Big Blue Huddle

1996. A 3rd year coach coming off a down year after making the playoffs in his first season. A 1st round qb from Duke still trying to make it. High Edge and WR picks (Strahan and Lewis) expected to break out (like Thibs, Wan'Dale and Hyatt). An unproven Oline.  Many parallels. Let's hope 2024 turns out better!

While not unfair, I don't think I would personally kill him for the Neal pick.  There weren't many people who disagreed with that pick at the time it was made.  Not all draft picks will work out and early results indicate that Schoen may have had a good first draft - Thibs, Robinson, Flott, Bellinger, and Belton all look like solid contributors.  Unfortunately, he may have whiffed on his 2 OL picks, but no one bats 1.000.

On Jones, my criticism runs deeper than the contract.  His evaluation of Jones has been wildly inconsistent.  His initial evaluation was that he wasn't worth a 5th year extension of 1 year at about $23-24M. 9 months and a decent season later, his evaluation was that he was worth $160M over 4 years with $81M of that guaranteed, plus another $23M guaranteed for injury (to an injury-prone player). Now, 1 year and 6 games played after that contract was signed- behind a porous OL and with no dangerous receiving threats - he is (at least) willing to move on if the right replacement falls to him in the draft.  Regardless of what anyone thinks of Jones, those are some pretty wild swings in Schoen's opinion of his value.