Kevin O'Nagy

I think a common denominator with all of those teams is they all made pretty significant upgrades or major decisions to add a qb or move on from one. I could be wrong but imo I don't think you can accurately judge this front office and coach until they get to pick their qb

I respectfully disagree. They (meaning Kwesi & O'Connell) chose to continue down the path of Kirk Cousins and extending him at least through the 2023 season (for Years 1 & 2), and regardless of whether that was a mandate from the Wilfs or not, Kwesi is the GM in charge of player/personnel decisions working collabortively with O'Connell to get the most from those personnel decisions, and the team under 1.5 seasons of Cousins & O'Connell don't scream "contenders" to me.

McVay took over a Rams team that already had Jared Goff on it and transformed that offense into enough of a weapon that carried them all the way to the Super Bowl in Yr 2. Holmes/Campbell didn't exactly "upgrade" at QB in Detroit by shipping Stafford to the Rams for Goff - they took on a "lesser" QB and trusted in themselves to build a solid foundation of a team around Goff to be successful and here they are in Year 3. Carroll took over the Seahawk team in the last days of the Matt Hassellbeck era and took that team to the Divisional Rd in Yr 1 while he and Schneider built up the "Legion of Boom" defense, and when they finally landed Russell Wilson in Round 3 of the 3rd year of their regime, the team around them was ready to take off.

There's a reason why the NFL carries the moniker of the "Not For Long" league: that's because players, coaches and Front Office personnel don't get years and years like they used to 10-20 years ago to see if they can turn a team into a contender; the days of sitting around and waiting for Marty Schottenheimer to finally get his team over the proverbial hump are through. If you're well into Year 3 and you don't see signs that the current GM/HC won't be contending for a Conference or Super Bowl Championship in the very near future, then seats have to start getting hot because you're falling behind the better teams/organizations that are contending in that timeframe. The entire Year 3 of this regime in 2024 - from the start of the offseason to the end of the season (whenever that may be) - needs to be the turning point for this organization under this current regime by 2023 NFL standards. 

Who were the available options at QB when they re-signed Cousins? Actualy available. Not some pipe dream.

Any one is available if you have the money, that’s the problem isn’t it? Herschel Walker no money, Kirko no money. Smarter investors needed maybe they should hire Fischer investors to run this thing…

Even the positives I think were sort of done too late though in terms of making the decisions to move on/when. We not only didn't get assets for it because it was at a time those players didn't hold as much value but we also added to cap hits like with AT before letting go the following season. That's the main point and we seem to largely agree though, at best this GM has been mediocre and more likely he has simply been bad. That's the real issue and we aren't really set up for it to change much until maybe 2025 (with 2 more draft classes and hopefully finally in a better cap situation). We need massive improvements from the GM for that to happen though and it is very clearly the main problem for the franchise at the moment. So far the best possible way to look at it is mediocre.

Coaching has been a bit different. We exceeded expectations the first year and this year are almost on the same path as expected despite arguably the worst luck in the league. KOC was in the COY talks through much of the first season and even halfway through this one before the backup QB situation/injuries really started to hurt us too much. Within context and what even those outside this fanbase see there has been positives from a coaching standpoint. So while there are plenty of issues/negatives for KOC to work on (running game, screen game, conservative nature), there have been much more positives than we have seen from the GM at the same time. He has overproduced on wins compared to expectations over the 2 year span.

I just think we need to acknowledge this aspect a lot more as a fan base and put the blame where it is far more deserved so far with this regime. If we keep using the coach as a scapegoat it will never get at the real problem for this regime. The GM (or ownership if you think they have mandates in place etc).



I don't think the expectations should be quite the same given the crappy situation our gm has put us in. I do agree that we need to see something positive by the end of next season though for sure and have hinted at a similar timeline myself. I don't think we are set up to be in win now mode next season so we shouldn't be at a point of playoff wins or else. If we have a team that is turning it on near the end of the season around a rookie QB on a similar come up to Detroit last year I think that would be a very good sign.

We need to draft our future QB and evaluate if this regime is going to have what it takes. We can't keep pushing cap into the future to stay mediocre and never address these roster issues. Until that changes this team will continue down the same old path. It's time to move on from Cousins and risk a potential down season with a young QB while we start focusing on cleaning up the roster issues. KOC needs to show he can help that rookie QB develop throughout the season giving us a positive outlook moving forward.

Either way though if this regime does fail it needs to be acknowledged that the real big issue holding us back was always the GM/roster (and ownership if you think they pushed us this direction). It's been that way since 2020 and many don't seem to want to acknowledge it for some reason. That's where all the anger should really be aimed at imo instead of what has been happening.

Well I think that notion should be very obvious, not something that you even should really need to think about. That’s the main point essentially on where the major issues have been.

As I said that doesn’t mean KOC doesn’t have areas he needs to improve so we agree there too. I have been fine with those pointing the finger at him for legitimate reasons. However half of it hasn’t seemed to be rational or within context at the same time. He’s constantly the main issue pointed out over and over on this board. Many times people prop up other teams or situations where we are actually doing better offensively. Then when pointed out it is simply ignored and repeated. We have a thread many pages long comparing the coach to a bad coach in another situation already. Another one with who’s under the mask. He is far and away the most blamed every game day thread. Cleveland and Indy have had their offenses propped up as examples of other teams with backups doing better but ours has actually been more productive.. That’s the obvious gap I am not sure you are seeing then.

Every team even in good coaching situations could have had more wins most likely. The chiefs just lost with Mahomes healthy to the raiders. They got tons of media coverage for losing on an obvious penalty and whining for a week about it. You can do this for most teams even without the issues we have had piling up and coaches considered elite.

The balance is that KOC has clear issues he needs to work on as a new young hc but overall has overachieved the 2 year span given expectations (by neutral people with $ on the line) despite these issues that were more exposed this season. He hasn’t been close to our biggest issue despite the narratives many in this fan base have created.