Today, 10:20 AM
I think that game just looked like one of those games where you go in with the wrong gameplan and you can’t fix it midgame. I thought the defense was pretty good. Run defense was obviously a concern, but I think if the offense is average-ish, you look at us winning and we’re saying that the Falcons were one-dimensional and Penix couldn’t get them out of the hole. I think we were clearly gashed by a premier back. There’s only a handful of backs in the league that would have abused us in that situation. Given that we’re kind of running a pass-rush focused group, that all have weaknesses in run-defense, I would expect more teams to try and run the ball to keep Flores’s blitzes at bay, but I don’t think many teams will be able to replicate that level of production on the ground.
Offense was a bigger concern. I think there was just too many problems all at once and you couldn’t really fix it, especially with an inexperienced QB still in that area where he’s seeing everything for the first time, who had one less day of prep due to MNF, and also had a baby midweek and missed time there. The biggest concern I have is that KOC keeps having these games, where the OLine can’t hold up long enough to execute his deep passing game, and there’s just never really any answers schematically. This team should have much better answers for this problem besides getting better OLine players. There should always be some part of the playbook that focuses on getting the ball out quickly, and I just don’t think it exists, but I think this team looks massively different when Darrisaw gets back (assuming he looks normalish), because you don’t have a leftside that looks like Liability-Rookie. Swapping from a backup caliber LT to a stud LT will go a long way, but I think we have to ask “if Darrisaw isn’t ready to go yet, what does that mean for his season and how productive will he actually be”.
I think people are shitting on JJM a little too much right now, when it feels to me like the OLine is so bad. We’ll probably struggle on offense for a while against teams that have imposing DLines. Like you really need a more veteran QB to compensate for bad OLine play, so getting the OLine back to competency will go a long ways and is probably the key factor in our success this season.
Offense was a bigger concern. I think there was just too many problems all at once and you couldn’t really fix it, especially with an inexperienced QB still in that area where he’s seeing everything for the first time, who had one less day of prep due to MNF, and also had a baby midweek and missed time there. The biggest concern I have is that KOC keeps having these games, where the OLine can’t hold up long enough to execute his deep passing game, and there’s just never really any answers schematically. This team should have much better answers for this problem besides getting better OLine players. There should always be some part of the playbook that focuses on getting the ball out quickly, and I just don’t think it exists, but I think this team looks massively different when Darrisaw gets back (assuming he looks normalish), because you don’t have a leftside that looks like Liability-Rookie. Swapping from a backup caliber LT to a stud LT will go a long way, but I think we have to ask “if Darrisaw isn’t ready to go yet, what does that mean for his season and how productive will he actually be”.
I think people are shitting on JJM a little too much right now, when it feels to me like the OLine is so bad. We’ll probably struggle on offense for a while against teams that have imposing DLines. Like you really need a more veteran QB to compensate for bad OLine play, so getting the OLine back to competency will go a long ways and is probably the key factor in our success this season.
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