TCUDan was right about TS (1 Viewer)

[TCUDan]

To be clear, I HOPE HE PLAYS BETTER AND WINS THE SUPER BOWL! I will happily take people on the internet dunking on me with clown emojis and dancing on my "garbage take" for a Lombardi trophy. But given the injuries and a pretty strong body of evidence regarding his play... I just don't see it happening (again, hope I'm wrong).

 

[Belfast Saint]

Yes Dan, TS is limited. As you say, definitely someone who can be a starting QB, but not a great one, or possibly even a good one. I'm not sure if he can develop into more than what he currently is, my optimistic side suggests anyone can grow and improve, but who knows what his ceiling is. As a coach you know that mechanics and things can be worked upon, but you can only do so much with raw materials.

Regardless of all of that, with the current status of the offense which is being held together with a 3 day old band-aid, he's not capable enough of elevating his play and that of others around him. Give him a full (and improved) complement of weapons and a healthy and effective Oline, and I think he'd help us win enough games to keep things ticking over and getting us to the playoffs but we're in a death spiral on offense - average QB play minimizes chances of success for limited playmakers, limited playmakers minimizes chances of success for average QB play - and combined it's just very poor right now.

Siemian would be a fantastic backup QB to have after this season.

 

[TCUDan]

Yes Dan, TS is limited. As you say, definitely someone who can be a starting QB, but not a great one, or possibly even a good one. I'm not sure if he can develop into more than what he currently is, my optimistic side suggests anyone can grow and improve, but who knows what his ceiling is. As a coach you know that mechanics and things can be worked upon, but you can only do so much with raw materials.

Regardless of all of that, with the current status of the offense which is being held together with a 3 day old band-aid, he's not capable enough of elevating his play and that of others around him. Give him a full (and improved) complement of weapons and a healthy and effective Oline, and I think he'd help us win enough games to keep things ticking over and getting us to the playoffs but we're in a death spiral on offense - average QB play minimizes chances of success for limited playmakers, limited playmakers minimizes chances of success for average QB play - and combined it's just very poor right now.

Siemian would be a fantastic backup QB to have after this season.

Hey J, I see it like this. Obviously having your all-pro players like Ramczyk, Kamara (Peat even though I think he's overrated) and having the defense healthy enough to be complimentary would make anyone perform better.

We saw Drew shoulder this team through similar situations. My issues is this:

Is Siemian the best option? For the Falcons and Eagles game, I don't think he was (for all the reasons I've discussed).

Now the default reaction to saying that has been "What? You think you know better than Payton?" Of course not. "Well then why's he starting Siemian instead of Hill?" Well, it could be one or more of 3 things:

1) Hill's health (coming off a concussion going into the Falcons game, injured his foot in the Eagles game)

2) Something that is happening in practice/meetings that none of us are privvy to. Again, I'm trying to give objective analysis of WHAT I SEE. Could I have incomplete information? Absolutely. But from everything I've seen of Siemian (which obviously does not include meetings and practice), he does not give the Saints the best chance to win--regardless of who is healthy and who isn't (I'd argue the lack of top-line WR, OL, and RB play only ups Hill's stock due to his ability to make plays with his legs).

3) And I hate to even mention this... but Hill's contract HEAVILY incentivizes NOT starting him at QB. Now, again... I am not suggesting this is the reason because that involves trying to guess the coaches' and front office's intent, which is impossible. And I'd love to say you always do what gives you the best chance to win, but in a multi-million dollar business, it's just not always that black and white. But taking a stance on that just amounts to conspiracy theory--we went through this before with Jake Delhomme and Aaron Brooks, and no matter where you stand on it, nobody's ever really gonna know.

So again... I'm not "arguing" against Sean Payton or second-guessing him, I'm giving an evaluation of TS... and look, I'd have given a similar one for Nick Foles at one point and he figured out how to win a Super Bowl.

Maybe TS can do the same?

 

[DMaestro]

Though I will say that the cognitive dissonance to completely disregard Taysom HIill's efficiency last year while simultaneously apologizing for TS's inefficiency this year is pretty baffling.

