Ballard, Steichen, and especially Morocco Brown were all super high on AR and thrilled to death that we drafted him. I don't blame them. They swung for the fences thinking AR would live up to his potential and unfortunately at least as of now it hasn't worked out. As for Irsay - I think he was supportive of the AR pick, but he was impartial to Levis as evidenced by him tweeting about still drafting Levis in the 2nd even though we had taken AR already.

Also, I want to add that whether it was luck or not, DJ was a GREAT signing. Unless we drop off a cliff in the 2nd half of the season it likely saved both Ballard and Steichen their jobs.
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Just to suck up to Ballard more; we have arguably the best offensive line in football and Ballard did this with using only one first round draft pick.

Quenton Nelson (LG) — 1st round, 6th overall in 2018. 

Braden Smith (RT) — 2nd round, 37th overall in 2018. 

Tanor Bortolini (C) — 4th round, 117th overall in 2024. 

Matt Goncalves (RG) — 3rd round, 79th overall in 2024. 

Bernhard Raimann (LT) — 3rd round of the 2022 NFL Draft (77th overall).

How about Matt Ryan, whose brilliant idea was that?:)

Irsay - both to bring him in and to later bench him.

So every bad decision was anybody but Ballard and every good decision was Ballard.....Teflon Chris!:D