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Originally Posted by YDFL Commish
Irsay, handed AR the starters keys. I hope that nobody on this forum believes that AR beat out Minshew after a week of TC, and then 2 years later, couldn't beat out Daniel Jones? He didn't beat out Minshew and probably wouldn't beat out Minshew today.
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Not sure how you got that I was saying or suggesting that AR beat out Minshew in '23. He was clearly handed the starter job from pretty much day one. As far as Irsay pressuring the FO and coaches to start AR here's what Ballard said about it:
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Ballard said earlier this offseason that he regretted playing Richardson right away as a rookie, a revelation that prompted a question to Ballard on Wednesday about whether the front office and coaching staff were pressured by late owner Jim Irsay to play the rookie immediately.
Ballard bristled at the question.
“No, not at all,” Ballard said. “We made the decision. You learn sometimes with decisions that didn't go the way you wish they would have gone and so – but no, there was no pressure.”
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The article then goes to state that Irsay did say he thought AR would get better by playing right away, but that was aligned w/ what Steichen had said from the point right after we drafted AR. So based off of all of their comments it seems like Irsay, Ballard, and Steichen were all aligned in starting AR from day 1.
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I honestly don't know how a team with the 55th ranked QB and 28th ranked defense wins 8 games? Statistical anomaly, a credit to offensive coaching, or a better than average roster?
I sincerely doubt that this has ever happened in the NFL before.
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Jonathan Taylor is good, but not THAT good. Maybe the 55th ranked QB was not actually the 55th best QB, but still not solid enough to manage a team well.
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You guys are really underestimating how soft our schedules have been, especially last year. We played 6 games against the bottom 4 teams in the league, another 2 against bottom 10 teams, and 1 against a Tua-less Phins which is a bottom 5 team. 7/8 wins in '24 came in those games.
Some other thoughts I have based on the discussion:
On Ballard - yes, he's a good GM, but IMO he's not a great GM. He's a pretty good talent evaluator and for the most part has drafted well, but his phobia of top tier FAs has handicapped his effectiveness and has been a big factor in our mediocrity over the past 5 seasons. I agree w/ rn that his decision to bring in win now QBs and slow play other parts of the roster is not a winning strategy. It was really good to see him finally step out of his comfort zone this offseason, so if we have a good season and he keeps his job then hopefully he doesn't go back into his shell.
Also, I don't think the fear of bringing in someone worse should be the reason we keep Ballard. If we think we can go get someone better then we should go get them.
On Grigson - Yeah he was god awful, and his incompetence has definitely made Ballard look better than he actually is. Something I've always found interesting about Grigson's tenure is that he made a lot of really good moves when we were backed up against the cap in '12, but once the cap handcuffs were taken off things went to shit. We lost Tom Telesco after the '12 season, so I think a lot of the success from the Grig's first offseason probably came from Telesco.