Cap'n Piranha

I can't believe how impatient so many franchises are. If you're going to invest in a #1 pick at QB, you have to give him a rock-solid support system, and pulling the rug out from under him by changing coaches is just lunacy.

The off-field stuff certainly didn't help, but his inability to push the ball downfield with a propensity to take sacks by holding the ball are two things that on their own make it almost impossible for a QB to succeed in the NFL, let alone both together. You're right, there are a lot of bad QB's currently starting, and worse ones backing up--Sanders is one of those "even worse" ones, and should be thought of as more or less interchangeable with the likes of Hall and Mannion. Go look at his college passing chart, look at the sacks he took, look at the complete and utter lack of self-awareness and unwillingness to be self-critical; do all that while eliminating his name, and understanding that whatever good stats he put up in college were a mirage coming on a 3rd tier team in a 3rd tier league, and this will hopefully stop being so befuddling. Sanders is absolutely that bad, and the only reason people are doubting it is because it hasn't been made plainly obvious in the context of a regular season NFL game.

We're not confused. You're asking how truly terrible he must be. We're telling you how truly terrible he is. If you disagree with anything Nick or I have said, by all means give us a counterpoint. Sanders rolled up giant numbers in college by throwing the ball behind the LOS almost 30% of the time, and within 10 yards over 60% of the time. He got away with it in college because he was in the Big 12, and he had a Hesiman winner to throw to. Neither of those are true in the NFL, so all of a sudden a guy who can't throw downfield, isn't surrounded with talent, takes sacks like crazy, and isn't serious about getting better is simply that bad. The question isn't how terrible must he be; the question is why isn't it obvious to everyone that he shouldn't be in the NFL, and never should have been to begin with?

Here's an article all about Shedeur Sanders, and why no team with any sense wanted to draft him. Add to the fact that in 2024, 68% of his passes traveled less than 10 yards (where he completed 83.7% of his passes, compared to 59.8% beyond 10 yards). Given your opening criticism of Gabriel (more completions behind LOS then over 10 yards), it's worth noting that in 2024 Sanders had 102 completions behind the LOS, and 76 beyond 10 yards), and that was playing in a pretty weak Big 12 conference. You should believe he is worse than Gabriel, and it's not because Gabriel is amazing or anything; it's because Sanders is that bad, and has been a huge beneficiary of nepotism. https://steelersnow.com/former-steelers-player-blasts-shedeur-sanders-hes-gonna-be-an-epic-failure/#google_vignette

I'm confused, I thought the biggest thing KOC and Kwesi did was create a strong culture, from which all of the wins have flown. Is that not accurate?

He's 22nd in yards/rush (below league average, FYI), 22nd in yards/game, 21st in YAC/attempt, and 18th in attempts/broken tackle. He's a nice player, he has moments of being a stud (like most players in the NFL), and I wouldn't mind having him on the Vikes at all (that ship sailed when Kwesi decided to give up 6 picks for Dallas Turner/the ill-fated attempt to get into the 2024 Top 3); but he's definitely not a stud, at least not yet.

The White Sox have a bunch of young players trying to stay in the bigs and set themselves up for future contracts, playing with no expectations and nothing to lose. The Twins had a bunch of veterans heavily disillusioned by what happened--that has an effect. I think you're also underselling some of their talent--Montgomery, Teel, Baldwin, and Vargas all had nice hitting stats in the 2 months after the ASG; by wRC+ they were all top 100 hitters in MLB for that timeframe. Is it also safe to assume you're not looking at schedules and pitchers for those 2 months--did the Sox get to play worse teams, and play against worse pitchers? If you can't say for sure, then how do you know that perhaps the Sox' better record had more to do with an easier schedule than the Twins?

Is this based only on the agent making the claim of robbing and stabbing? If so, it's important to consider that unless the agent was at the door the entire time with Sanchez, it's completely reasonable to think the agent may have gotten his version of events from Sanchez, and did what an agent is supposed to do--advocate for his client.

The White Sox started their rebuild at the deadline in 2023, a full 24 months before the Twins started theirs. Of course the White Sox are further along in getting their young talent to the majors. The Sox also sent out their top assets, most notably Giolito and Crochet--the Twins have not (at least not yet) moved on from their best asset.

