Retool or Rebuild for 2022?

Any bets on whether Tinuccis is going to cater the event?

I get it but Cleveland has Baker who has to be better than Kirk. I don’t see them giving up a first plus picks and absorbing his contract. They are young enough to draft a QB if they don’t want Mayfield.

Denver has Teddy. Cheaper than Kirk and just the type Cikings fans want. They definitely won’t trade a 1st plus for Kirk. Elway will draft.
No way Pittsburgh gives up a #1 to get Kirk.

The only team I see possibly doing it is New Orleans and they probably con us into giving our 1st plus Kirk to take him.

I do agree let’s see how the coach/GM thing shakes out.

We might actually get one that can build an O line and if we had a dominant line Kirk would have had us at 10 + wins this year.

Which NFC CG did Bill lose as a head coach?

I get that this is probably sarcasm, but have you seen how bad Baker has been? He's been brutal.


Teddy is a FA and if he does return to Denver, it's going to be as their backup. They seem likely to go after one of the big QBs on the trade market.
Also, Paton is their GM, not Elway. They promoted him to an executive role because he was doing a bad job as the GM.


Well, the sample size is rather small since he had Brady for the majority of his career. He might get a shot at the Championship game with a rookie QB, which would be pretty impressive.

I think the answer to the original question is that it depends unfortunately. The team is in a weird spot in that they have some talent on the roster, but 2022 is likely going to be a lost season. The question is whether the Wilfs agree or not. That said, they're making changes, so I assume they do.

That means that we need to have honest conversations about moving on from anyone who won't be here in 2023 or is highly likely to decline as well as clear up cap space to plug holes. We also need to get an honest look at some of the younger players on this team to see who can stick around as a starter, capable backup, and who needs to move on.

On the retain front, there are a few people that come to mind. Cousins obviously. But you can add Theilen, Smith, Barr, and Hunter to that mix too. I'm inclined to keep Hunter if he'll sign an extension, but there's also some bad blood there not to mention any extension he signs will not be the top dollar he was hoping for last season, and of course we can simply pay his roster bonus as well. I'd have to think long and hard about trading Theilen and Smith. It's not that I don't like them. It's that they're expensive and aging. I doubt we're getting 1sts for either, but I do think the two of them can yield a mid-to-high round pick with maybe a bonus 4th rounder or so thrown in for the 2023 draft. At some point in the not so distant future, both players are likely to significantly regress. Barr, I think, goes.

Cousins is a bit more of an issue. I've said before, I wouldn't mind him if he was cheap. He's shown no signs of playing at a lower price though, and I don't think his cost is at all worth the level of play we've gotten from him. I think a team CAN win a SB with Cousins under center, but not if Cousins is making the kind of money he's currently making because they're basically being forced to get really lucky in the draft with talent around him. Cousins, at this point at least, seems more interested in $$$ than he is a ring. Perhaps now that he's gotten his big contracts that he's changed his tune there. I don't know, but I have no interested in him if he's continuing to get anything close to 30+M. He might be smart about that for no other reason than that I don't think he's going to get that kind of money on the FA market in 2023, but what do I know? I don't have a problem approaching him for an extension, but I'm thinking a dollar amount of about half what he's currently making. I doubt he's amenable to that, so I'm trading him. Besides, that forces us to develop Mond and helps us figure out what we have in him.

In terms of retool/rebuild, if 2022 goes reasonably well, you're looking at plugging holes. If it doesn't, we're drafting pretty high and trading off a few other key pieces for a full on rebuild. But we'd also get a real crack at one of the top QBs in the draft of a class that (at the moment at least) looks pretty strong up there. Not to mention, said QB should be sitting behind a pretty decent offensive line thanks to Rick's investements the last two seasons and have what is, admittedly too soon to tell, a future HOF in Jefferson hitting his prime.

If you play the law of averages, one of them will pan out. Guessing which one is beyond me. The painful part on top of missing is being compelled to turn the team over to him if you take them in round 1 even if they have shown nothing in practice. I hate that part of drafting a QB in round 1 too.