The Front Office: Adam Peters and Roster Construction

[KDawg]

Yeah this is what I'm responding to more than anything else. Just trying to disrupt the echo a little bit. As Primus points out above, a positive IF could change the mood quite a bit. We'll see.



I can see your line of thought but man, you are one decisive son of a b (I admire it).

You cite retaining a lame duck HC/GM as a waste of our franchise QB's potential, I say pushing the reset button on a salvageable operation too early could land you in the same predicament.

The Bears and Jets are recent examples of where things go wrong. Premium draft pick used on QB, regime is ousted quickly, QB is deemed damaged goods by the new group, rinse and repeat.

However, Bears might have broken the cycle with Caleb and Ben, basketball guy hating, Johnson. That could be a shut me up positive example of your approach.

We'll see.

I ask, what so far, besides hope, makes you see this as salvageable? Proof is in the pudding and it’s ugly.

But again, I’m not saying make the decision now. Ownership made the decision to keep Quinn. He should get the chance to see it through.

And if Jayden plays out of his mind maybe things do pan out. But that is my hope hat right now, not my logic hat.

 

[DWinzit]

Yeah this basically sums up my stance.

But to Conn and others' point, we really ought to see one All Pro/Pro Bowler emerge from his past draft selections this year. I really want to see that happen to go from feeling ok to great about AP.

Yes along with most of the others becoming serious contributors. That is high expectations with only 3 picks in the top 180 picks. The team however has so many needs and missed on so many draftees in recent years they need them hit. We have a shot at one 6th being a heavy RB contributor, the other 6th could be a good backup IOL and maybe someday a starting C and the 7th should be our QB3 with upside to be our QB2.

 

[Conn]

I mean look, even you Conn, you’re arguing a 3rd round 2026 draft pick is the type of deep draft gem AP never finds. Guy hasn’t played a meaningful NFL snap.

I think you mistook me there. My point was that even if we nail the Styles pick (and we should nail the hyped 1st round selection, if nothing else)…if our rival then finds a good off-ball LB in the 3rd in the same class, are we getting ahead? It was just an example of finding talent all over, and how you need to do it at a higher rate than your rivals to be great. You have to stack talent in this league, you have to compete in your division first. If we aren’t building something longterm, year over year, and are instead constantly replacing the talent we had the previous year, then we’re treading water. Not every team can nail drafts and become great, but that’s the goal no? I don’t want to grade AP against the average, because I don’t aspire to watch an average franchise.

We aren’t signing enough talent to longterm deals with our insane cap space, we aren’t drafting enough difference-makers and building block players to scaffold the rest of the roster around. If that changes, I’ll be the first one beating my chest and bragging about the decision-makers.

 

[Hailer]

Kdawg and Conn - I think we’re just interpreting the same things differently. You expect this ship to sink, I’m not as pessimistic.

Plenty I can point to that give me optimism.

-Several AP picks have flashed potential of being really good players. 2024 class is put up or shut up time but enough potential hits remain for me to feel like we have a good draft operation
-AP aggressively pursued talent this offseason. Didn’t plug every hole but at least attempted to. Shows me he learned from past mistakes (what happens at C may change my thought dramatically)
-We’re winning more trades than losing. Trading for and extending a premium LT is an excellent maneuver
-Picking JD over Maye… I think this was an elite move. JD carried us to NFCE during the playoffs. Maye was dragged to the SB by good fortune and excellent D.
-We won negotiations with Terry. AP may have sacrificed the 25 season with his stubbornness but I’d rather have the appropriate contract than one that hinders our future deals. Lesson prob learned on the timeline over which it was negotiated but I am overall pleased with the outcome.
-AP has plucked late offseason gems before - Noah Brown was a significant contributor in 24. We got him around the same time we should be finding our C depth.

Overall I think this regime has made its fair share of mistakes but demonstrates an ability to course correct. I think we’re good enough to go on a run this year.

And I think it’s fair to say you both feel less charitable about each of my points of optimism. Doubt we’re changing opinions here. But we’ll have more useful data to work with in a few weeks.

 

[Boone]

I think the ability to course correct is still in serious question. Last year there was no course correction. We imploded. It's fair to chalk that up to a ridiculous number of injuries, so I'm not saying 2025 was some kind of litmus test. But they had another full season to prepare for the worst. If a handful of injuries derails us again, and we can't overcome adverse events, that's going to call leadership into question. and honestly - it's year 3 - we should be expecting to see improvement across the board. I'm open to the idea that they can surprise us this season, primarily because of the defensive overhaul, and also because we did add a couple of weapons for Jayden.

 

[The Rook]

Sometimes I think the FO suffers from "group-think", where they remain in lockstep on their strategy and choices. I'm not sure they have a devil's advocate in the building.

The Rook

 

[lovemaskins]

Kdawg and Conn - I think we’re just interpreting the same things differently. You expect this ship to sink, I’m not as pessimistic.

Plenty I can point to that give me optimism.

