How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Two Girls One Klopp

Right so you're the GM now, head coaches are set in stone (godforsaken Browns excepted), and the draft and free agency are coming up. Some teams are in a win now, some teams are on a decline and need to offload, some are in salary cap hell and other teams are slowly rebuilding so expectations aren't huge.

I'm going to list 5 teams and some of their problems. I want people to outline what they would do to fix whatever issues are facing the franchise. Don't be afraid to list other franchises, their problems and your solutions. Should be a bit of fun, and it might make some people a bit more knowledgeable about other teams in the league.

Cleveland Browns; No head coach still, a load of coaches have rejected them, assistant are jumping ship quicker than the English media at a world cup and fans are in revolt. QB situation is a bit of a problem. Still though you've two first round picks to play with and some cap space. How do you take this franchise out of the mediocrity that surrounds it?


Carolina Panthers; Things look good, you went 12-4, have a fantastic defence and an excellent young QB as well as an All Pro middle Linebacker. Sure you need a reciever but where is the problem. The problem is cap space. Awful maneuvers by Marty Hurney has left the Panthers in cap space hell. Greg Hardy, he of the 15 sacks this season, is hitting free agency and needs to be locked up. Captain Munnerlyn was the teams top corner this year and he's off to free agency as well. Bear in mind that new deals for Luke Kuechly and Cam Newton need to be sorted soon as well. How do you keep Carolina on an upward trend and maybe as far as the super bowl?

San Francisco 49ers; Again like the Panthers everything seems good. But your team has been nearly men of the last couple of years and its your job to get them over the line. Kaepernick is due an extension soon as is Aldon Smith. Kaepernick seems to play out of his mind during the playoffs but often looks an average QB during the season. Frank Gore is pushing 31 with a lot of mileage on the clock, seems to be slowing down is due 6.45 million this year. You're other 3 backs are Marcus Lattimore, LaMichael James and Kendall Hunter. Bit of a cause for concern. Anquan Boldin is due a new contract too and if he goes WR looks very thin after Crabtree. Donte Whitner and Tarell Brown are free agents and Navarro Bowman has just blown out his knee. How do you overcome these problems and turn the 49ers from the bridesmaids into the brides?

Detroit Lions: You're in a win now mode. You've got a small bit of cap space to work with because those huge contracts given to Megatron, Stafford and Suh have all the big money backed up till the latter stages of the contract. Sure it'll be a shítstorm in a few years but that's not really you're problem. You have the best WR in the game, a potentially great young QB who makes a lot of mistakes, a very solid offensive line, two good running backs, an excellent Defensive line and some solid linebackers. Ok the secondary is a piece of píss but hey that's why Teryl Austin was hired as DC. So if this team has so much talent available why have they gone 1-15 over course of the latter half of the last two seasons? What can you do to turn these guys into team, and more importantly a playoff team?

Houston Texans; Woah, that escalated quickly! What just happened last season as a perrenial playoff team suddenly descended into the worst team in the league? You still have JJ Watt and some other good players but a load of your players are hitting free agency. Ben Tate is on his way it looks, Arian Foster is very injury prone, Cushing your best linebacker always seems to be injured too. Another bright spot is that your have one of the best left tackles in the game Duane Brown to protect your quarterback. Another problem immediately presents itself though and your have no QB! But you do have the first pick of the draft. But the owner Bob McNair is getting in your ear about how much he likes Jadeveon Clowney. Do you pick up a QB on day 2 and watch chaos ensue with Watt and Clowney eating linemen and QB's for breakfast? So do you try and go back to win now mode or do you gut the roster, accept that this year you're gonna be bad again, get another high pick and hope that you're good/great again in two or three years time. Oh yeah don't forget that JJ Watt will be wanting a new contract fairly soon..

HigginsJ

Browns: With Adam Gase pulling out of the HC race I would appoint Norv Turner to be HC (2 year deal, kept on no matter what happens this year)

Trade you're 2nd round pick for Ryan Mallett & have a battle between Mallett & Hoyer for the QB job. Trade down from your no.4 spot (let's say to the Vikings at 8 so they can leap frog the Raiders for their choice of QB) Draft Mike Evans/Sammy Watkins @ 8 and draft the top TE with their 2nd 1st round pick. Retain Alex Mack at centre. You now have the makings of a decent offense (to go with a solid D)

Now they have 2 3rd round picks so taking the best available RB (Tre Mason might still be around) & some pass rushing depth with the 2nd pick

I really believe that the Browns are not that far from being a play-off capable team

Syferus

HigginsJ wrote: »

Browns: With Adam Gase pulling out of the HC race I would appoint Norv Turner to be HC (2 year deal, kept on no matter what happens this year)

