mbarbour21

That and trust in our o-line. I have to believe a lot of it comes from the fear our o-line wont give Darnold the time. Which is why I hope we put the majority of our focus this coming up off-season on fixing that issue. Should be number one priority if Darnold works out.

I'm sticking with my prediction from the season prediction thread: Week 2 vs New Orleans Saints - Win (2-0). I predict Winston has a huge game Week 1 and throws 4 TDs with no INTs. Which means, it's quite possible he does the opposite against us the next week. I just think he will be riding high and so he starts the game slinging it. Bottling Kamara will be a problem. W 24-20

I don't know man, I gotta put that on Sam. I could be wrong, I'd have to re-watch it. I mean, they are obviously both responsible. But Sam has been in the NFL for 3 years. lol! It's a hand off. Mistakes are made even in the NFL so I'm not gonna be too hard on him, but yeah....that was ugly.

No doubt. That and the horrible fumble situation. I'm not placing blame in the post. I'm just saying we don't seem to take advantage of other teams screw ups. The Saints do. We need to capitalize on it like they do. I mean, it's not all on Darnold. There were other plays before and after those plays, but I agree he needs to get better there.

I'm not sure what Rhule's reasoning was, but I trust the QB.....it's the OL that I don't trust.

This is why I say the Saints took advantage of GB's miscues. I don't feel like we did that. We should have won by at least two more TDs. We have to take advantage of Winston's mistakes. If we don't, then it could possibly get bad. I think it will be a close game. We will see.

I expect a win for us. I know the Saints balled out last week, but it should not be that easy this weekend. Our defense looked legit. We should be able to slow Kamara down and force them to beat us with Winston. We just have to be smart on offense.

I fully agree with this. 100 yards after the half? I'm sorry, but he didn't seem to mix it up enough BEFORE the red zone. Granted, Rhule is right. If the final score was 33-14 we probably wouldn't be having this conversation. It could have easily been that too. But, that doesn't mean that we overlook other issues because we had red zone issues. It really looked like the "run, run, pass" days of old. I don't believe we had a big enough lead for that. We have to stop playing to not lose, versus playing to win. It will come back to bite us.

From the very beginning? For 17 weeks? I don't know man. If he wasn't such a receiving option then I could probably agree. But you know we are gonna get him a lot of touches that way as well. He isn't the one to be running out of bounds either. And he doesn't like going down on first contact like ever. Dude falls forward even when it's against the laws of physics. You don't think it's wise to somewhat limit his touches? Or are you saying we should limit his touches by throwing to other people and letting him take the massive bulk of rushes? If not, you really don't think we are over-using him?

Okay, fair point.

Seems fair. We barely beat the Jets AT HOME, Saints destroyed the Packers (on the road I think, but it wasn't at GB either right?). Either way, we don't deserve to be favored in this game. The Packers looked horrible yesterday, but the Saints took advantage of that. Our game should have been a blowout, but it wasn't. We didn't take advantage of our opportunities. A team who's red zone scoring is 25% will most likely never be favored.

Chubba didn't even get one rush. I don't understand it. He obviously was not a receiving back in college. Why not give him a few touches to settle him in. The season is 17 games long now, and that doesn't include the post season. Hopefully, Royce gets up to speed quickly. We need some rotation.

Green Bay looked disinterested to me. On one of the INTs from Rodgers, the targeted WR didn't really try to run down the CB who picked him off. I'm not saying that the Saints are horrible, I just think it falls more on GB just not showing up. Winston had 5 TDs but only threw for like 150 yards or something. (under 200 for sure) It was probably the most underwhelming 5 TD game in history. Saints rushed for almost 150 yards. They didn't have to lean on Winston's arm. If we can continue the run defense and pressure from the Jet's game, then we can force them to try to beat us with Winston. The only INT Winston threw got called back because of a roughing the passer penalty. Zach was pressured on almost 75% of his drop-backs. Saints o-line is better than the Jets, but Winston will have people in his face. I don't think he handles it as well as Zach did.

Totally agree on that. I tried to explain to someone how good Mahomes looked in the Super Bowl. lol! Got to factor in that he was running for his life and was still making good plays, regardless if the guy on the other side of the ball was or not. Looking at the stats don't tell the whole story. We were in Wilson's face on like 75% of his drop backs. We had over 30 pressures. He handled it well in my opinion.

Does he play Offensive Coordinator?

Do you think that is the plan BECAUSE our offensive line isn't good? Or do you think we would still have the same plan if they were better?

These are some issues that I believe we typically had last year and how we faired yesterday in comparison: - Bridgewater was not making deep throws (We had one good completion. To be fair, our 0-line is still severely limiting our ability to go deep. I feel like we did see better arm talent though, and it isn't because our QB is unwilling, isn't capable, or is ignoring/not seeing a wide open Moore.) - No CMC for most of the year (This is obviously improved. Maybe a bit too much improved. Most agree we over used CMC and need to find a way to spell him. The season didn't get any shorter, that's for sure.) - No TE production for the majority of the year (More of the same. Would have loved to see Tremble get some targets, even if it was from out of the back. Tremble should not come off field for Ricci.) - Very poor play in the red zone (More of the same again. Turnovers, bad throws, getting stuff.....rinse and repeat. Offense did well when they were spread out. Darnold could have crawled in the end zone. Turnover was a stupid fluke play. Hopefully the miscues in the red zone will not be the norm. - Slye on FGs (More of the same yet again. Yes Slye did well for the Texans, but he didn't do well for us. It's very possible he played no better than Santoso if he was still rocking the black and blue.....or the white ice cream uniforms....whatever. In case you have been hiding under a rock, WE PUNTED ON THEIR 33 YARD-LINE.) - Defense could not execute on 3rd down to save their life (Very much improved! We made them look almost as bad as us on 3rd downs. It was mentioned before somewhere on this site that we would have lost this game last year. This is exactly why we didn't. We got them off the field, and that is refreshing.) - Defense could not stop the run (I feel like this goes without saying. Last year we would have given up more yards on a single rush TWICE, than we gave up all game. Held them to 45. If this continues and we keep the improved pass rush we are gonna be a force.) - Raw rookies starting in the secondary (We had a rookie in the secondary, but he def wasn't raw. He gave up that TD late, but that was mostly the result of a perfect pass. They went his way 3 times. Horn balled. Chinn was def an upgrade at the safety position. There just seemed to be one major issue with that completion to Mims. But the unit looked much improved over Jackson/Douglas, Pride, Burris, and Franklin....or whatever group we had most often. ***How do you guys think we faired in the areas we performed poorly in last year?***

I wish that Matt Ryan pic was GIF right now. HAHA!

I had the same thought, especially with YGM piggy backing.

I just can't watch that gif of him eating that W. It is too cringe.

They could have shopped him and grabbed a QB of the future. But if things keep going the way they went yesterday, they look like they will have that option in this years draft too.

We need to get Royce in on these situations. We don't even have to take CMC out. We can have two backs or CMC in slot. Whatever, but we need that element. We can have both, we just have to put the right guys in.

At least our FB got a strip sack.....

He was dropping screen passes if I remember correctly.