lightsout

Yeah. Maybe a monthly or weekly thread, but we'll never be able to find specific posts in this bitch. Lol. Granted if we could get more active in here we could justify game threads.

Watching Kuemper absolutely smother chances has me anxious. We need consistent goal tending to get it done this year. And as I say that he gives up one to the blocker side. Lol. But otherwise he has been stellar.

Nah. If we address the OL and if Joe Brady learns to adjust faster than the last two drives of the fourth quarter, we'll be in the playoffs next year and we'll deserve it, assuming we stay healthy. We're not near as bad as some are making us out here.

TOP says nothing of morale. If your offense is milking time and not scoring, especially after generating turnovers, it hurts your morale and that can have similar effects to being on the field too much psychologically.

No but expecting your defense to keep up that level of dominance and putting them in short field situations does deflate a defense. Not everything has a metric

I have noticed a lot of those of us calm over this are canes fans and idk if its the years of us not being good that made us patient or the fact that our patience in fact paid off with the canes, but we're zen right now.

So I won't sugar coat poo. That game was embarrassing for our team. To handle a team so well and blow it is just inexcusable. However, to combat the doom and gloom that is trademark Huddle, let's be real about what has happened and what this team was always going to be in 2021. We are not a playoff team. That's not to say we won't sneak into a wildcard by the end of it, but we're not good enough to be there. What we are is a competitive team. This isn't a "moral victory" thing, it's just a fact. There are playoff elites, playoff caliber teams, and then you have competitive teams and uncompetitive teams. What I'm saying is we ain't there, but we ain't bad. Now, no shock your defense will fold if your offense sucks for most of the game. If your defense is a car, TDs and FGs scored by their offense are fuel options. Yeah, you can put regular unleaded in it and it'll run as you expect, but eventually you'll have wear and tear and poo falls apart. Premium and super cost more, but you're better for it. We kept putting regular in there all day. And what do you know, we broke down. AAA came as everybody we passed 39 miles back are passing us, laughing at our hubris. Now, can we improve this team this year? Unless we can have a couple big OL moves, no shot. Can we perform better with this team as is? Yes. As we get healthy, we'll notice a pretty big efficiency difference across the board. CMC will suddenly make our OL pass block better as now teams won't be blitzing heavy. So our OL will fare slightly better. CMC's impact is half him with the ball, half him just being a threat. Once we stop expecting playoffs or bust every year, some of you will be happier for it. This team is in a process of fixing poo. Is Darnold the long term answer? Not a single fug here knows, but I will tell you he's at minimum a damn good stop gap for the answer. At best, he's our QB for the next decade and we can focus on support for him (a far better option than hoping a draft falls our way for a top QB). Joe Brady hasn't figured out on the fly adjustments. The sky isn't falling, he's not a bad OC. He puts together good schemes and his plan works. Once it's figured out, he blanks. Lately, he figures it out late but either a player fugs up and we lose or he makes a bad call or two and we lose, after battling back. He's not there yet, but he's good. The future is bright.

Our problems haven't changed. We just didn't address them. Defensively we're just young and hurt. Offensively, we haven't had a good OL in the better part of a decade. But relax guys. We're better than we were last year. Losing tight games sucks but we're competitive. Nobody should've expected more than that this year.

Agreed. I've been laughing at the posts saying he will be a HC within 3 years for a while. He's not ready until we're hanging 28+ each week regardless of opponent. That's when OCs get promoted. Not averaging 17.

Big L for the offense as a whole, but the fact that this is a consistent issue speaks of Brady's ability to adapt and adjust after the half. That being said, it's also on Sam and also on the OL. Brady is a genius at gameplanning. I think that's obvious. The freestyling in game needs tweaking.

Yeah we don't address the OL with the proper additions, subtractions and hell I'll add coaching, we need to be questioning management.

People don't understand what they're looking at and this post shows. Not trying to be an ass here. Let me explain. From my watching alone, it seems Brady has a few different levels of passing. One is the quick hitting route combos that are 1-2 reads or dump. Designed for a specific guy. Then there are the intermediate plays that depend on a levels or flood concept. Then there are the deeper concepts that take longer. Mind you, this is basically every team. Now, yes, on the intermediate and deep plays, you would like your QB to be able to throw his eyes back and forth, turn his head even so the safeties bite. Give the impression that you're NOT waiting on a route combo to develop, and bring your eyes back. The elite do this very well. Sam Darnold is not elite. Which is OK. He isn't expected to be to be a franchise QB. Most QBs are not elite. Most are Sam Darnold. They might make a couple more flashy plays per game, but they have the same limitations. Sam is 100% being hindered behind this OL. As was Cam, as was Teddy. This is obvious. Anybody can see it. Sam does not have time to get beyond read number 2 more times than not, and more than once this game he hasn't been able to get through the first read. Now Sam has thrown a couple questionable balls this game and those ended in turnovers. He does have to be better. But I'm not sounding the horn on it and calling him washed because of it. From my perspective, he's trying to make something happen. Still ill advised, still not the play to make. However, Favre types have made a career out of that style of play. When most say "staring down receivers", I take it with a grain of salt because it's often just watching the primary read before moving on. Again, elite QBs don't do that often and that is partly why they're elite. Sam should learn that skill, but I don't anticipate that he will because most don't do it consistently. It's like expecting every receiver to run the absolute best technique on routes (power out of the hole, run every route like it's a go, stick every cut hard without showing it's coming). Most receivers don't. This offensive line is simply not going to allow Sam to develop that and until that gets addressed, I'm good using a hockey stat of +/- to judge his performance. Did he do more good than harm. I'd say in this game, he's even. Most games? He's been + and it isn't even close. And no, it's not about TD/int ratio.