Small and mid-market teams can't spend to dig themselves out of a hole. If you want to add say 10 WAR to go from 75 wins to 85 wins, you need to spend $80M-$100M. There is no way the Twins can do that in a single offseason barring something massively changing on the financial side. What small and mid market teams can do is build a competitive core, then supplement it financially to try and make a run. That is exactly what the Pohlads allowed Falvine to do after the corner was turned in 2019. In the next 4 offseasons, the Twins gave substantial FA deals to Nelson Cruz, Josh Donaldson, and Carlos Correa (twice), traded prospect capital for Sonny Gray (while assuming the entirety of his contract) and Pablo Lopez, and extended Buxton and Lopez. They did all of that despite the revenue-crushing pandemic (mostly in 2020, but also impacted the beginning of 2021), as well as a lockout that didn't help either. My assumption is that this is when a large percentage of the half billion dollars of debt the Pohlads have allowed was accumulated. You can question how effective the spending has been, and that is a completely fair point to bring up; but to pretend the Pohlads are money-grubbers looking to squeeze every dime possible out of the Twins through miserly cost-cutting just can't be done with a straight face anymore. To be clear, I don't think the Pohlads are saints, and should be praised for their spending, I'm just saying they shouldn't be detracted for it either.

True, but the reason some people keep missing this is because they don't understand what payroll actually does. Sometimes it gets you the best player on the market (like Ohtani or Soto). But most of the time what it does is allow a team another option to fix a previous mistake or fill a hole. Once the Twins had maxed out with Correa, Buxton, Lopez, and Gray, every fix had to come from internal development. That's a high bar to consistently clear. Meanwhile, high spending teams can look at holes on their roster, and fill them in multiple ways (like the Dodgers spending relative peanuts on Sasaki, but also dropping real money on Snell).

I also hate the Packers. I hate even more that they're built the way I wish the Vikings could build; by successfully drafting, and building a young team so loaded that they can trade 2 first round picks and hand out a mega-contract for an elite player. Also, for what it's worth, the Vikings gave up not that much less draft capital to acquire the right to draft Turner (the Packers will convey two picks, most likely in the high 20's or even low 30's, while the package of picks the Vikings surrendered to get from 2024 pick 42 to pick 17 grades out as somewhere in the pick 14-18 range in a generic draft). It would have been impossible to predict that Parsons would come available, but it would have been nice to have a little more ammo to have made that move, or at least drive the price up for the Packers.

I believe I read that the Vikings defense was the least injured unit in the NFL last year. Unlikely that happens again, so hopefully Flores has a plan to compensate. As has been said by other posters, but is worth reiterating; Turner needs to show up in this game.

I saw that JJM left the team yesterday after practice to be with his fiancee for the birth of their child--congrats to the couple! That said, it will be interesting to see what he looks like having missed a couple of days, and operating on not a whole lot of sleep (I assume). Of course, he absolutely made the right choice to prioritize his family; I would say that even if the game he was deprioritizing was the Superbowl. Just an added little wrinkle to keep an eye on.

So I'm a day late (Tuesday is far and away the busiest day of the week for me), but here's my thoughts; I only know one thing for absolute certain--JJM 100% has earned the role of captain, and has not just the respect but the buy-in of his teammates. Watching the way the sideline reacted to his TD, where EVERY SINGLE PLAYER was completely ecstatic shows that at a bare minimum, we have a long-term true leader at QB. I don't know if that's been the case since...Tarkenton? I've been unsold on KOC being able to sustain a consistently excellent offense for a couple of years now, and last night didn't really move the needle a whole lot. As good as the offense looked in the 4th quarter, they looked equally bad in quarters 1-3; reminiscent of games last year like the @GB (28 points in H1, 3 in H2), @LAR (14 points in Q1, 6 afterwards), or IND (0 points in H1, 21 in H2). To use a baseball analogy, KOC feels like a pitcher with an elite fastball from a stuff perspective, but too often completely loses command on it. The defense ultimately did enough to win, but did so against a team that increasingly seems like it has a completely broken offense, almost completely thanks to the QB. The play of the D tackles was very encouraging, but it was an off night for edge rushers (10 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 PD, 0 sacks, 2 QBH) for AVG, JG, and DT combined won't get it down against better offenses. It's only one game, and for most of the game there was no offensive support to help the D get a breather, so I'm not concerned yet, but it's something to monitor. Reichard was great, and I liked the wiggle from Price--Special Teams looks like it might have a solid floor this year.

Not really. In 2004 (first year I could find stats leaderboards for the league), which was Brady's 4th year, he was 10th in the NFL in passer rating. He was 7th in 2005 (but really 6th because 1st went to something called Quinn Gray who completed 8 passes in 1 game, 2 of which went for TDs), fell to 14th in 2006, and then led the league in 2007. He essentially missed all of 2008, was back at 10th in 2009, and finished 1st in 2010 and third in 2011 to finish his 10th year. So to sum up, he was never worse than 14th (so was always better than average), was only once out of the top 10, and was 3 times in the top 3. Doesn't really seem like a "game manager" being carried by an elite defense. Also, for what it's worth, let's look at New England's opponent PPG starting in 2005, to provide uniformity. 17th in 2005, then 2nd, 1st, and 8th in 2006, 2007, and 2008 (The Year Without Brady), followed by 6th in 2009, 8th in 2010, and 11th in 2011. So Belichick's "Elite" defense was outside the top 10 more than Brady, was not in the top 3 as much as Brady, and was below average one year, whereas Brady never was. Did Brady benefit from having a pretty darn good defense? Absolutely. But it just doesn't mirror reality to say that until 2012 NE was winning Superbowls based on defense, and not Brady.

