Khyber53

51 minutes ago, jayboogieman said:

My thoughts are along the same line. Preseason was the time to see if the rookies could play against NFL starters, not week 5 if you're a head coach.

It's not the sexy answer, but it is probably the right answer. If the potential was really there, they'd have tested it by now.

47 minutes ago, BrianS said:

BC has played as a LT since he came into the BYU lineup.  Moving him to the RT, as a rookie in the NFL makes absolutely no sense.  If you're going to try BC, you try him on the left, at tackle.  Moving him to guard won't gain us anything.  BC isn't a power guy, and that's our problem on the interior.  In the extremely limited sample size we have of him, he didn't look quite ready.  Maybe he grows into it if you throw him in the fire.  I dunno.

I would like to see Deonte on the bench more often.  I don't see how we get the answers we need with him inactive every week.  Maybe he looks really bad in practice, maybe there is something with his weight.  We can't make those calls from our seats here.  Still, I'd hoped we'd see at least a series or two from him by this point.

Yes, our OLine is a problem.  Everyone, everywhere knows it.  Yes, it's a problem for continuing Sam's development.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's possible to fix it this year without sacrificing the future.  

Personally, on the Deonte side, I think they've been working him to lose the weight (reportedly he's gone down from 364 at the pro day to 330-ish currently). It's hard to lose that much weight that fast without losing some muscle. There were conditioning issues back then obviously, but there may be different ones now caused by that change.

Still, some reps on special teams as a blocker could help Deonte get into fighting shape.

I just can't say how I'd rejigger the line right now, simply because I don't know what the coaches know at the moment. I do know what I've seen and it definitely needs to get better.

And the coaches have seen that, too. There's no way they've missed it.

But they haven't sent Christensen or Brady out there, no matter how much handwringing the fanbase has gone through. There must be a reason. And that might be that they are honestly sending their best five potential blockers out there, sad as that might be. 

19 hours ago, RumHam said:

well they entered 31st against the pass.

How'd they leave?

22 minutes ago, methodtoll said:

What the hell was even the point of the draft? Half of the people that were drafted didn't even change brands... Kind of a waste to me. It's not it will matter much anyways because they will find ways to have wrestlers show up on different shows each week. 

And please, for the love God, WWE, stop using Oldberg as an attraction for your shows... No one cares for Goldberg anymore.

I have yet to figure out why there's a draft or even two different brands anyway. They just wrestle the same pairings over and over again then drag them out again for the PPV which usually ends up being a snoozefest.

And it's not just Goldberg, but also Edge, John Cena, Brock Lesnar, the Undertaker and a bunch of guys who'd moved on, but are being lured back for big checks just to put butts in seats. The only thing about these guys are that they offer is the chance to create a belt change without losing heat for one of the current belt holders. Also, it's lazy writing/booking on the part as a whole. 

1 hour ago, BrianS said:

With the exception of the interior OL. 

Perhaps the exterior OL also. 

This whole team seems to have gotten major gains from the team weights program. 

15 hours ago, MHS831 said:

While we are on the topic of Shaq--many of those big runs were on Carter.   He has gone Whitehead on us.

No, there's a difference in being trucked by Zeke and being completely incompetent and unmotivated on the field. 

Carter isn't Luke (Lord, who is though?) but he sure isn't Whitehead. Carter's out there earning a paycheck and has been decent in previous games. This time, the Dallas run game just had us. Their strength overmatched our quickness. 

Could Carter be better, though? Yeah, he could, but he has also been doing a lot to make this defense one of the best until we got steamrollered on Sunday. Let's see if he can even it out against the Eagles.

And back on subject, sure hope Shaq can make it back quickly. He has been setting the tone out there.

Yeah, WWE is losing this iteration of the wrestling wars. After watching the draft last night, it makes me wonder if Kevin Owens must have re-signed with WWE rather than taking off for AEW as had been rumored when his contract expires in Dec.

41 minutes ago, Catsfan69 said:

Grogan was the man.  Craig James was the other one they had. 

I don't remember the cocaine guy.

I think that was Irving Fryar. The cocaine thing seemed to touch off the whole drug testing thing in the NFL becoming a serious deal. There were actually like 6 Patriots in that game that were implicated I believe.

1 hour ago, Mr. Scot said:

I remember Grogan... somewhat. Didn't know he'd be on this list.

Ditto Bubby Brister but no Fran Tarkenton?

I would love to see one of those "distance travelled" things done on some of Fran's scrambles. 3,674 career rushing yards for Fran's career measured in the traditional way. 73,421 yards travelled, though.

Diggs had a great day and he's having a heck of a season. Can't take that away from him.

Once he left the field, we marched at will. That's something Dallas should be looking at this week. The rest of their coverage is pretty suspect.