No cognitive dissonance, Taysom had better receivers to throw to, not to mention more time in Payton's system. That more than a major difference in ability can account for the statistical efficiency gap between him and Siemian.

For reference Jameis also had a less efficient stretch than Taysom's from last year, yet he clearly beat him out for QB1 this year.

And unlike Taysom and Jameis, poor Trevor hasn't even had the benefit of a Kamara safety net for the past three games.

At this point, I'd be an apologist for any guy we put behind center this year. But since the season is pretty much lost, if people want to get a nice long look at Taysom to see what he can do I don't blame them.

 

[Belfast Saint]

Hey J, I see it like this. Obviously having your all-pro players like Ramczyk, Kamara (Pete? even though I think he's overrated) and having the defense healthy enough to be complimentary would make anyone perform better.

We saw Drew shoulder this team through similar situations. My issues is this:

Is Siemian the best option? For the Falcons and Eagles game, I don't think he was (for all the reasons I've discussed).

Now the default reaction to saying that has been "What? You think you know better than Payton?" Of course not. "Well then why's he starting Siemian instead of Hill?" Well, it could be one or more of 3 things:

1) Hill's health (coming off a concussion going into the Falcons game, injured his foot in the Eagles game)

2) Something that is happening in practice/meetings that none of us are privvy to. Again, I'm trying to give objective analysis of WHAT I SEE. Could I have incomplete information? Absolutely. But from everything I've seen of Siemian (which obviously does not include meetings and practice), he does not give the Saints the best chance to win--regardless of who is healthy and who isn't (I'd argue the lack of top-line WR, OL, and RB play only ups Hill's stock due to his ability to make plays with his legs).

3) And I hate to even mention this... but Hill's contract HEAVILY incentivizes NOT starting him at QB. Now, again... I am not suggesting this is the reason because that involves trying to guess the coaches' and front office's intent, which is impossible. And I'd love to say you always do what gives you the best chance to win, but in a multi-million dollar business, it's just not always that black and white. But taking a stance on that just amounts to conspiracy theory--we went through this before with Jake Delhomme and Aaron Brooks, and no matter where you stand on it, nobody's ever really gonna know.

So again... I'm not "arguing" against Sean Payton or second-guessing him, I'm giving an evaluation of TS... and look, I'd have given a similar one for Nick Foles at one point and he figured out how to win a Super Bowl.

Maybe TS can do the same?

I'm not competent enough to say which QB should be starting. I know my limitations! In my very simple mind, Siemian is starting because SP feels he's the best option to help win games - for any of the reasons you suggest, or others. I don't know if Hill is the answer or whether he would have done better, quite possibly. I have seen him play very well, and I've seen him play very poorly - at least to my untutored eye.

And yeah, Peat is over-paid certainly. Good guard generally speaking, when healthy, but certainly not a top 5 guard like what he's paid.

 

[Usmfan84]

Can we even afford TH if we decided to give him the starting the gig? That contract screams "we hope you never play QB".

 

[LordPoopington]

Did TCUDan say that TS's play would suffer if he was missing 3/5 of the offensive line, our #1 running back and only have high-school-level talent at WR? If so, then yes, he was correct and he was stating the obvious.

Yeah. I mean, I'm in the camp that we should give Ian Book some time to see what we have with him going into next season, but I think any QB aside from the league's truly elite would likely be a sacrificial lamb in a situation where you are missing by far your best WR, by far your best RB, your 2nd best RB (Ingram), 2 of your starting OLs including your best OL (Ram). Missing our best kicker doesn't help our offense either and we're also down our one of our 2nd string OLs too. Teddy and Taysom did not face anything close to this level of injury adversity when they filled in the past 2 years (if you say "but Thomas was playing on a hurt ankle last year," my answer is yeah he wasn't at full speed but he still had some of the best hands in football and made some difficult catches).

I'm 43 and I genuinely don't think I've seen this volume of injuries and high-impact injuries on any Saints team. Drew could've done better b/c he's a first ballot Hall of Famer but I disagree with TCU Dan's statement that Drew shouldered us through similar times. The amount of offensive injuries we have this season is truly unprecedented. Would I rather see Drew out there now? Yes. But we've never seen this before.

