Danchat

I don't think it is, because 1) they are probably confident Culpepper doesn't get claimed and they'd rather not carry him on the 40 man roster in 2026, and 2) they need to keep some spots "open" for when they sign free agents. Not that I expect them to sign many and not for much money, but I see the likes of Gasper and McCusker as placeholders until a player requiring a 40 man spot is signed.

Yeah, that's what I struggle with understanding... JJM had a fairly decent training camp and does fine in practices - KOC said this past Thursday and Friday he had his best practices of the season. And yeah, that could be a load of crock just for the sake of building confidence, but I don't think he's missing that many passes in practice or else KOC is a fool for having him throw the ball downfield so much. And if it's a "bright lights" / mental problem, well, that's surprising given his college career. Where was his stage fright when he lead a game-winning drive against the best defense in college football in the national championship? We saw that version of him at the end of the game, inexplicably. Give him the rest of the season and see what happens, but if he shows no improvement then you can't start him next year. I expected ups and down, I didn't think he would look like the worst QB in the league and be so off-target. This roster still does have a ton of problems at multiple positions, a lot of regressing players / overpaid ones that aren't contributing. Flores has the defense playing well but I think it's more the scheme than the players, they aren't generating turnovers and every position group has somebody who is severely underperforming. But yeah, they would be winning more games with decent QB play. Don't think they'd be winning anything in the playoffs (again), a lot of people had said bringing back Darnold was the right move but I've watched his last two games, the dude has had 7 turnovers and still melts down when pressured. We aren't going on a playoff run with him. Drafting and developing a QB in the 1st round is still the primary way to find a franchise QB, even if it is very difficult to do. Unfortunately, they might have picked the wrong prospect, though it wouldn't be that shocking for a horrifically bad drafting front office to do. But if KOC is the QB whisperer the media purports him to be, it's on him to fix him. He waited out multiple drafts to take a QB and landed on JJM, it's on him to get him fixed.

Darnold's not having a good game against the Rams... hmmm, where have I heard that one before?

They found their next great return man in Price, too bad the coverage units constantly make penalties on his returns. A new ST coach is needed.

If true, then I like the trade even less - why exchange Varland, who's already young and under team control through 2029/2030, for a single pitching prospect and what is essentially a throw-in? I like Rojas as a pitching prospect, but we know with the rate pitching prospects hit that's really risky moving Varland for one legit prospect. I guess if they really didn't believe in Varland going forward and think that he's not going to last as a high leverage / 7th/8th inning reliever then that's more logical. They had better be right about Rojas.

The Twins liked Roden enough to value him at half of Louie Varland... they had better be right about him.

They've had severely disappointing outcomes in three of the last four years, one playoff appearance in the past five years.

They had the likes of Matt Belisle, Trevor Hildenberger, and Alan Busenitz pitching in the playoffs in 2017. That bullpen had zero chance of holding up in a deep playoff run.

I don't know about Topa, it wouldn't be that crazy if they opted out on a reliever with a 1.43 WHIP and is 35 with durability issues.

I think they protect the obvious 6 and I'd lean towards protecting Klein given the lack of options in the bullpen. For the deep sleepers, I nominate MacLeod as the most likely one to be protected out of that group. Most of the other options are too far away and unlikely to be claimed... and I dunno on Fedko, I don't think he's the type of guy teams use R5 picks on. Not that they don't draft OFs, but his minor league pedigree is overrated. I'm all for giving him a chance, but I think he clears the draft.

It's hard to choose who is at most fault for this loss, you have KOC with him abandoning the run ASAP despite running at nearly 6 yards a carry and continuing to make baffling calls on 3rd downs, JJM missing a bunch of throws after starting the game well, Jefferson have an even worse game creating an interception and dropping a TD, and then the OL giving up a ton of pressure to one of the worst pass rushes in the game and false starting so many times. Oh, and Myles Price fumbling on back-to-back returns. I still don't get how we beat the Lions last week. At least the defense played well enough to win, they forced a bunch of 3 and outs before getting gassed later in the game, hard to say how much fault they had when the offense can't sustain drives.

I don't think it's mysterious, they see him as a AAAA guy and didn't call him up until we were halfway through September. They didn't believe he could offer the team anything even right after the entire bullpen was traded away, 7 good innings wasn't enough to change their minds. They only saw him as a placeholder, and not even above the waiver wire fodder they filled the major league bullpen with.

I hoped they would hang on to Laweryson, but they simply never believed in him. 7 good innings in the majors wasn't going to change that. Gasper is the one guy I expected to get DFA'd but still hasn't. How long will he hang around?

They completely bungled this, they should have traded Parsons pre-draft so they could get 2024/25 1sts instead of 25/26, and then make improvements to the defense. Instead, now they are 3-5-1 with a 7% chance of making the playoffs and trade for two defensive players.

From the perspective of Falvey it is, even if in our opinion it was completely justified.

He had 1 full tackle and 1 assist on special teams, and 1 full tackle and 1 assist on defense. Yeah, he was only out there for 10 snaps on passing downs and he dropped into coverage on 5 of them. Flores doesn't trust him out there despite having a decent pressure rate, as he's played plenty of 3 edge rusher packages in the past before with the likes of DJ Wonnum and Pat Jones. It could also be punishment for the horrid game he had last week (inexcusable personal foul and a offside penalty). But there is room for him to play 50-60% of the snaps with Greenard and AVG playing (it happened Week 1). Flores doesn't trust him and he's usually not wrong about that sort of thing.

Yup, he only played 14 of 64 snaps. The run defense looked way better without him. In the Colts-Steelers game? Also, was it a coincidence that Oliver was out and the run game had its best day since the Bengals game? I'm not claiming he is a bad run blocker, but the dude is the highest paid blocking TE in the league and he makes zero impact on the run game.

It did not look like that was going to be caught... the CF did the right move by bulldozing his LF. Extra innings! This is one of the most exciting games I've seen in a long time.

Wow! We got a classic here. I have no idea who is going to win this one.

What an absolute missile from Muncy... 1 run game! Exciting stuff.

Great job by Clement to create a run there. A little more room for the Jays to breathe.

Good show, Louie. He'll get the win if the Jays hold onto the lead.

You'll take that result if you're Toronto. Getting lucky with the way Scherzer's pitches are being stung.

I think it's time to pull Scherzer...

Fleck seems like a "high floor" coach, but I am saying that as one who watches the scores and doesn't watch the games. They don't have many, if any "clunker" seasons under him but they don't have much of a ceiling. One week they beat Nebraska by 3 scores despite being 8.5 point underdogs, then they get sliced and diced against Iowa.