ForJimmy

The problem is we didn't have enough starters healthy early on. Our LG is just getting healthy, Hunt was in and out of joint practice, XL was injured, and Johnson is injured. It would be our QB behind an incomplete OL without his first round WR and he best WR. Tremble was also banged up along with out backup tackle and backup QB (imagine if Dalton's injury lingered and Bryce gets hurt. You want Plummer in the regular season?). I think this is why he didn't play them early. He kept saying we see how they are looking health wise before he made a decision. So he could trot out half an offense or try to make some play through mild injuries that could turn more severe. Now if you are wanting reps vs starters that is tough to find. The Pats played their starters for 1 series and the Jets didn't play them at all. So that would have been one brief series of a offense missing key pieces going against a Pats defense in week 1. Again there are 100s of different factors that go into this, which is why there isn't one specific way to do it.

I'm on the same boat. Try to put a competitive team on the field and if we get 6 wins with a functioning offense I'll call it a success.

Maybe it’s a good sign we held our own against NYJ? Who knows?

Right. It's a working progress regardless. I'm sure people will blame preseason, but it's really irrelevant.

Plus Bryce played in the preseason his rookie year. Cross everyone off his list but Stroud, AR, and Levis.

I get it. It's why I'm on the boat of it doesn't matter. Play them and get the ready, sounds good. Keep them healthy and work on depth, go for it.

It just shows there are so many different ways to do this. Last week would have been against the Jets backups as they didn’t play starters either. The Patriots starters barely played week 1 also.

Wouldn't this be the whole getting reps and getting comfortable in the offense argument?

I could be wrong but I don’t think the upset fans are mad about the losses/wins. They just want to see the starters get reps and look comfortable. It’s why I understand both sides, I just don’t think it’s as big of a deal as people are making it. Thanks for the data though!

Beating our win total from last year in 4 games would be incredible. It’s not likely regardless of preseason. I know people want definite answers but we are going to be bad regardless so it will be hard to tell one way or another.

Just keep practicing it and trying it and see what happens. Looks like he hit ISM and TMJ deep this same practice (just looking at the tweets shared in this thread). So 2/3 this practice that we know of. He will either get the timing down or not, but it looks like DC isn't going to shy away from it which is good.

And won a Super Bowl not playing his starters. Again he tried both approaches and is sticking his keeping his starters out of preseason games. Try to spin it differently but that looks like he prefers one vs the other.

Sure they could use reps. I’m saying it’s not going to ruin there season or make me give up on a new coach if they don’t have any reps in a meaningless game. I think it would be nice, but I understand there is more than one approach. Cool so McVay changed his approach after one year and it worked out pretty good for him. That doesn’t help the case at all, it might strengthen it. He has tried both and is sticking with not playing his starters. Virtue signal? I’m just saying it’s not a big deal. It’s too early to get all dramatic and worked up on something so insignificant. It’s a difference of opinion and no amount of theatrics is really going to change that.

https://x.com/mike_e_kaye/status/1826004369931907295 And they all cleared waivers with Robinson and Jackson going to our IR list. A lot of whining for nothing…

Calling the HC vanilla and boring after 2 preseason games would be overreacting. Yes we are going to be bad this year sad yes our offense will be a working process. You already know some of these guys will blame it on preseason when everyone knows it’s going to happen regardless.

McVay is notorious for doing this. Even when he had Goff through his up and down years. Eagles also have not played starters yet this preseason. Those two teams are just off the top of my head. It hard to Google data on it because it’s such a random, useless statistic…. Go ahead and add the Jets since you just said they aren’t either. I don’t believe I’ve seen Kyler Murray take any snaps in Arizona or Cousins in ATL.

People can't even wait for actual games to overreact.

The problem with this is the Panthers aren’t the only team that does this. Joint practices plus the preseason games dropping to 3 keeps it a wide open format for every team. Some play starters, some don’t, some play them the first game, some the 3rd, some get 1 series, some get 1 quarter. It’s just random. I do think Canales doesn’t want to play his starters with his current banged up OL if he can prevent it. That’s a good way to start off out of sync. Especially in a game that counts for nothing…

That business idea sucks. I said it first! Where is my shirt??

That's exactly what I have been saying about deep passes. It's a timing issue. The ability is typically there as I remember several OVERthrows, but the timing with Young and his WRs is what is going to make it work or not. It's exactly what happened with Tua when he got in sync with Hill/Waddle. Even if the arm isn't a rocket QBs can usually air it out and hit a certain spot at a certain time. This also backs @CRA's comment about DC wanted to run an offense that likes to chunk it down the field from time to time. Canales seems pretty straight forward so far.

Shy Tuttle wants another pick!

That's fair. I feel like Dionte will be force fed early on, similar to AT last year.

I don't think the whole unit has been healthy yet. I think that's part of the problem. Even our backup OT Yosh is injured.

Seriously. He is our QB this year. If healthy he will get plenty of opportunities to prove himself and plenty of plays to whine or cry about. If he sucks again we just move on. Preseason isn't changing any of this.