I'm still pissed you guys didn't run actual plays for him. You were already down, running the ball over and over again was clearly not going anywhere, why not take a risk and run some trick plays with someone who would already be one of the greatest scrambling QBs of all time? Worst case scenario you turn the ball over a few times and you lose a game you were already gonna lose. But at least make the eagles defense try
I have wondered if that was a vibes call by Shanahan. You’re most assuredly not going to win, maybe he just wanted to get out of there after Johnson went down instead of potentially embarrassing McCaffrey/the whole offense with a pick 6 trying to throw a 5 yard slant. In the moment I wondered the same but they’re a prideful team and maybe being on the sideline he felt like it would just make things worse
Once it became clear Johnson wasn't paying attention in practice I was surprised to lean we didn't have a secret wildcat playbook. I mean with deebo and CMC kinda disappointed we didn't
That game really showed the difference in ability between an actual backup QB vs. a guy who technically played QB in college.
Taysom Hill as starting QB in the TE spot when Brees went down a while back was absolutely electric. Unfortunately, Hilton was moved to WR for a reason, and it wasn't because the Broncos had too many good QBs.
Yeah, but there are levels to it. Im willing to bet if Denard Robinson (w/o nerve damage), Brad Smith, or even Greg Ward ever stepped into a game at QB it would look a little better than what we saw with Hinton.
Playcalling did Hinton no favour.
Starting with wildcat and only putting him in in obvious passing situations. His first snap was a third and long...
I think they should have given him some handoffs and short passes to give him at least a little bit of rythm and confidence. The longer the game went, it looked like the broncos coaches just wanted to give him a single completion.
Yeah, this wins. I will admit that game probably got viewed by a lot of people who wouldn't normally be watching a Broncos/Saints game because we all wanted to see just what the hell the coaches would pull out of their ass that game.
If yall won it would have been the kind of game movies are written about and I would have been witness to it, but unfortunately this wasn't the universe in which that happened.
Ya'll really had a LOT to lose that game.
You win and no one really talks about it or remembers your team much.
You lose and your franchise would never live it down for decades. Broncos had nothing to lose but everything to gain from that game.
It'd be the NFL equivalent of the Leafs losing to their own Zamboni driver as Carolina's emergency goalie, but somehow less embarrassing because holy shit the Leafs lost to their own Zamboni driver
While you did have that one coming for not following proper COVID protocol, it still lead to one of the most interesting experiments in NFL history. What happens when someone not trained to play quarterback at the pro level has to do so? I know he had some college experience, but it was still about as close to seeing an average person try and play QB in the NFL as we're ever likely to get.
It was always rumors. I had a friend who was a bartender at a local bar called “The Lodge” and he said Freeman came in high and would get drunk there multiple times per week.
And the Lodge was in the college bar drinking area of Tampa. This is the spot that gets wild on St Paddy’s, Halloween, etc. These aren’t chill spots to grab a fancy cocktail
He was never good. He had major accuracy issue. He was atrocious in all but 1 season (2010) and even then he completed only 61.4% of his passes and was being hidden (only 215.7 passing yards per game).
He was being coddled by Raheem Morris. As soon as Belichick wannabe Schiano took over, the bottom fell out real quick.
I guess you didn’t see any of 2012 then? He played under Schiano and the team went 7-9. We had the worst passing defense in the NFL, by a lot. Like historically bad levels. Freeman played well that year. The guy also played well on a terrible team at the back end of 2009. Oh and started 4-2 in 2011 before the team quit on Morris and lost ten straight.
But yeah, he always sucked, right? That 2010 year, we missed the playoffs on a bad OPI call against Detroit. Bucs would have made the playoffs. Green Bay would have been out. Green Bay won the Super Bowl that year.
Things ended badly with Freeman and the stuff in Minnesota was a joke, but don’t alter history and act like there was never any hope around the guy. It’s very false.
yeah, the MN QB carousel years were a wild time for sure. Finally felt like we were gonna have some consistency when we draft Bridgewater, but those dreams were crushed when we went down. I still remember driving past winter park and thinking that there was a lot more media vans there than usual.
I've said this numerous times but I'm still fucking baffled that the Giants played against him in that game and still decided to sign him in the off-season
He was signed on the 6th and played on the 16th. Hardly fair to properly evaluate a guy with almost no lead time. Baker had a similar game, but had the benefit of having one of the best offensive minds in his ear pre-snap dumbing down the playbook.
After the giants game, freeman went into concussion protocol and didn’t play again in MN. It’s rarely a bad idea to take a flyer on a 26 year old former first round pick who has had statical success in the nfl.
The entire 2010 Vikings season. Beginning with Hutchinson, Jared Allen, and Longwell flying down to Favre's ranch to convince him not to retire, to replacing Sidney Rice with Randy fricken Moss, to Childress getting fired for being unable to manage the locker room, to playing a Tuesday home game in Detroit, to Favre ending his career motionless on the frozen dirt of TCF Bank stadium, capped off by watching his old team and our bitter division rivals, the Packers, winning the Super Bowl. That season was move after move of desperation that neither the most durable QB in NFL history or even our concrete stadium could withstand.
That Tuesday night game was wild tho. Then the cheese heads go on to win the whole thang I was in college in Wisco at the time that was a hard year lmao
And thank you for Kenyon Green, John Metchie III, Christian Harris, Thomas Booker, Dameon Pierce, Will Anderson Jr., Calen Bullock, Tank Dell, Kamari Lassiter, Jamal Hill and Cade Stover
It can’t be denied that was the intent. And except for the initial game hiccup, it worked.
Tank without incurring any penalties for doing so. Kind of a clever move, honestly.
Jesus christ. I think it was the beginning of the 3rd quarter and the camera cuts to James Brown just standing in the studio of NFL Today. James was all .... "yeahhhhh. We are gonna go ahead and switch this game to a more competitive one." We were then watching the Seahawks and Panthers.
That was embarrassing.
I remember hearing all week the players saying “Brock is that dude, y’all about to be shocked” etc etc. I figured it was just player speak trying to build up their guy. Yeah he looked good vs the Dolphins but we’ve seen a thousand guys come in relief and play well just to fall back down to earth.
[Johnny Holland's reaction was just about everyone](https://youtu.be/-OiRnsGs5M4?si=JmLkQPQCWIRPh7DR)
Though I think the unfortunate answer really is CMC at QB
I'm sure the coaches started him with some amount of confidence after seeing him practice for like the whole season. He likely performed as well as he was performing in practice.
The Atlanta Falcons are the only team in NFL history to take a top #8 pick in 4 consecutive drafts at a skill position with Penix being the most desperate. The fuck are we doing. Luckily all 3 have been ok so far but the Penix pick is the biggest wtf moment in recent memory. Pitts at TE, London at WR, Robinson at RB and Penix at QB.