26-39, 66% completions, 301 yds, 2 TD, 2 INT for Darnold. Remove the Diggs stats from above: 24-32, 75%, 267, 2 TD and that's while under massive pressure. One guy did their heavy lifting.

CMC will be back soon.

Henderson will have had more than a cup of coffee with the defensive coaches.

YGM will be back in the rotation.

We'll be a lot better coming out of this stretch than you think. 4 out of 5 isn't unlikely, and 5 out of 5 wins is certainly on the table. 

We're a good team, we're going to get better.

1 minute ago, Mr. Scot said:

Grogan?

Grogan was the man for a little while there. Or specifically, the only guy that New England had. I was just a kid but danged if I can remember another Patriot besides him from back in the day, except for that guy who pretty much passed out from cocaine after catching the pass in their Super Bowl vs. the Bears.

3 hours ago, NAS said:

We had one really bad quarter.  Team will bounce back. It’s good to get a loss like this out of the way early 

^This, 100 percent.

Take the third quarter away from both teams and it is an entirely different outcome.

We're going to beat the bad teams handily this year. We're going to beat the decent teams this year. We're going to flat out challenge the good teams this year and we'll be killed by the best teams. We're not complete yet.

But mark my words, no matter how good our opponent is on any given week, if they flinch or sleep on us, they'll get beat.

Sometimes a team like we have can do some damage and win further into the post season than anyone has a reason to believe. 

You and I only see what's on the field. We aren't privy to what is happening in practice, the film rooms or positional groups work. The coaches have all that information.

Christensen and Brown are on the bench, or without a uniform, because they aren't ready yet. It is as simple as that. Rhule isn't just trying to lose games and keep some genius rookies hidden from the league's eyes.

If either were good enough, ripe on the vine so to say, they'd have been out there.

Burns was neutralized by holding. Reddick took a beating and was neutralized. Shaq was completely neutralized by a combination of blocking, holding and having to assist in passing routes. Brown was just beat up like a young kid stuck between a group of grown men.

Henderson has been here long enough to have a cup of coffee and learn a few teammates names. Bouye's first action of the season and who knows if he understands the defense yet.

On the Cowboys side, Zeke Elliott woke up and was the bruising back he usually is. Pollard was running well, too. Dak didn't have the day the stats show, but he found the right man enough times to make it work. Their o-line, when they weren't getting away with holds, was just mauling our guys. And we can't frikkin' cover a skilled TE with this personnel.

They had a better game plan than we did and they played hard. Refs were bad and that bounced in Dallas' favor. Still we kept answering the bell and wading back into the fray. Congrats to the winners and good job in defeat by our guys. 

The Eagles will be facing a wiser group of Panthers now, ones that have taken a hard punch and gotten back up. 

Let's make it matter again.

13 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

 

If we're going to have more consistent success on offense behind this porous OL we have to find a way to speed up Darnold's processing time. When he isn't pressured, he's simply too slow to read the field. I think he can do it. Like I said, oddly enough he seems to play better when early pressure forces him to make a fast decision. We just have to find a way to get him to make these decisions without the defense forcing his hand.

 

First year in this offense for Darnold as well. That may be affecting processing speed a bit. Truth be told, however, the kid has the "it" factor, though. He's got a winner's mentality. Pair that up with a year in Brady's system and there will be some fireworks.

Actually, it might come sooner than that. We're a team that's still learning its way, from QB on down. Yesterday's game might be just what the doctor ordered to bring things around.

Bring on the Eagles, we'll see the Cowboys again someday.

We're going to be fine. We're going to be fine.

The Cowboys are going to wonder what hit them.

Grilling out burgers and hotdogs, with air fryer tater tots!

1 hour ago, Leeroy Jenkins Ph.D. said:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G0AT1ykLzxQ&t=18s

Great vid!

Any thoughts on how we're able to shut down the running game? Is it the d-line (I've seen Burns and Reddick very involved in run D rather than just existing as pass rush specialists), is Brown that good at clogging up the middle? Are our LBs playing like the second coming of the Three Horsemen (Luke, Davis and Thompson)? Big support from DBs and safeties?

Or is it just an overall explosion of motivation? The entire defense seems to take this personal that they will own the field. There are so many of them in on every tackle, very little standing around and being out of place. Playing with drive and desire.

Dang, this iteration of the Panthers has been long awaited!

21 hours ago, LinvilleGorge said:

I would have LOVED to have had Watson pre-scandal but I think that asking price would have doomed us to continually field a shitty overall roster floated to hopefully be decent by an elite QB. It would be really tough to build a contender giving up three 1sts and 2nds. That's a LOT of cheap potential talent.

Too steep, especially for a single asset in a game that can end careers in a single snap (no pun intended). Not even counting the eventual scandal, we'd have had a ghost squad of players on the roster in two years that featured no inexpensive new talent and whoever else we could afford for the bloated salary Houston had given Watson.

Sometimes the best blessings are the things you didn't receive.