Silver Linings...

[Flugel]

Haven't had ANY time to read or post this week so my apologies if a lot of this has already been mentioned or covered. As bad as it was to watch, some of our most critical errors and momentum changers last Sunday weren't even forced by the opponent. More specifically they can be corrected and easily avoided. If it looked more like the Houston Texans overpowering us at the point of attack on offense and defense again - then I'd be more inclined to panic about what's ahead.

 

My walk in football taught me that the team willing to do the most little things over a 60 minute contest usually gets flagged less frequently (reward for less shortcut taken) while seeing better results on the scoreboard. Preparation plays a big role in all this as well.

 

Last Sunday, our defense had what looked to be a 3 and out under their belt when we had about 3 different guys roughing the kicker. Pretty disappointing to see a pro football special team unit look less disciplined than many junior varsity high school teams do. Again, before we race to give our defense and/or Josh McCown blame - my favorite play maker this year (Travis Benjamin) fumbles a punt back to Oakland. He's been pretty dialed in for most of this season; but maybe it's a good learning experience for him to see you can't get complacent or lose focus. Also, you know what causes a lot of blocks in the back on returns? Being out of position or just plain stupidity. Either way, it reflects preparation or a lack thereof. This shouldn't be that tough to improve; especially if our coaching staff prioritizes field position. It's a very doable problem solve IMO.

 

New Offensive Line Coach hired this week. I'll bet this worries people; but George DeLeone was hired to be the Assistant Line Coach last year. At least we understand why that was now necessary. George keeps the continuity of what was here; but he's also learning whatever new things Flip's offense requires of the line in scheme. When Tour gets pleasantly surprised in his post game film analysis enough to name Schwartz a Co-Valedictorian performance wise, that means some guys are responding well. I don't know if I can blame a coach for Mack's weight bearing issues following the leg injury from 2014; but I'm hoping he can get back to form as he gets more reps behind him. DeLeone was Donovan McNabb's OC at SU when he was a freshman QB. He did such a nice job as an oline coach - he was worthy of the promotion to OC. Anyone can research his history and if you do - you probably won't be so worried about the new Line Coach we hired (from an experience). That said, Houston ran the football down our esophagus last year (with a backup RB) while their QB had all day to throw. That was my first impression of our new Line Coach.

 

Josh McCown. The biggest difference between him and Bridgewater right now is Adrian Peterson. I've already seen Peterson carry Christie Ponder to playoffs so let's not kid ourselves overrating him mostly because Cleveland didn't draft him. I don't think McCown is playing bad football considering the lack of a running game. The first drive vrs NY he peppered the ball around to a bunch of different targets all the way deep into NY's red zone. My biggest beef Josh starting in the preseason was putting his throwing shoulder into defenders rather than sliding with a guy sporting his experience volume. That almost assures me we will see more of Manziel so don't waste time worrying. QB isn't what kept us from winning last Sunday.

 

While I love situational football - I think our frequency of substitutions up front doesn't give anyone the fresh legs to match the idea of that. BB likes to change up his personnel too; but he won't have his big linemen sprinting on and off the field so often they're gased during 1 drive by an opponent. These aren't DBs or LBs, they're 300+ pound guys we're asking to go in and uphold 1-2 offensive linemen with 2 gap skill sets. If they're sucking gas from the windsprints to and from the sidelines, it isn't going to help where we rank against the run IMO. For example, if you're Meder standing on the sideline at the 50 yard line and your position coach says get in there. So, you run all the way to your own 10 yard line, get in your stance; and before you can catch your breath you gotta take on Mangold and possibly a double team. Sound easy? It shouldn't. I think we're getting too cute with situational football to the extent we're overthinking how often we gotta change personnel. Sometimes I wish somebody would no huddle us to give this a litmus test of what I'm saying here. In the passing game, I feel the extended lack of continuity (personnel-wise) has really caused some chemistry issues above and beyond who is playing QB. In saying all this, I LIKE Mike Pettine because I feel like he evaluates himself hard. Therefore, I think this can and will improve. He wouldn't be where he is today if he didn't self evaluate.

 

While nobody's happy with 1-2, there's still a lot of football left to be played with us only scratching the surface of upside from players and coaches. Seeing how we responded to victory after week 2 - our version of "Remember the Titans" is nobody showed up with an urgency to the next week. Time to light some fannies; and this can come from team leaders/captains too. This has never been a franchise that responded well to reading/hearing how good they are. The year we found out we were losing our football team was the same season a couple guys from the MNF Broadcast booth predicted in the preseason we'd make the Superbowl. Sorry for the length...

[Riffer X]

Hey Flugs, good post.

 

You forgot to mention that Smoke another Bowe is active this week. That should fix most everything.

[Flugel]

Hey Flugs, good post.

 

You forgot to mention that Smoke another Bowe is active this week. That should fix most everything.

 

Thanks Riffer! It'll be interesting to see if this version of active bears any resemblance to the dictionary definition. That said, I liked what I saw from Hartline last week.