Trade you're 2nd round pick for Ryan Mallett & have a battle between Mallett & Hoyer for the QB job. Trade down from your no.4 spot (let's say to the Vikings at 8 so they can leap frog the Raiders for their choice of QB) Draft Mike Evans/Sammy Watkins @ 8 and draft the top TE with their 2nd 1st round pick. Retain Alex Mack at centre. You now have the makings of a decent offense (to go with a solid D)

Now they have 2 3rd round picks so taking the best available RB (Tre Mason might still be around) & some pass rushing depth with the 2nd pick

I really believe that the Browns are not that far from being a play-off capable team

That might be a bit of a problem, Higg :pac:

Tre should be gone by the second. If not there's a lot of teams addicted to being mediocre.

Two Girls One Klopp

If I was Browns GM I'd go bold and hire Gus Malzahn, draft Johnny Manziel and a running back and tight end with the late first round and second round pick. Use the third rounders to solidify the defence, make sure they resign Alex Mack.

Would probably never happen but would love to see that run option offence in the NFL with Manziel throwing to Josh Gordon in single coverage a lot of the time and Greg Little on the other side! Would either work fantastically or fail miserably. Either way what you gotta lose?!

TO.

Two Girls One Klopp wrote: »

If I was Browns GM I'd go bold and hire Gus Malzahn, draft Johnny Manziel and a running back and tight end with the late first round and second round pick. Use the third rounders to solidify the defence, make sure they resign Alex Mack.

I cant see the Browns taking a TE that high when they have Jordan Cameron

Would probably never happen but would love to see that run option offence in the NFL with Manziel throwing to Josh Gordon in single coverage a lot of the time and Greg Little on the other side! Would either work fantastically or fail miserably. Either way what you gotta lose?!

Texas A&M run the Air Raid offense which is predominantly a passing offense. They put in designed plays for Manziel i.e Draws, Sprint outs and Bootlegs to use his feet. When Manziel became the starter they added a zone read option package for him also which has already been used in the NFL by more than 1 team. A few teams run a version of the zone read in the NFL but very few use options out of it as running it in the NFL is risky at best with the speed edge rushers and linebackers are these days. Like A&M NFL teams use the zone read as a package in their playbook.

Syferus

Two Girls One Klopp wrote: »

If I was Browns GM I'd go bold and hire Gus Malzahn, draft Johnny Manziel and a running back and tight end with the late first round and second round pick. Use the third rounders to solidify the defence, make sure they resign Alex Mack.

Would probably never happen but would love to see that run option offence in the NFL with Manziel throwing to Josh Gordon in single coverage a lot of the time and Greg Little on the other side! Would either work fantastically or fail miserably. Either way what you gotta lose?!

You don't get a coach from a top level college if your franchise is an unstable wreck that sacks head coaches after one season.

The Browns are as likely to get Moses or John the Baptist as a Malzahn, Meyer or Fisher.

The best the Browns can hope for now is a shot in the dark or someone who has already failed as a head coach somewhere else and sees the Browns job as his only way of climbing the food chain again.

mikemac1

Baltimore Ravens you do everything right, you draft well, release ageing vets yet there are always cap issues
You have no starting left tackle or right tackle under contract and your center was rated worst in the league. How will you protect your 120 million QB and improve that joke of a run game?. Cutting the starting running back is not an option due to a cap hit. You also need a new OC, who will you hire? Remember your offensive line coach is there before you and wants to move to a zone blocking schrme. A new WR would be nice but no money for pricy FA's.
On defense you're looking pretty good and you need some talent for the inevitable release of cap heavy Ngata and Suggs in a year or two. Think long term here, don't blow all the draft picks to move up. Or will you?

mikemac1

mikemac1 wrote: »

Baltimore Ravens you do everything right, you draft well, release ageing vets yet there are always cap issues
You have no starting left tackle or right tackle under contract and your center was rated worst in the league. How will you protect your 120 million QB and improve that joke of a run game?. Cutting the starting running back is not an option due to a cap hit. You also need a new OC, who will you hire? Remember your offensive line coach is there before you and wants to move to a zone blocking schrme. A new WR would be nice but no money for pricy FA's.
On defense you're looking pretty good and you need some talent for the inevitable release of cap heavy Ngata and Suggs in a year or two. Think long term here, don't blow all the draft picks to move up. Or will you?

As of right now Ravens have 5 picks before supplementals are released so I doubt they'll be trading up. It's clear this year that the team is hobbled with that ridiculous contract and it'll be worse next year, and worse again the year after.
So they'll lose Art Jones, Jacoby Jones, cut Vonta Leach, Sam Kock and maybe even Suggs this year and that'll leave them room for improving the offense but I don't like the cap numbers for Ngata in the long term. Ozzie will have to do a lot of renegotiating this offseason to keep the decent players.