Really hope you get a life worth paying attention to next year, because you're absolutely trash and have been for a while to be honest.

No way we actual follow through on the big points swing after the safety right? Score, get the ball back second half, score. But nah, instead let's throw away that opportunity

It can't be understated how important it is, at least for some people, how much comfort can play a part in an individual's ability to perform well in everything in their life. Gilmore coming back home, bringing his family down here who seem to want to be here, that could be big. If he looks at his wife and sees her happier and the rest of his life is presumably very solid and he's a man of beliefs and standards as it is, he could very well be able to focus better on football and feel better mentally and this could lead to a return to peak form after not being "as good as he once was" according to some. Gilmore, at minimum, is a tremendous stop gap for Horn and is a GREAT vet presence to have for Horn. This will pay dividends regardless for the whole DB room.

Oh I appreciate the poo out of this

A mug that says #1 dad and banging my mom. I know, one of those EVERYBODY gets, and the other is just a mug, but still.

We just played Dallas at the hottest point we're likely to see them all year. They will be mediocre as always by the trade deadline. But right now? Riding high at 2-1, in their house, buying their own hype. And they escaped us with help from the refs, help from our OL who spent much of the game singing the 1984 hit Take On Me by a-ha, and Phil Snow's evil doppelganger Phillip Rain. With all of that against us, they escaped by 8 on our worst day. Darnold threw for 300 yards and 2 tds while rushing for 2 more and damn near being our leading rusher, on his worst day. So I don't wanna hear no fuging bullshit about how we got exposed. How we're not a winning record team. How we're not going to be competitive. We just battled back to put ourselves in a position to tie the game late after the deck was stacked against us, momentum was gone, we had no reason to fight....but we fought anyway. This team has moxy. This team knows what it takes to win. This team is also dinged up. But none of that matters because at the end of the day, you either have heart or you don't. This team whipped theirs out and hung it out the window for the world to see. Either take yours out too or sit there trying not to stare at those of us dangling it from the window as we ride 485. Keep fuging pounding

Means a lot coming from you. I didn't think there was much a place here for in-depth football talk but guys like you and a couple others sort of showed there's definitely people that understand and enjoy it. Basically, can you be my dad?

Partly yeah (the coverages were more the reference because of how we could disguise and confuse by rolling guys down and bailing them out). In college and high school, this works very well. Against professional teams that stick to their blocking rules and are good at communicating, it's elementary.

Yeah we were way more multiple in other games too. That's what shocked me, we didn't come out of the odd front. We tried to mask it by rolling under with a 7-3-nose shade to the strength with the backside being head up on guard or even 2i and the backer at a 5. But then weren't getting the linebackers doing their jobs and cutting under blocks rather than fighting across and making the play. And of course they'd just run belly weak off of a motion. Just a complete poo show across the board.

YGM is an element I don't think I accounted for. Perhaps the secondary injuries plus not having him, we didnt feel confident in our DL depth to run 4 down for half the game? Idk.

Teachable moment. Let's see how Snow adjusts moving forward. I fully expected to see more 4 and 5 man lines to combat the two TE sets, but instead we got rolled down under fronts. Not a bad idea, but not the personnel to do it well.

Those defenses operated differently than we did today. Snow LOVES sending pressure. We saw it that last series. We stacked up the line, put our safety in the box, and blitzed at least one linebacker. Every time. Why did it fail? Because you need odd fronts to have two things. A dominant nose that is immovable and requires double and triple teams and linebackers that can read and react quickly. Your ends have to be great two gap defenders. I love our DL, but that isn't what they do. They attack hard and squeeze poo down. They don't jam up the blocker and shed to either side effectively to dominant both gaps.

Let me just break down why Zeke ate us alive. It's not because we're bad. It's because our game plan was awful. We expected a throwing attack, they didn't give it to us much. We actually ran a lot of 5 man fronts, but they were shell fronts. We lined up with a nose and two guys lined up at 3tech, with our outside backers walked up on the line. They're boxing on the edge, but that means they're not fighting for inside control and they're not going to be able to squeeze the end man on the line down inside to take away the b/c gap. So you essentially put 3 on 3 inside, hat on a hat. And since they ran so much power and belly, they would just down block and pull the backside guard. This left us utterly out of position and with no bodies to get to the lane. It's easy blocking for Dallas. Same situation with zone schemes. Add in missed tackles/bad decisions by linebackers on angles and gaps to hit, we're looking at roughly 250 yards rushing and a one score game. Despite our OL, despite the refs, despite empty possessions and a turnover, we were within a score and 2 point conversion...if only we had ran more 4 man fronts and not made the run game so easily available.