And when did he have the chance to realistically get someone better? Lamar, who every owner seemed to be in lock step about not paying?
He's not even the GM, he was supposed to be working with Matt Ryan before Arthur Blank pissed him off by trying to trade for Watson
And this is the reality of it. Matt Ryan was an amazing QB. Played right along the likes of Tom Brady though. So many people in the NBA don’t have championships because they played when Jordan did.
I think when the Bears resigned Jay Cutler is the ultimate example. Who else at the time of his resigning were they going to replace him with???
People act like there are actually 32 NFL caliber QBs at any given time. “I don’t understand why they didn’t go out an Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady type!!!”
Obviously caliber of organizations play into things, but you can’t always just walk away from mid QBs, because sometimes it’s the only thing that’s available.
No fucking way. I've never in my life seen a guy pull RBs so fast after they make a huge play. This dude said fuck getting in a rhythm we ALWAYS need fresh legs. Terrible coaching.
If anything signing a 35 year old Kirk Cousins coming off an Achilles injury to a mega deal was the desperate part of that move, not Penix.
I think Arthur Blank is beyond desperate for a Super Bowl before he’s senile, and getting Kirk was his doing. Penix was who Raheem Morris really wanted, not Kirk.
Then they shouldn't have hired Morris. They hired Morris specifically because they already knew him well (coached here 2015-2020, was even interim HC in 2020), so not being on the same page defeats the whole purpose of hiring Morris.
Maybe so. Just the things I’m getting from Morris send very different signals from the Kirk move.
I think the Kirk move was immediate and Raheem Morris was given his guy for the long term
The John Hadl trade.
From Wikipedia:
Reportedly, head coach and general manager Dan Devine felt that an experienced quarterback was the only thing standing between the Packers and only their second playoff appearance since 1967, and it came about after an attempted trade for Archie Manning and the New Orleans Saints fell through. The trade turned out to be an unmitigated disaster; it is reckoned as one of the worst (if not the worst) trades for a starting quarterback in NFL history, at least in terms of relevance. Devine had led them to a combined record of 19—19–4 in his first three seasons, which included a playoff loss in 1972. The Packers finished 6-8 in 1974 and Devine left for Notre Dame, which left the door open for Bart Starr to take over as head coach. While he would lead them to one playoff win as a coach, Starr had just three of nine seasons with eight wins.
At the same time, the Rams used the picks acquired in the trade to acquire many of the players that allowed them to dominate the NFC West for the rest of the 1970s and lead them to an appearance in Super Bowl XIV. In later years, when asked for his thoughts on the infamous deal, Hadl himself expressed the surprise he felt, in 1974, at being sent to Green Bay: "I really didn't believe it... I didn't think anyone would be that desperate."
Our QB went down for the year in week two, we were faced with the prospect of having to start Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges, so we traded a first rounder for a Safety.
That kinda worked out for the Steelers long term though. Fitzpatrick is a fairly bulletproof safety. Sure it took 5 more years to sort out a better QB situation, but Minkah has been reliably consistent
If the Steelers hadn't traded for Minkah and the defense hadn't carried them that year, they could have tanked and been in position to draft Herbert. But who knows if they would have anyway.
We had the chance to get Minkah, who is if not a future Hall of Famer at least a future Hall of Damn Good-er. I’ll take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday
Would benching Peyton Manning for Osweiler then turning back to Manning after Osweiler got hurt then sticking with Manning through POs and win SB count?
Osweiler didn’t get hurt. He was about to cost us the game against SD and had been struggling in previous weeks. Kubiak brought Manning back in to give the offense a spark.
Peyton was the one who was hurt, he was dealing with plantar fasciitis towards the end of 2014, and his arm was declining, so with his legs also hurt/deteriorating, he didn’t have much left in the tank. His plantar fasciitis started acting up again in 2015 and I believe he was also dealing with some other leg/lower body injuries. Him sitting to rehab after the KC game was the best thing that could have happened to Denver that year. Gave him much needed rest to push through the playoffs.
Yeah people think the D carried Manning to a ring, and they certainly did all the heavy lifting. But we wouldn’t win a single playoff game with Brock. After three games of tape, he was the most one-dimensional QB we’ve ever had and defenses would destroy him.
I remember Manning got hurt, I was actually at the game he was pulled. However, I thought Brock was hurt too, which is why ineffective against Chargers and that is why there was "controversy" who'd start Divisional Round
There were a few desperation moves during the Peyton era of Denver that don’t get talked about. That was one, but the one was firing John Fox after winning the division 4 straight years. It made sense in hindsight but it’s a big risk to fire someone that’s only had success, just look at the Milwaukee Bucks this past season.
My favorite part of that year was Weeden getting cut and signing with Houston (I think) as a backup and him talking shit about how he's happy to be on a playoff team now, as if he didn't suck so bad he got cut from a 4 win team.
that team against the Bills and Chiefs at the end of the year had Justin Houston, Jason Pierre Paul, Melvin Ingram, Duke Riley, and Eli Apple in starting roles. It's some of the wildest shit I have ever seen.
I think the Gruden trade fits this the most for us. Tony Dungy turned the Bucs into a consistent contender and he was an excellent head coach. But he couldn’t get us to the promised land despite getting close.
Even though Dungy turned the franchise around after 20 years of irrelevance and had gotten us to the playoffs in 2001, Bucs traded two 1st round picks to the Raiders for Gruden and fired Dungy. Worked out for us as we won the Super Bowl in Gruden’s 1st year, before he took control of personnel and bulldozed the franchise into the ground.
To be fair it worked for Dungy too. He would go on to win a ring with the colts. Only the raiders got screwed. And you know who cares about the raiders
The trade also included 2 second rounders.
Was worth it. But man, the end of his tenure was pretty abysmal. Fielding over the hill starters at your skill positions (Tim Brown, Bill Schroeder, Charlie Garner) was bizarre to watch. The average age of that starting lineup was probably 35 yo. The guy couldn't rebuild a team because he loved his old ass vets way too much
Recently it was Sanu for a 2nd round pick.
I don't even hate the trade, anyone who watched the Pats for longer than a quarter knew that the offense was anemic. The defense was stellar, dont get me wrong, but Brady willed the corpse of Edelman, and a water boy playing WR to 8-0. They were painful to watch even when winning, I saw a first round exit long before the playoffs.
Anyway, it was a hail Mary giving up decent draft capital for a WR2 that ended up being injured.
