Likewise.

I'm treating him like I was treating Charles - if he came back and contributed, that's gravy. But I didn't expect Charles to make a difference this year even before his setback.

Same thing with Maclin. You just can't operate under the assumption that he'll be back strong. In a long enough career, just about every player will have a 'lost' season in there somewhere and they happen for a variety of reasons. For a truly great player, it usually takes a few reasons.

Welp, the injury kinda felt like a kill-shot. I just don't see him getting back to his 2015 form. The only shot, IMO, is the playoffs. Perhaps the next 4 weeks will get him back into playing shape and the emotion of the playoffs will snap him out of his funk. But I'd say that's still a bit of a longshot.

I don't expect him to come back and dominate, but I certainly hope that he can come back and at least draw some attention (or at least more than Conley/Wilson currently are doing). If we can just get Hill and Kelce into one-on-ones a little more, it'll make a huge difference.

In his absence we've been doing what we should have been doing the whole time.

Targeting Kelcee, running the ball, and creating mismatches at the WR position.

How is Dan Quinn so bad at building a defense?

Can somebody answer that for me?

The guy was the DC of those great Seahawks defenses. I'm flummoxed.

Pioli

Carroll is the mastermind there.

Similar to how all the Pat guys have went elsewhere and failed, unless you're getting the brain of the operation, I would go elsewhere.

The good news is we don't NEED them.

We NEED Ford and Houston healthy. We NEED Peters. We NEED Poe.

If Maclin is even 50% then it's a huge gain. The guy was making plays in New England on 1 leg last year.

We absolutely need Maclin.

We don't need Maclin to be 2015 Maclin, but we need him to go out there, light a fire under his teammates on offense, get in DBs faces and heads, run sharp routes, and catch the balls thrown to him. And, most of all, attract a ton of attention.

It wouldn't hurt, but we don't NEED him...

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I have to respectfully disagree lol.

I think we NEED maclin. If our run game isnt working one day in the playoffs, and Hill or Kelce are having a off day, we are screwed.. We would be hoping either Conley or Wilson steps up in that scenario which hasnt really happened
all year long in most cases....

Having Maclin back brings a WR1 Maclin WR2 Hill WR3 Conley, TE Kelce with Wilson subbin in.. thats a bad ass receiving corps. Conley has shown that hes pretty good when hes getting hot, the problem is hes not hot often enough for us. However, three big boys like Kelce/Maclin/Conley out there, with Hill running around like a mad-man with the dual threat of alex and our run game out of the backfield is alot for defenses to handle.

We don't need Maclin except against the Broncos and the Patriots. There's a fair chance we play either team in the playoffs.

The Pats are experts at taking away your team's #1 weapon. Kelce, probably.

We need more weapons to counter that.

The Broncos, meanwhile, have the league's best CB combo, and they play really, really angry on defense. Maclin is the fire you need to fight fire.

We won't be playing Denver if we take care of business at Arrowhead, IMO. Their remaining schedule is tough.

The problem is that knocking Denver out may just mean we get Pittsburgh for our efforts.

Gonna have to beat good teams to win in the playoffs. If it's at home, after a bye, well, let's do it.