 

[LordPoopington]

No cognitive dissonance, Taysom had better receivers to throw to, not to mention more time in Payton's system. That more than a major difference in ability can account for the statistical efficiency gap between him and Siemian.

For reference Jameis also had a less efficient stretch than Taysom's from last year, yet he clearly beat him out for QB1 this year.

And unlike Taysom and Jameis, poor Trevor hasn't even had the benefit of a Kamara safety net for the past three games.

At this point, I'd be an apologist for any guy we put behind center this year. But since the season is pretty much lost, if people want to get a nice long look at Taysom to see what he can do I don't blame them.

Yeah, as much as I dislike Taysom as a QB1, if he had to start with the offensive personnel we had last night even I'd be saying "I think the injuries to our best WR, best OL, 2 best RBs, and another starting OL had more to do with the loss."

Last year Taysom threw to Michael Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, Jared Cook, and had a healthy Kamara and Latavius Murray. I wouldn't say he was efficient when he fumbled 3 times in 1 game vs. ATL and went 9-16 with an INT vs. DEN in a game we won b/c the other team literally had no QB on their active roster due to COVID (Hinton went 1-9, 2 INT for DEN). That DEN game was an incredible stroke of good luck for our team. If you're going to say Trevor was lucky to not have a pick six vs. ATL then you need to say we were lucky to only lose 1 of Taysom's 3 fumbles in the 2nd ATL game last year and lucky to play a team with no QB in DEN. You could argue ignoring that is cognitive dissonance.

 

[LordPoopington]

No flaming is necessary. No one was fooled by Trevor's abilities it was about the reason we weren't winning was not him. Whether or not Taysom would have done better is debatable but I'm sure we'll see him soon.

Yeah, the issue wasn't that anyone really feels Siemian is our long-term QB solution but that people were highlighting Siemian in a game with 8 drops (most truly indefensible) and I believe a dozen penalties. At this point I'm ready to see what we have with Ian Book, but Siemian wasn't even close to being the main reason we lost the ATL game.

And a lot of people here complaining how Dan's post was misunderstood aren't great at understanding other people's posts, either.

 

[DMaestro]

Yeah, as much as I dislike Taysom as a QB1, if he had to start with the offensive personnel we had last night even I'd be saying "I think the injuries to our best WR, best OL, 2 best RBs, and another starting OL had more to do with the loss."

Last year Taysom threw to Michael Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, Jared Cook, and had a healthy Kamara and Latavius Murray. I wouldn't say he was efficient when he fumbled 3 times in 1 game vs. ATL and went 9-16 with an INT vs. DEN in a game we won b/c the other team literally had no QB on their active roster due to COVID (Hinton went 1-9, 2 INT for DEN). That DEN game was an incredible stroke of good luck for our team. If you're going to say Trevor was lucky to not have a pick six vs. ATL then you need to say we were lucky to only lose 1 of Taysom's 3 fumbles in the 2nd ATL game last year and lucky to play a team with no QB in DEN. You could argue ignoring that is cognitive dissonance.

Thomas was out hurt but even without him Taysom had better weapons to work with (just about any QB in league history could say that compared to what we've been trotting out on the field week after week this season). Your other points are well taken.

For the record I've got no problem with Taysom starting given no more Winston. There are surely many things he does better than Siemian. I just suspect he'd cancel out a lot of that good stuff with his known issues (poor pocket awareness coupled with poor ball security in the pocket, slow reads, an atrocious deep ball). At best he'd give us more exciting and entertaining losses with no real upside as an older player. But that's just my hunch.

 

[LordPoopington]

Thomas was out hurt but even without him Taysom had better weapons to work with (just about any QB in league history could say that compared to what we've been trotting out on the field week after week this season). Your other points are well taken.

For the record I've got no problem with Taysom starting given no more Winston. There are surely many things he does better than Siemian. I just suspect he'd cancel out a lot of that good stuff with his known issues (poor pocket awareness coupled with poor ball security in the pocket, slow reads, an atrocious deep ball). At best he'd give us more exciting and entertaining losses with no real upside as an older player. But that's just my hunch.