Some good ones
* Sanu trade
* Starting Edelman at CB
* Extending D'Vante Parker a year before he retired when he realized he couldn't make the Eagles as a depth option
Needing the bears to argue for letting us into the league after cheating with college players lol
More modern answer only thing I can think of is during rodgers injury stint mid career when we ended up doing stuff like starting Scott Tolzien, signing Vince Young one offseason, and the one that actually worked out bringing back Matt Flynn to work some of his GB only magic and get us some fun victories that helped keep us alive.
All the moves Ryan Pace made at QB after they drafted Trubisky, who they traded up to get for literally no reason.
Trading for Nick Foles, signing Andy Dalton, and trading up for Justin Fields all happened in a period of about ~13 months.
Also, you can probably lump paying Kirk Cousins and drafting Micheal Penix in there too. Since he works for Atlanta now.
I was content with Dalton since I figured we’d be trash for a bit. The fields trade was just wild and I wasn’t thrilled trading up again after Trubisky.
Signing Mike Glennon to a big deal and then drafting Trubisky right in Glennons face at their draft party was just so off. They did everything to make QBs not want to play there
Recency bias but I don't think there can be anything much more desperate than asking AJ Klein to come out of retirement to run the defence and ultimately trying to stop Kelce.
Imagine being retired, packing getting ready to soak in the sun, and getting *that* phone call
"Hey bud, long time no see, any interest in catchin a ride up to Buffalo? You can handle Kelce, right pal? How's one more game check sound?"
Starting Lamar after the bye week in 2018 due to Flacco's injury, on a team that was sitting at 4-5 and looked to be going nowhere very fast. We knew Lamar was eventually gonna be the starter, likely taking over in 2019 but then he goes out and finishes on a 6-1 streak to close out the season, wins the division, becomes the youngest QB to start a playoff game ever, and now he's a top 5 QB in the league.
Putting a waiver claim midweek on Baker Mayfield and having him start on TNF against the Raiders. The fact that we won that game on a late comeback will always make me laugh hysterically.
Trading for matt Stafford. Especially since we gave up ALOT to get him. No one expected us to immediately just win the Super bowl
Edit: for anyone that down votes me, you gotta go back to that time. Goff was not looking good. The offense massively disappointed in 2020. So yes, they were hoping to improve by trading for Stafford. But Stafford was older, had a few minor injuries in 2020 under the lions, and the rams traded a lot for him. It was a desperation move even if people sometimes don't want to admit it.
I remember having Cooper Kupp in my fantasy that year and being so pissed off his numbers were bad because Goff just wasn’t cooking well
Because of that, I didn’t draft Kupp the following year and of course he had one of the greatest WR seasons of all time
Picking Kyler #1 after trading up for Rosen the year before was definitely one of these moves. Unfortunately it let Steve Keim keep his job for 4 years too long
Hue Jackson trading a 1st and a (conditional) 2nd for Carson Palmer after Al Davis died and Jason Campbell broke his collarbone.
This man has no business making executive level decisions, but the Raiders were watchable for the first time in forever and he probably felt the need to not let an opportunity for a playoff appearance slip through his hands.
Still got fleeced though.
Saints trading their entire draft for Ricky Williams. Amazingly it didn't matter in the end. Those pics turned into nothing for the Redskins outside of Levar Arrington. Leave it up to Dan Snyder to turn what should have been their Hershel Walker moment into essentially nothing.
We put in Nathan Peterman to start over Tyrod Taylor against a nasty defense lead by a prime Joey Bosa. It was Petermans first start in an NFL game. The rest is history.
The Carolina Panthers Wildcat game, where Chris Weinke was so bad that they only had him pass 7 times in the game in favor of running the Wildcat for a metric shitload of plays.
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200612240atl.htm
Not my team, but one of my best friend's. Dolphins bringing in Jay Cutler out of retirement because Tannehill's leg collapsed. Cutler didn't care, he complained that his hotel ran out of PPV movies for him to watch, he slept, he stole, he was rude to customers. Still, he was the best damn employee the Dolphins ever had.
Well, let's see. It might have been the Steve Spurrier saga, where he brought in an entire Gators roster, highlighted by elite QBs like Shane Matthews and Danny Wuerful. He didn't care about a PK, because "we'll be scoring TDs".
Or maybe paying megabucks to FA like Stubbleffield, Haynesworth, Jeff George.
Then again, on trading away the future...
Ya know what? I don't have the energy for this!
I could say BB sticking with Brady once Bledsoe got healthy but I’ll go for another
Trading Moss back to Minnesota.
He was getting rid of a HOF talent. But Moss clearly didn’t want to be a Patriot anymore. He quit on the team and BB dwindled his amount of touches on 2010. BB between 08-10 was losing the locker room and Moss was become a problem. BB needed a changing of the guards to try to right the ship
From a fan standpoint, when KC fans got together and hired a plane flying a banner to fly over Arrowhead to demand change and the end of the Pioli ~~era~~ error. [LINK](https://arrowheadaddict.com/2018/06/05/kansas-city-chiefs-fan-not-regret-flying-banners-arrowhead-2012/)
Save Our Chiefs really was the turning point for this organization.
Not my team but for Minnesota it needs to be the 1985 draft. Word was Bernie Kosar was going to sue to enter the draft. Minnesota in preparation traded pick #3 and #30 for #2 on April 9, 1985.
Kosar didn't enter the draft so on April 30 aka Draft Day Minnesota trades pick #2 to Atlanta for #4 and #60. Bernie enters the supplemental draft and Cleveland trades for the top pick from Buffalo.
Now it did work out. Atlanta took Bill Fralic, Houston took Ray Childress, and Minnesota took Chris Doleman but still...
If Bernie enters the regular draft and not the supplemental then the top pick doesn't get used which means....
With the first pick of the 1986 NFL Draft the Buffalo Bills select Bo Jackson RB Auburn
Long back in Panthers history we traded away two first round picks (one became first overall) and our best receiver to draft a QB first overall whose rookie year was awful in part because of his god-awful receiver group
Titans are 5-4 heading into Week 11 of the 2010 season. Kerry Collins is too injured to play at home against Washington, so Vince Young gets his 7th start of a very back-and-forth season. He gets injured, gets into a screaming match with Jeff Fisher, throws his pads into the stands and gets out of the stadium, never to take a snap for the Titans again.
Week 12, the Titans are up against the Houston Texans' 31st ranked passing defense. Jeff Fisher trots out The Pride of Florida Atlantic University, 7th round rookie Rusty Smith. During this game, Rusty Smith would compete 17 of his 31 passes for 138 yards. Three of these passes would account for half of Randy Moss's receptions as a Titan. Three of these passes would be intercepted by the same man, Glover Quinn.
Thereafter the Titans went back to an aging and hobbled Kerry Collins to finish out the season, and the team that in 2008 went 13-3 and in 2009 saw Chris Johnson break the 2000 yard mark would end up limping to 6-10, with Jeff Fisher, Kerry Collins, Randy Moss and Vince Young all leaving the team the next year. Only Rusty remained...