-Several AP picks have flashed potential of being really good players. 2024 class is put up or shut up time but enough potential hits remain for me to feel like we have a good draft operation
-AP aggressively pursued talent this offseason. Didn’t plug every hole but at least attempted to. Shows me he learned from past mistakes (what happens at C may change my thought dramatically)
-We’re winning more trades than losing. Trading for and extending a premium LT is an excellent maneuver
-Picking JD over Maye… I think this was an elite move. JD carried us to NFCE during the playoffs. Maye was dragged to the SB by good fortune and excellent D.
-We won negotiations with Terry. AP may have sacrificed the 25 season with his stubbornness but I’d rather have the appropriate contract than one that hinders our future deals. Lesson prob learned on the timeline over which it was negotiated but I am overall pleased with the outcome.
-AP has plucked late offseason gems before - Noah Brown was a significant contributor in 24. We got him around the same time we should be finding our C depth.

Overall I think this regime has made its fair share of mistakes but demonstrates an ability to course correct. I think we’re good enough to go on a run this year.

And I think it’s fair to say you both feel less charitable about each of my points of optimism. Doubt we’re changing opinions here. But we’ll have more useful data to work with in a few weeks.

I have the exact opposite interpretation of your perspective:

Other than Jayden, that 2024 draft class has been below average at best, and considering we had multiple early and mid round picks (and trading back with Philly and passing on DeJean) makes it worst.

To Conn’a point, AP plugs holes with 1 year contracts at bargain rates, so we re-create the same holes year after year while never improving the roster overall. We still don’t have any foundational players except Jayden and now Styles?

Not sure picking Jayden is elite, he was a supernova in college, though I am happy we did. But rumor was McCarthy was his 2nd favorite… but other than him, all the early QBs seem to be fairing well.

I was and still am in the camp that we completely mishandled the Terry situation. Complete stupidity playing chicken with your 2nd year QBs primary target if you’re prioritizing QB development. Hurt Jayden in camp and Terry got the hamstring injury we all feared he’d get after ramping up too fast.

Choosing to depend on “gems” like Noah Brown, who couldn’t make the Texans roster, who became our #2??? Are you kidding me…?

And for me, he trades draft picks… Him thinking we were a corner away in 2024 and trading picks for Lattimore has me questioning his entire philosophy as a GM.

Then traded for Tunsil after Coleman did fine at left, sure he still needed development, but he was fine, only to draft another tackle last year. Then we botch Biadasz, still trying to plug a tackle into a guard spot, with Allegretti at Center without a competent backup…

I just can’t get with his logic or team building philosophy at all. 3 years in and I still don’t know what we’re trying to build.

Just that he likes a high RAS score.

 

[Hailer]

lovemaskins I think we both agree AP has built something.

Good luck to our team. Could be a contender, could be an airplane without wings! We’ll see

 

[KDawg]

Kdawg and Conn - I think we’re just interpreting the same things differently. You expect this ship to sink, I’m not as pessimistic.

Plenty I can point to that give me optimism.

-Several AP picks have flashed potential of being really good players. 2024 class is put up or shut up time but enough potential hits remain for me to feel like we have a good draft operation
-AP aggressively pursued talent this offseason. Didn’t plug every hole but at least attempted to. Shows me he learned from past mistakes (what happens at C may change my thought dramatically)
-We’re winning more trades than losing. Trading for and extending a premium LT is an excellent maneuver
-Picking JD over Maye… I think this was an elite move. JD carried us to NFCE during the playoffs. Maye was dragged to the SB by good fortune and excellent D.
-We won negotiations with Terry. AP may have sacrificed the 25 season with his stubbornness but I’d rather have the appropriate contract than one that hinders our future deals. Lesson prob learned on the timeline over which it was negotiated but I am overall pleased with the outcome.
-AP has plucked late offseason gems before - Noah Brown was a significant contributor in 24. We got him around the same time we should be finding our C depth.

Overall I think this regime has made its fair share of mistakes but demonstrates an ability to course correct. I think we’re good enough to go on a run this year.

And I think it’s fair to say you both feel less charitable about each of my points of optimism. Doubt we’re changing opinions here. But we’ll have more useful data to work with in a few weeks.

I don’t expect the ship to sink. I don’t see what’s going to happen in the future. But I do see that the ship is taking on water and if we don’t do something quick it’s going down.

People say they see my points but I’m not sure they do.

It’s not that we are going to be bad. It’s that right now things aren’t going well and I haven’t loved our direction all offseason.

I do think time is running out. But it’s not over.

I just don’t trust our ability to pivot. We haven’t shown that ability over the last two seasons.

Doesn’t mean we won’t.

We just haven’t. I trust my eyes.

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

Yes, I feel many are looking at smaller windows and using those small windows to make them feel better. Like, ok, with our new coordinators we may have a better chance this season. True. We however did not refresh many assistants. Many were in-house promotions.

It is ok, the team may certainly play better than preseason shows. That is always possible because preseason is not a good predictor. The thing is, people like KDawg, myself, others, we are looking at specific aspects not looking right; that is not preseason W/L or sky is falling nonsense.

Like, do our OL seem like their technique is right. That won’t improve with schematic improvement. It can mask bad technique, sure.

We will see. Some of the things people are talking about may indicate some issues at the assistant level. We will have to see how it all plays out.

 

[method man]

To Conn ’s point, if we finish 7-10 and we fire both AP & DQ at the end of the season, as long as JD holds serve as a top 15 QB, this is going to be a very attractive job for the next GM & HC. Maybe the HC is in house in Blough or maybe we get a Rams package in John McKay and Nate Scheelhasse or it is Tomlin, which for all the hate he gets, is an upgrade over DQ