mav1234

His 2nd half was gutsy and really good. He also HAD to take chances because of the situation his team was in. Honestly the two looked pretty similar in terms of sitting in and taking hits, delivering the ball to open receivers, and largely avoiding mistakes..

Kyle Allen had 4 games he started before he deteriorated pretty bad, and he didn't fall off a cliff until later. He also was doing decently at WFT before his injuries... Unfortunately it may take time to find these guys flaws but it usually happens. Other times, a new Jake Delhomme is born. Haha

It's interesting this is something that came up here in preseason over and over as a point of emphasis for Darnold, too. Both Darnold and Winston have a history of poor decision making. Both coaching staffs are trying to put these guys in better situations with less risk of those poor decisions I think.

Winston had very talented offensive skill players around him but it seemed like he was frequently asked to play hero ball, like Darnold.

Hard to argue Peyton's coaching prowess at this point, although I did wonder for a bit if Hill was blackmailing him or some crap based on the fascination with him as QB. I think the Saints also have a better overall roster, but I may be wrong. At least, more experienced. I still think the game should be competitive and fun to watch.

Td/int ratio is meaningless for this sort of comparison, since so much of TDs relates to schemes, etc. Winston is one of the few players with a higher interception percent of passes thrown (3.4%) than Darnold (3.1%). But neither were necessarily in the best situations coaching wise. We will see.

If the coaches think he is in some way worse than the starting option we have, it makes perfect sense for him to be inactive given his lack of versatility. I don't understand their perspective, unless it has to do with conditioning for a full game or season... But if I grant that is their perspective I understand why he's in inactive. I also don't watch practice or film of him. I still think we see him starting before the end of the year.

Good to see your tune changing now that you think you're safe from that ban lol

Talk about doing more with less... Well, last year anyway, now both sides are stacked. I think Brady has lots of room to grow tho.

I think they could do it, but I don't even think Rhule wants to do it (more than his current position), so it's a bit moot.

Lol at posters that think USC will have trouble recruiting or building a contender. If they land a solid coach, it's going to be a destination, especially with the new rules on image use etc. As to being in the pac12, conference realignments are just beginning..

How does anyone look at Rhule and say his heart is in the NCAA? He also doesn't seem like someone to quit a year into a rebuild.

Worth noting that Sam had something like 7 games with >100 QB rating in his first 28 games before that streak started. Hopefully he can find more consistency here. He is off to a promising start.

I am hoping Brady finds more ways to scheme to get the ball to our TEs and receivers. The OL being as bad as it is makes Cmc an attractive target in the passing game.. even more than he already is. No reason to have this talent on O and go an entire season of 30 touches. I don't think they will.

I remember feeling like the Snow hire was evidence of what looked far too much like nepotism that could cripple us. Boy, was I wrong. Snow looks like the real deal and has those guys buying in.

Convert? Dunno. Call people stupid or lazy for pointing out the silliness of Thomas being higher rated than CMC on Sunday? Yes. I mean, there's an unerring belief in the superiority of these particular quantitative measures that borders on faith there...

I thought he was picked up for this reason too, to give us flexibility and a potential future at center.

Just because some of us think an attempt to create a quantitative index from qualitative external play assessments is flawed does not mean we are stupid or lazy. You can like it, I can not, and it doesn't make me stupid or lazy. I personally think any system that rates a player generating half a teams offense as approximately average, especially throwing the blocks and breaking tackles as he did, seems flawed. But I'm also not privy to their individual play breakdowns and I haven't seen a summary for CMCs score, so perhaps he had some critical miscues we missed. In aggregate their numbers are almost always consistent with what I'd expect from any system, and in aggregate they generally do much other quantitative accumulations like yards etc. I just don't put any stock in any score specifically, especially from one game. That does not make me stupid, lol.

I agree with that... "It could be worse" isn't much of an endorsement heh

As much as I hated the punt, it is good to see Rhule is unsatisfied.

There is no evidence that Cam didn't learn the playbook.

Even those of us as white as can be can see the ridiculous racism Cam (and others OFC) have had to deal with. It really pisses me off is how that comment by Nikovich got passed off as a legitimate comment by the media, with so few outlets bothering to critically expose the ridiculousness of it, even if not it's reliance on a racist undertones... Interestingly I never saw anyone doubting Jones' intelligence for needing his girlfriend to help him learn a playbook. Funny how that fuging works.

I don't get it. Should have gone for it... Or, played for four downs in that part of the field... The 33 isn't amazing field position if we fail to convert. Just need a playcall that gets the ball out fast and gives one of our playmakers a shot.

That's fair. It's just odd because I saw multiple plays from CMC that seemed quite good, and he was constantly being lauded by announcers... And fans of opposing teams. But as you say, not worth getting worked up over a single games grades. We don't even know exactly why his grade was that so perhaps we missed some critical errors.

I do appreciate that PFF is not grading player quality explicitly. But if the grades do not at all reflect the players outcome on the game, are they valuable on a single game basis at all? If relative grades between players do not reflect the contribution differences between those players, what exactly is their value? As an approximate aggregate over a season, sure, they provide some insight as one quantitative assessment of a player. But given the limited sample size of a single game, and the qualitative basis on which they are derived, they just don't see like something worth paying much attention to in isolation.