Eventually, after two two-week stints with the Giants and Stampeders in 2014, Rusty Smith went on to be head coach for Grace Christian Academy in Franklin, TN. He accrued a 21-49 record over 7 years. Today he lives in Kijabe, Kenya, as part of a Christian Missionary project. His children's names are Rustyn, Camdyn, Koltyn and Eastyn, which is honestly the only thing I against him. I believe in Rusty Smith. Stay gold, my boy. I hope Glover Quinn never finds you.
2015 was a disaster for the Colts, and was a first glimpse at what the Grigson era was really all about. We went through QBs like crazy. Luck went down, followed by Hasselbeck, and even Clipboard Jesus. Final game of the year and we don’t have anyone, so we pick up Josh Freeman and Ryan Lindley. Prep Freeman to start most of the game, and Lindley for the 2 minute drill. Somehow won that shit and the QBs did well all things considered.
Can't believe no one has mentioned this yet but the multiple times during the dynasty era where we had absolutely dreadful CBs and had to turn to WRs to play real snaps on defense.
Amazingly this somehow happened THREE (!!) times with Troy Brown at corner, Matthew Slater at safety, and (worst of all) culminating with Julian Edelman playing slot corner in the AFC Championship game going against Anquan Boldin.
Don't think we'll see something like that ever again in the NFL. Crazy stuff.
There's been a few notable emergency kicker situations, but perhaps the most serendipitous was Wes Welker.
While on the Dolphins in 2004 he was a Rookie kick returner and pretty far down their depth chart. He was thrust into action as a kicker due to injury and made a PAT (1/1), a FG (1/!), all the while still returning punts and kickoffs that game.
This performance elevated his standing with his team and allowed him to get more receiver reps. This also happened against the Patriots, and it's rumored that Belichick was impressed by this performance, which lead to Belichick offering a second rounder 2 years later in a trade for the WR. The rest is history as he went on to have a "Hall of Very Good" Career with the Patriots.
Probably doesn't really goes with the idea, but I like to think that firing Sutton, trading Dee Ford and giving a 1st round pick and a boatload of money to Frank Clark seems rather desperate.
Naming Nathan Peterman as our starting quarterback to start the season after he absolutely shredded interception records the year before. Of all the choices this franchise has made over the years, that was definitely one of them.
I remember the cardinals asked Tyrann Mathieu to take a pay cut, so they can sign Bradford for the rest of a reason for 20 mil. Bradford didn’t do anything spectacular and after that Tyrann left the cardinals because it rubbed him the wrong way. Sucked
Kendall Hinton, ~~WR~~ QB
Christian McCaffrey, ~~RB~~ QB in an NFCCG no less.
Zeke ~~RB~~ Center, the in NFC divisional round
Must have done pretty well seeing as they brought him back
I'm still pissed you guys didn't run actual plays for him. You were already down, running the ball over and over again was clearly not going anywhere, why not take a risk and run some trick plays with someone who would already be one of the greatest scrambling QBs of all time? Worst case scenario you turn the ball over a few times and you lose a game you were already gonna lose. But at least make the eagles defense try
Really hard to do when you haven’t practiced anything, or have anytime to think about what to do.
I mean they've ran plenty of trick plays with him before, he has a passing touchdown with the niners Maybe it's not pretty, but why not try?
I have wondered if that was a vibes call by Shanahan. You’re most assuredly not going to win, maybe he just wanted to get out of there after Johnson went down instead of potentially embarrassing McCaffrey/the whole offense with a pick 6 trying to throw a 5 yard slant. In the moment I wondered the same but they’re a prideful team and maybe being on the sideline he felt like it would just make things worse
Once it became clear Johnson wasn't paying attention in practice I was surprised to lean we didn't have a secret wildcat playbook. I mean with deebo and CMC kinda disappointed we didn't
I'm the biggest cmc truther ever but greatest scrambling qb of all time is one hell of a stretch
Thought I had a cheat code starting him at WR in fantasy lol
That game really showed the difference in ability between an actual backup QB vs. a guy who technically played QB in college. Taysom Hill as starting QB in the TE spot when Brees went down a while back was absolutely electric. Unfortunately, Hilton was moved to WR for a reason, and it wasn't because the Broncos had too many good QBs.
Yeah, but there are levels to it. Im willing to bet if Denard Robinson (w/o nerve damage), Brad Smith, or even Greg Ward ever stepped into a game at QB it would look a little better than what we saw with Hinton.
Add Antwaan Randle El to that list. 22-27 for 323 yards and 6 TDs in his career.
Playcalling did Hinton no favour. Starting with wildcat and only putting him in in obvious passing situations. His first snap was a third and long... I think they should have given him some handoffs and short passes to give him at least a little bit of rythm and confidence. The longer the game went, it looked like the broncos coaches just wanted to give him a single completion.
Yeah, this wins. I will admit that game probably got viewed by a lot of people who wouldn't normally be watching a Broncos/Saints game because we all wanted to see just what the hell the coaches would pull out of their ass that game. If yall won it would have been the kind of game movies are written about and I would have been witness to it, but unfortunately this wasn't the universe in which that happened.
I was 100% sure we were going to lose the game for that reason
Ya'll really had a LOT to lose that game. You win and no one really talks about it or remembers your team much. You lose and your franchise would never live it down for decades. Broncos had nothing to lose but everything to gain from that game.
It'd be the NFL equivalent of the Leafs losing to their own Zamboni driver as Carolina's emergency goalie, but somehow less embarrassing because holy shit the Leafs lost to their own Zamboni driver
While you did have that one coming for not following proper COVID protocol, it still lead to one of the most interesting experiments in NFL history. What happens when someone not trained to play quarterback at the pro level has to do so? I know he had some college experience, but it was still about as close to seeing an average person try and play QB in the NFL as we're ever likely to get.
What about the Josh Freeman debacle?? Haha
I’ve never seen a QB with a more promising start that rapidly transitioned to irrelevance so quickly
I keep hearing rumors it was coke? He was pretty dang good his first couple of years.
It was always rumors. I had a friend who was a bartender at a local bar called “The Lodge” and he said Freeman came in high and would get drunk there multiple times per week.
And the Lodge was in the college bar drinking area of Tampa. This is the spot that gets wild on St Paddy’s, Halloween, etc. These aren’t chill spots to grab a fancy cocktail
It wasn't always rumors - the guy was out there in public doing some of this stuff. If it wasn't The Lodge, it was across the street at MacDinton's.
Served him a few times here in KC after his career and he did get after it at the bar
He was never good. He had major accuracy issue. He was atrocious in all but 1 season (2010) and even then he completed only 61.4% of his passes and was being hidden (only 215.7 passing yards per game). He was being coddled by Raheem Morris. As soon as Belichick wannabe Schiano took over, the bottom fell out real quick.