It's not true that Thomas was out when Taysom started last year. Look up the game logs. He had 9 catches in the 1st ATL game last year, 4 vs. DEN, 9 in the 2nd ATL game last year, and 8 vs. PHI.

I have no disagreements with your 2nd paragraph re: Taysom.

 

[DMaestro]

It's not true that Thomas was out when Taysom started last year. Look up the game logs. He had 9 catches in the 1st ATL game last year, 4 vs. DEN, 9 in the 2nd ATL game last year, and 8 vs. PHI.

I stand corrected, my apologies. Memory going out on me; gettin old I guess.

But yeah, night and day difference with Thomas, Kamara, Sanders et al. Nowhere near a fair comparison between the two situations.

 

[LordPoopington]

I stand corrected, my apologies. Memory going out on me; gettin old I guess.

But yeah, night and day difference with Thomas, Kamara, Sanders et al. Nowhere near a fair comparison between the two situations.

No apologies needed, my memory has gotten weird too in middle-age, even more so since the pandemic began.

 

[BahGoonSa]

When TH succeeded against the Falcons he had barely a week to prepare for the starter role.

When confronted with his league-leading completion rate the refrain from the never Taysom saints was "yeah, but the Falcons suck".

Fair enough. They do suck, so maybe touting his completion efficiency against the falcons can be written off. Only Taysom Hill was not the only QB that the Falcons faced last year. If the "falcons suck" argument is to succeed then one would expect the other starting, and presumably better, QBs should all have numbers at least as good as TH.

1. Game 01 SEA 88% Willson
2. Game 04 GRB 82% Rogers
3. Game 13 LAC 82% Herbert
4. Game 10 NOS 78% Hill
5. Game 05 CAR 75% Bridgewater
6. Game 12 NOS 73% Hill
7. Game 02 DAL 72% Prescott
8. Game 07 DET 69% Stafford
9. Game 14 TMP 69% Brady
10. Game 06 MIM 67% Cousins
11. Game 08 CAR 65% Bridgewater
12. Game 11 LAS 65% Carr
13. Game 16 TMP 63% Brady
14. Game 03 CHI 55% Foles
15. Game 15 KAN 55% Mahomes
16. Game 09 DEN 52% Lock

As a fill-in that had not practiced at QB all season, he did OK.

Hill is probably not as good as his fans hope he will be but he is definitely not as bad as the Never Taysom crowd claims.

The real TH disconnect is the stubborn insistence that Hill has no potential and could not improve enough with more experience.

 

[No2DC]

When TH succeeded against the Falcons he had barely a week to prepare for the starter role.

When confronted with his league-leading completion rate the refrain from the never Taysom saints was "yeah, but the Falcons suck".

Fair enough. They do suck, so maybe touting his completion efficiency against the falcons can be written off. Only Taysom Hill was not the only QB that the Falcons faced last year. If the "falcons suck" argument is to succeed then one would expect the other starting, and presumably better, QBs should all have numbers at least as good as TH.

1. Game 01 SEA 88% Willson
2. Game 04 GRB 82$ Rogers
3. Game 13 LAC 82% Herbert
4. Game 10 NOS 78% Hill
5. Game 05 CAR 75% Bridgewater
6. Game 12 NOS 73% Hill
7. Game 02 DAL 72% Prescott
8. Game 07 DET 69% Stafford
9. Game 14 TMP 69% Brady
10. Game 06 MIM 67% Cousins
11. Game 08 CAR 65% Bridgewater
12. Game 11 LAS 65% Carr
13. Game 16 TMP 63% Brady
14. Game 03 CHI 55% Foles
15. Game 15 KAN 55% Mahomes
16. Game 09 DEN 52% Lock

As a fill-in that had not practiced at QB all season, he did OK.

Hill is probably not a good as his fans hope he will be but he is definitely not as bad as the Never Taysom crowd claims.

He's obviously hurt and I don't think anyone is opposed to him getting a shot at this point. However, people question when he can make difference with the long list of injuries we have on offense.