HigginsJ

Syferus wrote: »

That might be a bit of a problem, Higg :pac:

Tre should be gone by the second. If not there's a lot of teams addicted to being mediocre.

Oh well at this rate they could do worse than hiring someone from here

D3PO

HigginsJ wrote: »

Browns: With Adam Gase pulling out of the HC race I would appoint Norv Turner to be HC (2 year deal, kept on no matter what happens this year)

Trade you're 2nd round pick for Ryan Mallett & have a battle between Mallett & Hoyer for the QB job. Trade down from your no.4 spot (let's say to the Vikings at 8 so they can leap frog the Raiders for their choice of QB) Draft Mike Evans/Sammy Watkins @ 8 and draft the top TE with their 2nd 1st round pick. Retain Alex Mack at centre. You now have the makings of a decent offense (to go with a solid D)

Now they have 2 3rd round picks so taking the best available RB (Tre Mason might still be around) & some pass rushing depth with the 2nd pick

I really believe that the Browns are not that far from being a play-off capable team

Why in the hell would a team with Cameron look to draft a TE in the 1st when they have lots of other needs ?

HigginsJ

D3PO wrote: »

Why in the hell would a team with Cameron look to draft a TE in the 1st when they have lots of other needs ?

To help their QB. No harm at all having 2 class TE's. If i was GM that would be my move

adrian522

Two Girls One Klopp wrote: »

San Francisco 49ers; Again like the Panthers everything seems good. But your team has been nearly men of the last couple of years and its your job to get them over the line. Kaepernick is due an extension soon as is Aldon Smith. Kaepernick seems to play out of his mind during the playoffs but often looks an average QB during the season. Frank Gore is pushing 31 with a lot of mileage on the clock, seems to be slowing down is due 6.45 million this year. You're other 3 backs are Marcus Lattimore, LaMichael James and Kendall Hunter. Bit of a cause for concern. Anquan Boldin is due a new contract too and if he goes WR looks very thin after Crabtree. Donte Whitner and Tarell Brown are free agents and Navarro Bowman has just blown out his knee. How do you overcome these problems and turn the 49ers from the bridesmaids into the brides?

Offseason priorities:

1. Contract for Kaepernick, get it done now, he's not going to get any cheaper next season.
2. Let Aldon Smith play out the final year of his contract, he has to prove he has resolved his off the field issues before he gets a new contract.
4. Resign Tarell Brown, cut Carlos Rodgers.
3. Whitner or Boldin, pick one because you can't keep both.
4. Crabtree - A new contract would be nice but this is something that is likely to drag on, I'd like to see him extended though.
5. Iuapti - A lot of injury issues this year, I think you let him play out his final year and see how things go.

The running back situation is fine, you bring back Gore, if Lattimore works out, great, you can use Gore sporadically, if not you are back to what you had this year.

Draft: - I want to see a wide Receiver and corner back taken in the first 2 rounds.
We currently have 13 picks and 6 in the first 3 rounds, I expect some trades, but also some picks stockpiled for next year. Don't forget we stashed Carradine and Lattimore on IR this year, so there won't be room on the roster for 13 new players.

Chucky the tree

Browns: Get whatever half decent head coach you can at this stage. I'd seriously look at giving Rob Ryan a go. The mess they have made so far though it will be nearly impossible someone highly regarded. In the draft I'd go BPA which means avoiding all QB's at #4 unless Teddy falls there. I'd look at a QB in rounds 2 or 3.


Lions: Not a huge amount needed. Better coaching for Stafford and actually instilling some discipline into the players will go a long way. Looking at their ability to crumble I'd look at the free agency and try and sign some seasoned veteran. I think Burleson will take up $7m in cap next year with $2m in dead money so I'd cut him. For free agent signings I'd look in the division at a guy like Charles tillman from the bears or Sam Shields from the Packers.


Texans: Draft Teddy, job done.

mikemac1

mikemac1 wrote: »

Baltimore Ravens the ravens will be grand a 2-3 years of rebuilding throught the draft and they will be back on top

Two Girls One Klopp wrote: »

Cleveland Browns; the browns messed up fireing cudninski but they have some serious talent on the team +2 first rounders including no.4 they are closer than a lot of people think

San Francisco 49ers;9ers will be back there close to the end again next year to be honest a big part of winning a Superbowl is luck. they've done everything right and have plenty of picks to do whatever they want in the draft. so they cant do much more

Houston Texans; texans need a qb if they get even an above average qb they will be back in the playoffs next year

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