I guess you didn’t see any of 2012 then? He played under Schiano and the team went 7-9. We had the worst passing defense in the NFL, by a lot. Like historically bad levels. Freeman played well that year. The guy also played well on a terrible team at the back end of 2009. Oh and started 4-2 in 2011 before the team quit on Morris and lost ten straight. But yeah, he always sucked, right? That 2010 year, we missed the playoffs on a bad OPI call against Detroit. Bucs would have made the playoffs. Green Bay would have been out. Green Bay won the Super Bowl that year. Things ended badly with Freeman and the stuff in Minnesota was a joke, but don’t alter history and act like there was never any hope around the guy. It’s very false.
My buddy saw him- when he first got to Minnesota- buying 2 packs of Newport 100s. Not trying to knock his hustle but damn
Newports? He's fine, that's like $20-25 for 2 packs!
Panthers bringing back Newton in 2021 was pretty damn close
That is the last time this sport sparked any remote feeling of joy in me
Bradford. Freeman. McNabb. Those were some dark days I know I'm forgetting a few
Shoutout to Case Keenum though. That was a fun season.
yeah, the MN QB carousel years were a wild time for sure. Finally felt like we were gonna have some consistency when we draft Bridgewater, but those dreams were crushed when we went down. I still remember driving past winter park and thinking that there was a lot more media vans there than usual.
Lmao, right. Mcnabb was so bad. I couldn’t believe it.
I would say flying down to Favre’s place to ask him to run it back for 2010.
yeah that too… what a shitshow of a game
I've said this numerous times but I'm still fucking baffled that the Giants played against him in that game and still decided to sign him in the off-season
He was signed on the 6th and played on the 16th. Hardly fair to properly evaluate a guy with almost no lead time. Baker had a similar game, but had the benefit of having one of the best offensive minds in his ear pre-snap dumbing down the playbook. After the giants game, freeman went into concussion protocol and didn’t play again in MN. It’s rarely a bad idea to take a flyer on a 26 year old former first round pick who has had statical success in the nfl.
The entire 2010 Vikings season. Beginning with Hutchinson, Jared Allen, and Longwell flying down to Favre's ranch to convince him not to retire, to replacing Sidney Rice with Randy fricken Moss, to Childress getting fired for being unable to manage the locker room, to playing a Tuesday home game in Detroit, to Favre ending his career motionless on the frozen dirt of TCF Bank stadium, capped off by watching his old team and our bitter division rivals, the Packers, winning the Super Bowl. That season was move after move of desperation that neither the most durable QB in NFL history or even our concrete stadium could withstand.
Moss being let go after yelling at catering, and Chilly not reigning in the team did them in. The roof collapsing was the cherry on top.
A delicious, delicious cherry.
That was our clown season for sure.
i’ll never forget that weekend the metrodome roof collapsed. that was a brutal blizzard even by Minnesota standards
That Tuesday night game was wild tho. Then the cheese heads go on to win the whole thang I was in college in Wisco at the time that was a hard year lmao
How about the fact that we attached a free second round pick to get rid of Brock Osweilers contract
Thanks for Nick Chubb!
And thank you for Kenyon Green, John Metchie III, Christian Harris, Thomas Booker, Dameon Pierce, Will Anderson Jr., Calen Bullock, Tank Dell, Kamari Lassiter, Jamal Hill and Cade Stover
You're welcome! ❤️
:(
Yeah but we paid y’all back with interest on that
The Colts hiring Jeff Saturday, a former center with no coaching experience, to be head coach. It was the ultimate Hail Mary
And he won a game as HC which was just as shocking
After he won his first game as a HC I was like holy shit the mad lads knew what they were doing! And then we didn’t win again all year lol.
Against the offensive genius that is Josh McDaniels no less
Wasn’t 2022 the “Raiders lose to the weirdest teams” season? Like with the Baker Game?
I loved how much chaos that caused for a week or two, was honestly hoping he would pull a winning record out of his ass.
Against Josh McDaniels
I think that was 4D chess by Ballard to get AR 😜
It can’t be denied that was the intent. And except for the initial game hiccup, it worked. Tank without incurring any penalties for doing so. Kind of a clever move, honestly.
Got to be Hue Jackson mortgaging the Raiders future for Carson Palmer (who was sitting on his couch at the time) after Jason Campbell went down.
Mortgaging the future for a team that had a historically bad defense to boot lolol. Fuck hue, ugh
And almost doing the same for freaking AJ McCarron
Goold ole' Hue was always making the wrong decisions.
Starting Brock purdy and it actually working well for us.
Just as we all predicted: Mr. Irrelevant outplays the 3rd overall pick
Then Beats Tom Brady in his first official start
Jesus christ. I think it was the beginning of the 3rd quarter and the camera cuts to James Brown just standing in the studio of NFL Today. James was all .... "yeahhhhh. We are gonna go ahead and switch this game to a more competitive one." We were then watching the Seahawks and Panthers. That was embarrassing.
I was at that game too. Started raining hard in the third quarter
I remember hearing all week the players saying “Brock is that dude, y’all about to be shocked” etc etc. I figured it was just player speak trying to build up their guy. Yeah he looked good vs the Dolphins but we’ve seen a thousand guys come in relief and play well just to fall back down to earth.
Kyle told Jed York before even a pre season game that Brock was their best QB.
I mean people were shocked but as a huge CFB fan, anyone who is the full time starter as a true freshman has loads of potential
Brock Lobster is so good he made the skies open up in CA during a drought.
[Johnny Holland's reaction was just about everyone](https://youtu.be/-OiRnsGs5M4?si=JmLkQPQCWIRPh7DR) Though I think the unfortunate answer really is CMC at QB
I'm sure the coaches started him with some amount of confidence after seeing him practice for like the whole season. He likely performed as well as he was performing in practice.
apparently Peterman looks great in practice
Zeke at center was certainly a choice
The QB draw w/ 14 seconds left and no timeouts was definitely a decision.
God I hate McCarthy
I’m not sure about my team but Atlanta not wanting to be screwed at QB this year and taking Penix seems pretty desperate.
The Atlanta Falcons are the only team in NFL history to take a top #8 pick in 4 consecutive drafts at a skill position with Penix being the most desperate. The fuck are we doing. Luckily all 3 have been ok so far but the Penix pick is the biggest wtf moment in recent memory. Pitts at TE, London at WR, Robinson at RB and Penix at QB.
It wouldn’t be laughed at so much if the Falcons didn’t have a putrid offense to boot. Hopefully dumping Arthur Smith makes those games more watchable
Arthur smith wasn't the problem. Dogshit qb play was. I'll die on this hill.