[Flugel]

Any football week that kicks off with Pittsburgh losing a lead at home to an 0-3 football team makes it easy to find my game face. Not to be outdone, but I'm also appreciating Baltimore being 1-3 (to the extent I didn't mind even mind watching them beat the team I hate most). They go from a serial rapist to a serial killer of man's best friend at the QB position there in Pittsburgh. Must be fun rooting for that in places such things don't matter to man kind.

 

Meanwhile Mud just informed me SD might/will be without 3 Olinemen to help our situation against the run. Just as uplifting, our offense faces the 28th ranked defense against the run. Since last week showed us we needed to put in some serious work at running the ball and stopping the run - I appreciate the timing and potential favorable matchups we could use.

[Mudfly]

 

Last Sunday, our defense had what looked to be a 3 and out under their belt when we had about 3 different guys roughing the kicker. .... my favorite play maker this year (Travis Benjamin) fumbles a punt back to Oakland. He's been pretty dialed in for most of this season...

 

Kind of the story so far....not one thing to specifically point to as "the problem".....there are players all over the field not getting it done.....including the ones that we've grown accustomed to trusting....Whitner, Mack, Gipson, Haden, Bito, Kruger, etc.....Benjis been great this year, but that muff caused a wicked flash-back to last year.....hope it was his last for a while....

 

New Offensive Line Coach hired this week. I'll bet this worries people...

 

Not too worried here. Mack is off and Bito is off, but as a unit they aren't playing really bad. Just not great, which was the expectation. And there has been incremental improvement from game to game. These guys will be fine....

 

Josh McCown. I don't think McCown is playing bad football considering the lack of a running game. QB isn't what kept us from winning last Sunday.

Nope. The glaring difference between our 2 losses and our 1 victory is Defense. When the D showed up we won. When they didnt, we lost. Everything else was about the same game to game, including QB's.

 

While I love situational football - I think our frequency of substitutions up front doesn't give anyone the fresh legs to match the idea of that

 

This ties into my specialist rant. Which is the NFL(and Pettine, for sure) just LOVE specialists.....guys that do one thing REALLY well.....and they invest a lot of effort and planning in trying to get these "specialists" into mismatches(ie...your situations) ....but other teams are doing the same....and "good" QB's and coaches will exploit those mismatches and exploit those one dimensional players for what they are....and then we end up with a bunch of guys getting burned....this is most noticeable with our Linebacker and DL group....we need more 3 down players....

 

While nobody's happy with 1-2, there's still a lot of football left to be played........ Superbowl...

 

I think maybe people are forgetting that we were 1-2 at this time last year and showing some of the same "on and off" characteristics...bombed by Pitts, then great in the second(played half a game, like this year)......then won a solid one against NO(like this year)......then we lost one right at the end(like this year)......and week 4 was when we started crappy and blew up the Titans for that great comeback, triggering a 6-2 streak....

 

So....my silver lining is this could be our blow up week toward the good

 

sorry for the length....

 

Something Im forced to say often...

[Tour2ma]

Last Sunday, our defense had what looked to be a 3 and out under their belt when we had about 3 different guys roughing the kicker. Pretty disappointing to see a pro football special team unit look less disciplined than many junior varsity high school teams do.

 

Again, before we race to give our defense and/or Josh McCown blame - my favorite play maker this year (Travis Benjamin) fumbles a punt back to Oakland. He's been pretty dialed in for most of this season; but maybe it's a good learning experience for him to see you can't get complacent or lose focus.

Clearly you need to work on your priorities, Flugs...

 

I counted 4 in on the roughing... and oddly the Ref announced the penalty on Mingo. Of the 4 he was furthest away. I never saw him make contact. For the record ST-Ace Cardner led the way by running through the Punter's as yet still raised leg.

 

I still would love to see the reverse angle on Benji's attempt to fall on his muffed punt. Since I read nothing this week of him saying he was robbed, maybe the replay would show the ball squirted out, but unless it did... and cleanly did... he would have been down by contact.

[Flugel]

Clearly you need to work on your priorities, Flugs...

 

I counted 4 in on the roughing... and oddly the Ref announced the penalty on Mingo. Of the 4 he was furthest away. I never saw him make contact. For the record ST-Ace Cardner led the way by running through the Punter's as yet still raised leg.

 

I still would love to see the reverse angle on Benji's attempt to fall on his muffed punt. Since I read nothing this week of him saying he was robbed, maybe the replay would show the ball squirted out, but unless it did... and cleanly did... he would have been down by contact.

 

I hear ya about the priorities.

 

Good point on the inventory of 4 roughing the kicker as well as the ref busting the wrong guy. I didn't realize Benjamin had a beef with the muff. Did I really just type that?

 

I've really been enjoying your film reviews of the oline. Great job on those! That not takes a lot of time and patience but the tv cameras don't always make evaluating the oline easy so I'm glad to see your efforts are appreciated.

[Kvoethe]

#failforhackenberg

 

Haha