Belichick is not the greatest football coach of all time, but he certainly is the most overrated.

I would not be surprised to see the Lions, Packers, or Vikings win 13 games. I wouldn't be that surprised to see 2 of the 3 win 13 (since it happened just last year). But I'd be shocked if all 3 won 13--that means there can only be 12 losses at most for those 3 teams, 6 of which are baked in, since those teams have 6 games against each other. Here's a list of games those 3 teams also have to play; CIN, PHI, @LAC, BAL, WAS, WAS, CIN, PHI, @DEN, BAL, @BAL, @CIN, @KC, TB, @WAS, @PHI, @LAR. That's 17 games against teams that are very realistic options to make the playoffs this year, so MIN/GB/DET would have to go 11-6 against a creme de la creme schedule, and then not have any hiccups against teams that might still be solid (all 3 play PIT, there are 6 games against the Bears, the Seahawks could be frisky, the Giants could surprise someone given their D-Line, especially if they get a good QB game). I actually think it's far more likely the Packers win the division at 11-6 than all 3 win 13, and I'd be willing to put a decent amount of money on that. I say the Packers because they have (on paper) an easier schedule with only 4 callout games above; the Lions schedule is absolutely brutal; they have 7 of the games I called out above (the last 7), and 6 of them are on the road. There's a pretty plausible path where Detroit plays 11 games against playoff teams, and 8 of them are on the road. The Vikes have a shot to have a great season, but they also could fall prey to a top-heavy schedule that puts them on 6-8 losses; would anyone be shocked if the Vikes split with DET and GB, then lost to BAL, PHI, and one out of the CIN/LAC/WAS group? That's 5 losses right there, with potentially tricky games left against CHI, PIT, SEA; going 3-1 there isn't crazy, and there's 6 losses right there.

Phenomenal post, and completely accurate. The only reason there's a perception that NFL players are constantly getting arrested is because it ALWAYS gets reported( and then stays in sports reporting for quite some time), and because the names are recognizable. Textbook confirmation bias.

Definitely feels like a wide open year--about 10-15 teams that wouldn't be shocking to see win the Championship.

Yeah, not the point I was making. I was saying it's a little much to think the Vikes traded Harrison Phillips because a couple of undrafted DTs are going to be all-pros.

and if JJM throws for 12k yards this year, he'll be one of the greatest draft moves of all time.

They have -$36M in cap space for next year, even if they roll the full $28M they have available for this year over. Unless the cap takes a massive leap (which of course also benefits every other team), the team we have now is likely the team we'll have next year, other than in two aspects. Drafting--if KAM can draft well next year, that would be very helpful. Cuts--cutting BO, Greenard, and Hockenson opens up $42M, but there's almost no way Greenard gets cut, and cutting BO and TJ opens up holes that will be hard to fill on the cheap outside of being very confident in 2026 draft picks. There's (on paper) a lot of talent on this team, and there's certainly an open window for this year and next (assuming JJ can be at least decent at QB); but given the age and cost of this roster, that window might very well be closed by 2027 regardless of what JJ does, unless KAM can figure out how to find 1-2 stars in the draft yearly, and another 2-3 contributors.

An interesting look, to be sure. On the pitching side, I would actually plan on trading Joe Ryan--I'm down on the Twins chances to realistically compete for a WS in 2026 or 2027, so I think now is the time to maximize the value for Ryan. Specifically, I would target Boston (who we know wants him), and try to get Arias, Tolle, and Early as the return; Arias is a bit away, but is holding his own at 19 in A+, and from all reports will be a good defender at short. Tolle and Early have great strikeout numbers at AAA and are 22 and 23 respectively. You'd still be able to go Lopez, Ober, Matthews, SWR, Bradley to open the season, and have Festa, Abel, Tolle, and Early as options at AAA (or you can convert a couple to reliever, and let Morris/Lewis/Rojas be additional depth options). I would also move Raya and Prielipp to the pen, rather than continuing to tinker with them as starters. Alternatively, you could also try to swing a deal with Atlanta for Baldwin, Ritchie, and Fuentes (maybe even more). Baldwin can be your catcher for the next 5 years before hitting FA, and he's currently 10th in WAR (but 4th in wRC) for catchers at only 24 years old. Both Ritchie and Fuentes are already at AAA, and are only 22 and 20, which would give the Twins a lot of nice options to start close to the majors.

To grab those numbers for Correa, you would have had to scroll past the below. Perhaps jettisoning the 10th highest paid player in baseball who is now below average at hitting, running, AND fielding is a prudent move? Even more so considering that 30 is decidedly past prime for a ball player, particularly one with a checkered at best injury outlook.