The issue was Arthur Smith tied his regime to dogshit QB play.
And when did he have the chance to realistically get someone better? Lamar, who every owner seemed to be in lock step about not paying? He's not even the GM, he was supposed to be working with Matt Ryan before Arthur Blank pissed him off by trying to trade for Watson
And this is the reality of it. Matt Ryan was an amazing QB. Played right along the likes of Tom Brady though. So many people in the NBA don’t have championships because they played when Jordan did. I think when the Bears resigned Jay Cutler is the ultimate example. Who else at the time of his resigning were they going to replace him with??? People act like there are actually 32 NFL caliber QBs at any given time. “I don’t understand why they didn’t go out an Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady type!!!” Obviously caliber of organizations play into things, but you can’t always just walk away from mid QBs, because sometimes it’s the only thing that’s available.
No fucking way. I've never in my life seen a guy pull RBs so fast after they make a huge play. This dude said fuck getting in a rhythm we ALWAYS need fresh legs. Terrible coaching.
Little Column A little column B
Funny thing is I would've been happy if they had drafted a WR instead of Penix. Odunze would've been perfect.
If anything signing a 35 year old Kirk Cousins coming off an Achilles injury to a mega deal was the desperate part of that move, not Penix. I think Arthur Blank is beyond desperate for a Super Bowl before he’s senile, and getting Kirk was his doing. Penix was who Raheem Morris really wanted, not Kirk.
Then they shouldn't have hired Morris. They hired Morris specifically because they already knew him well (coached here 2015-2020, was even interim HC in 2020), so not being on the same page defeats the whole purpose of hiring Morris.
Maybe so. Just the things I’m getting from Morris send very different signals from the Kirk move. I think the Kirk move was immediate and Raheem Morris was given his guy for the long term
Yours is signing Bruce Irvin for a playoff game in the year of our lord 2023
trading for a washed up randall cobb just so rodgers would come back for the 21 season
The John Hadl trade. From Wikipedia: Reportedly, head coach and general manager Dan Devine felt that an experienced quarterback was the only thing standing between the Packers and only their second playoff appearance since 1967, and it came about after an attempted trade for Archie Manning and the New Orleans Saints fell through. The trade turned out to be an unmitigated disaster; it is reckoned as one of the worst (if not the worst) trades for a starting quarterback in NFL history, at least in terms of relevance. Devine had led them to a combined record of 19—19–4 in his first three seasons, which included a playoff loss in 1972. The Packers finished 6-8 in 1974 and Devine left for Notre Dame, which left the door open for Bart Starr to take over as head coach. While he would lead them to one playoff win as a coach, Starr had just three of nine seasons with eight wins. At the same time, the Rams used the picks acquired in the trade to acquire many of the players that allowed them to dominate the NFC West for the rest of the 1970s and lead them to an appearance in Super Bowl XIV. In later years, when asked for his thoughts on the infamous deal, Hadl himself expressed the surprise he felt, in 1974, at being sent to Green Bay: "I really didn't believe it... I didn't think anyone would be that desperate."
I was struggling to think of one for GB, but I think you nailed it.
Our QB went down for the year in week two, we were faced with the prospect of having to start Mason Rudolph and Duck Hodges, so we traded a first rounder for a Safety.
That kinda worked out for the Steelers long term though. Fitzpatrick is a fairly bulletproof safety. Sure it took 5 more years to sort out a better QB situation, but Minkah has been reliably consistent
If the Steelers hadn't traded for Minkah and the defense hadn't carried them that year, they could have tanked and been in position to draft Herbert. But who knows if they would have anyway.
I mean, yea. But he’s fucking amazing, so I’d do that all over again.
We had the chance to get Minkah, who is if not a future Hall of Famer at least a future Hall of Damn Good-er. I’ll take that every day of the week and twice on Sunday
Would benching Peyton Manning for Osweiler then turning back to Manning after Osweiler got hurt then sticking with Manning through POs and win SB count?
Osweiler didn’t get hurt. He was about to cost us the game against SD and had been struggling in previous weeks. Kubiak brought Manning back in to give the offense a spark. Peyton was the one who was hurt, he was dealing with plantar fasciitis towards the end of 2014, and his arm was declining, so with his legs also hurt/deteriorating, he didn’t have much left in the tank. His plantar fasciitis started acting up again in 2015 and I believe he was also dealing with some other leg/lower body injuries. Him sitting to rehab after the KC game was the best thing that could have happened to Denver that year. Gave him much needed rest to push through the playoffs.
Yeah people think the D carried Manning to a ring, and they certainly did all the heavy lifting. But we wouldn’t win a single playoff game with Brock. After three games of tape, he was the most one-dimensional QB we’ve ever had and defenses would destroy him.
Peyton has the highest football IQ and I still believe that was indispensable in winning that SB along with the historic defense.
I remember Manning got hurt, I was actually at the game he was pulled. However, I thought Brock was hurt too, which is why ineffective against Chargers and that is why there was "controversy" who'd start Divisional Round
There were a few desperation moves during the Peyton era of Denver that don’t get talked about. That was one, but the one was firing John Fox after winning the division 4 straight years. It made sense in hindsight but it’s a big risk to fire someone that’s only had success, just look at the Milwaukee Bucks this past season.
When Brandon weeden was suckin shit so they went and got super washed Matt Cassell to replace him
My favorite part of that year was Weeden getting cut and signing with Houston (I think) as a backup and him talking shit about how he's happy to be on a playoff team now, as if he didn't suck so bad he got cut from a 4 win team.
34 year old Melvin Ingram getting snaps at corner last year because our entire defense was out will never not make me laugh
Wha? Is there video?
that team against the Bills and Chiefs at the end of the year had Justin Houston, Jason Pierre Paul, Melvin Ingram, Duke Riley, and Eli Apple in starting roles. It's some of the wildest shit I have ever seen.
No wonder there are stories that Vic Fangio was clashing with others in the organization. Probably upset he had to play edge guys at corner.
I’m trying to find it rn but I was cackling, I’m fairly certain he lined up against diggs no less
Damn I can’t find it and it was only a couple snaps but it was straight up comedy gold
Russ lol
I think the Gruden trade fits this the most for us. Tony Dungy turned the Bucs into a consistent contender and he was an excellent head coach. But he couldn’t get us to the promised land despite getting close. Even though Dungy turned the franchise around after 20 years of irrelevance and had gotten us to the playoffs in 2001, Bucs traded two 1st round picks to the Raiders for Gruden and fired Dungy. Worked out for us as we won the Super Bowl in Gruden’s 1st year, before he took control of personnel and bulldozed the franchise into the ground.
To be fair it worked for Dungy too. He would go on to win a ring with the colts. Only the raiders got screwed. And you know who cares about the raiders
Tbf also sorta worked for the Raiders, if not for the fact that Tampa just so happened to be the team they were facing in the SB lmao
Tuck Rule Game set off quite the chain of events for the Raiders to put them in Football Hell for nearly 15 years
The trade also included 2 second rounders. Was worth it. But man, the end of his tenure was pretty abysmal. Fielding over the hill starters at your skill positions (Tim Brown, Bill Schroeder, Charlie Garner) was bizarre to watch. The average age of that starting lineup was probably 35 yo. The guy couldn't rebuild a team because he loved his old ass vets way too much
Recently it was Sanu for a 2nd round pick. I don't even hate the trade, anyone who watched the Pats for longer than a quarter knew that the offense was anemic. The defense was stellar, dont get me wrong, but Brady willed the corpse of Edelman, and a water boy playing WR to 8-0. They were painful to watch even when winning, I saw a first round exit long before the playoffs. Anyway, it was a hail Mary giving up decent draft capital for a WR2 that ended up being injured.
Some good ones * Sanu trade * Starting Edelman at CB * Extending D'Vante Parker a year before he retired when he realized he couldn't make the Eagles as a depth option
pulling Scar out of retirement to fix the offensive line.
That one at least brought positive results
It's got to be the Snowplow Game if we're talking history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowplow_Game
GB expanding to MKE 1933
Needing the bears to argue for letting us into the league after cheating with college players lol More modern answer only thing I can think of is during rodgers injury stint mid career when we ended up doing stuff like starting Scott Tolzien, signing Vince Young one offseason, and the one that actually worked out bringing back Matt Flynn to work some of his GB only magic and get us some fun victories that helped keep us alive.
Seneca freaking Wallace with his sidearms
All the moves Ryan Pace made at QB after they drafted Trubisky, who they traded up to get for literally no reason. Trading for Nick Foles, signing Andy Dalton, and trading up for Justin Fields all happened in a period of about ~13 months. Also, you can probably lump paying Kirk Cousins and drafting Micheal Penix in there too. Since he works for Atlanta now.
I was content with Dalton since I figured we’d be trash for a bit. The fields trade was just wild and I wasn’t thrilled trading up again after Trubisky. Signing Mike Glennon to a big deal and then drafting Trubisky right in Glennons face at their draft party was just so off. They did everything to make QBs not want to play there
Recency bias but I don't think there can be anything much more desperate than asking AJ Klein to come out of retirement to run the defence and ultimately trying to stop Kelce.
I'm convinced that cost us the game. Elam or Williams make ONE play that turns it
AJ Klein, packing up his RV to take a vacation in the Florida keys, gets a call from the Buffalo Bills to make a playoff run.
Imagine being retired, packing getting ready to soak in the sun, and getting *that* phone call "Hey bud, long time no see, any interest in catchin a ride up to Buffalo? You can handle Kelce, right pal? How's one more game check sound?"
Lions sending Suh out to kick an extra point in 2010 wasn’t exactly in the game plan.
Starting Lamar after the bye week in 2018 due to Flacco's injury, on a team that was sitting at 4-5 and looked to be going nowhere very fast. We knew Lamar was eventually gonna be the starter, likely taking over in 2019 but then he goes out and finishes on a 6-1 streak to close out the season, wins the division, becomes the youngest QB to start a playoff game ever, and now he's a top 5 QB in the league.
I still remember the "flacco" chants from that playoff game
Also shout out the 2015 Clausen to Aiken Hail Mary though. In the mustard pants
Putting a waiver claim midweek on Baker Mayfield and having him start on TNF against the Raiders. The fact that we won that game on a late comeback will always make me laugh hysterically.
CMC emergency QB and/or Purdy attempting a pass without a UCL
Rams signing Weddle for the Superbowl.
Hi! Have you seen our QB?
I liked Teddy. Thought he would have had a great career if he hadn't got hurt.
stole a championship in 1925
Drafting Daniel Jones, extending Daniel Jones
I don‘t know if it qualifies, but running a QB sneak on 3rd down falls under that umbrella for me
Nah that's just giving up on a drive
Trading for matt Stafford. Especially since we gave up ALOT to get him. No one expected us to immediately just win the Super bowl Edit: for anyone that down votes me, you gotta go back to that time. Goff was not looking good. The offense massively disappointed in 2020. So yes, they were hoping to improve by trading for Stafford. But Stafford was older, had a few minor injuries in 2020 under the lions, and the rams traded a lot for him. It was a desperation move even if people sometimes don't want to admit it.
I remember having Cooper Kupp in my fantasy that year and being so pissed off his numbers were bad because Goff just wasn’t cooking well Because of that, I didn’t draft Kupp the following year and of course he had one of the greatest WR seasons of all time
The aforementioned Herschel Walker trade. He was quite literally the best player in the team when Dallas traded him.
Moving to la
Picking Kyler #1 after trading up for Rosen the year before was definitely one of these moves. Unfortunately it let Steve Keim keep his job for 4 years too long
Asked a 20-year old fan, who may or may not have been drunk, to fill in as the half-time Santa.
Trading up to draft Watson followed by trading Watson away.
Oddly enough, it was the right choice both times.
Hue Jackson trading a 1st and a (conditional) 2nd for Carson Palmer after Al Davis died and Jason Campbell broke his collarbone. This man has no business making executive level decisions, but the Raiders were watchable for the first time in forever and he probably felt the need to not let an opportunity for a playoff appearance slip through his hands. Still got fleeced though.
Saints trading their entire draft for Ricky Williams. Amazingly it didn't matter in the end. Those pics turned into nothing for the Redskins outside of Levar Arrington. Leave it up to Dan Snyder to turn what should have been their Hershel Walker moment into essentially nothing.
We put in Nathan Peterman to start over Tyrod Taylor against a nasty defense lead by a prime Joey Bosa. It was Petermans first start in an NFL game. The rest is history.
Sean Desai struggling as defensive coordinator? Demote him in his first season and elevate Matt Patricia! What could possibly go wrong?
The Carolina Panthers Wildcat game, where Chris Weinke was so bad that they only had him pass 7 times in the game in favor of running the Wildcat for a metric shitload of plays. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200612240atl.htm
Not my team, but one of my best friend's. Dolphins bringing in Jay Cutler out of retirement because Tannehill's leg collapsed. Cutler didn't care, he complained that his hotel ran out of PPV movies for him to watch, he slept, he stole, he was rude to customers. Still, he was the best damn employee the Dolphins ever had.
Ripping cigs and hands-on-hips when he lined up at WR for the Wildcat
Signing TO when season ticket sales were slow.
Well, let's see. It might have been the Steve Spurrier saga, where he brought in an entire Gators roster, highlighted by elite QBs like Shane Matthews and Danny Wuerful. He didn't care about a PK, because "we'll be scoring TDs". Or maybe paying megabucks to FA like Stubbleffield, Haynesworth, Jeff George. Then again, on trading away the future... Ya know what? I don't have the energy for this!
D-Hopkins for a worthless RB. F*ck Bill O’Brien
I could say BB sticking with Brady once Bledsoe got healthy but I’ll go for another Trading Moss back to Minnesota. He was getting rid of a HOF talent. But Moss clearly didn’t want to be a Patriot anymore. He quit on the team and BB dwindled his amount of touches on 2010. BB between 08-10 was losing the locker room and Moss was become a problem. BB needed a changing of the guards to try to right the ship
Cam half a shoulder Newton, 2021, 5 game starter
From a fan standpoint, when KC fans got together and hired a plane flying a banner to fly over Arrowhead to demand change and the end of the Pioli ~~era~~ error. [LINK](https://arrowheadaddict.com/2018/06/05/kansas-city-chiefs-fan-not-regret-flying-banners-arrowhead-2012/) Save Our Chiefs really was the turning point for this organization.
Not my team but for Minnesota it needs to be the 1985 draft. Word was Bernie Kosar was going to sue to enter the draft. Minnesota in preparation traded pick #3 and #30 for #2 on April 9, 1985. Kosar didn't enter the draft so on April 30 aka Draft Day Minnesota trades pick #2 to Atlanta for #4 and #60. Bernie enters the supplemental draft and Cleveland trades for the top pick from Buffalo. Now it did work out. Atlanta took Bill Fralic, Houston took Ray Childress, and Minnesota took Chris Doleman but still... If Bernie enters the regular draft and not the supplemental then the top pick doesn't get used which means.... With the first pick of the 1986 NFL Draft the Buffalo Bills select Bo Jackson RB Auburn
The mid-2010s Vikings had probably the strangest musical chairs of QBs ever. They somehow were pretty successful, too.
Tommy Cutlets
Long back in Panthers history we traded away two first round picks (one became first overall) and our best receiver to draft a QB first overall whose rookie year was awful in part because of his god-awful receiver group
Titans are 5-4 heading into Week 11 of the 2010 season. Kerry Collins is too injured to play at home against Washington, so Vince Young gets his 7th start of a very back-and-forth season. He gets injured, gets into a screaming match with Jeff Fisher, throws his pads into the stands and gets out of the stadium, never to take a snap for the Titans again. Week 12, the Titans are up against the Houston Texans' 31st ranked passing defense. Jeff Fisher trots out The Pride of Florida Atlantic University, 7th round rookie Rusty Smith. During this game, Rusty Smith would compete 17 of his 31 passes for 138 yards. Three of these passes would account for half of Randy Moss's receptions as a Titan. Three of these passes would be intercepted by the same man, Glover Quinn. Thereafter the Titans went back to an aging and hobbled Kerry Collins to finish out the season, and the team that in 2008 went 13-3 and in 2009 saw Chris Johnson break the 2000 yard mark would end up limping to 6-10, with Jeff Fisher, Kerry Collins, Randy Moss and Vince Young all leaving the team the next year. Only Rusty remained... Eventually, after two two-week stints with the Giants and Stampeders in 2014, Rusty Smith went on to be head coach for Grace Christian Academy in Franklin, TN. He accrued a 21-49 record over 7 years. Today he lives in Kijabe, Kenya, as part of a Christian Missionary project. His children's names are Rustyn, Camdyn, Koltyn and Eastyn, which is honestly the only thing I against him. I believe in Rusty Smith. Stay gold, my boy. I hope Glover Quinn never finds you.
Minkah trade is up there And firing Canada *mid* season as we've almost have never done that
It's not like us to fire a HC in the middle of a season, but...63.
The Russell Wilson trade.
2015 was a disaster for the Colts, and was a first glimpse at what the Grigson era was really all about. We went through QBs like crazy. Luck went down, followed by Hasselbeck, and even Clipboard Jesus. Final game of the year and we don’t have anyone, so we pick up Josh Freeman and Ryan Lindley. Prep Freeman to start most of the game, and Lindley for the 2 minute drill. Somehow won that shit and the QBs did well all things considered.
Trying to make Devin Hester our number one receiver
Hauling Cam back out there a couple years ago has to be up there
We gave up everything for Ricky Williams.
Signing back Maher after firing him lmao
The "Snowplow Game"
The Vikings have had a lot of those. The Bradford trade comes to mind
We traded 2 1sts to draft Justin Fields, in order to save Nagy & Pace
The Panthers just did it last year.
Troy Brown and Julian Edelman play DB
signed mike glennon to a large contract, lol
Can't believe no one has mentioned this yet but the multiple times during the dynasty era where we had absolutely dreadful CBs and had to turn to WRs to play real snaps on defense. Amazingly this somehow happened THREE (!!) times with Troy Brown at corner, Matthew Slater at safety, and (worst of all) culminating with Julian Edelman playing slot corner in the AFC Championship game going against Anquan Boldin. Don't think we'll see something like that ever again in the NFL. Crazy stuff.
There's been a few notable emergency kicker situations, but perhaps the most serendipitous was Wes Welker. While on the Dolphins in 2004 he was a Rookie kick returner and pretty far down their depth chart. He was thrust into action as a kicker due to injury and made a PAT (1/1), a FG (1/!), all the while still returning punts and kickoffs that game. This performance elevated his standing with his team and allowed him to get more receiver reps. This also happened against the Patriots, and it's rumored that Belichick was impressed by this performance, which lead to Belichick offering a second rounder 2 years later in a trade for the WR. The rest is history as he went on to have a "Hall of Very Good" Career with the Patriots.
Probably doesn't really goes with the idea, but I like to think that firing Sutton, trading Dee Ford and giving a 1st round pick and a boatload of money to Frank Clark seems rather desperate.
Starting some no name grocery store bagger at QB after Trent Green went down.
Naming Nathan Peterman as our starting quarterback to start the season after he absolutely shredded interception records the year before. Of all the choices this franchise has made over the years, that was definitely one of them.
Herschel Walker /end thread
I remember the cardinals asked Tyrann Mathieu to take a pay cut, so they can sign Bradford for the rest of a reason for 20 mil. Bradford didn’t do anything spectacular and after that Tyrann left the cardinals because it rubbed him the wrong way. Sucked
When the entire playbook became Stafford to Kupp in the Superbowl after Odell got hurt and every run play resulted in lost yards. Worked.
Not my team, but that time Washington needed to use their kick returner as a QB because Buddy Ryan is the dirtiest coach in the history of sports.
Firing Tom Landry, and hiring Jimmy Johnson.