Bear Hands

We only had to score 17 tonight. Running game didn't work, honestly, the OL had some weird energy. There's the loss because nothing else really dropped the ball. It's just that we rely on a successful Run-O THAT much: -The defense bent, didn't break, had a takeaway, but the opposing team was able to make longer suffocating drives. Just needed 17 to win tonight. -Bryce had some bad moments sprinkled in with good (but not good enough) - par for the course there. A bad giveaway, some decent touch passes, but nothing special. -Some drops and bad route running -Bad situational play calls on both sides of the ball We couldn't control the clock, had some crap calls that our crappy performance made too much of a factor.

Most likely; did you gather I was trying to hype him? He did have a pretty/underrated deep ball. And 05 was a nice year given the era the league was in, but you know, he was who he was. And he had a connection with Smitty. 08/09 was when we should’ve had a new QB and could’ve run the table. To this day, his Cards debacle is still more of a wound than our Den SB loss.

JFC he still hasn’t even passed for 3k. Delhomme did like what 3200 in 15.5 games his first year here.

I wouldn't call it a hyperfocus, they factor into eval. All part of a bigger picture.

I'd say the height issue is a problem here, but overplayed in the greater context. If a guy is 6'0 but a stud, then why not, but absolutely stay away from anything once you get into the 5' range. That's where you get into legitimate physical limitation territory. One thing guys like BY/Kyler/Russ run into- you want a guy that's able to fully survey the field at all levels in the pocket, and they can't, have to modify the traditional style to do so. They can make runs/have good teams really help prop them, but when it comes time to put the team on their back in the pocket, it's rather difficult.

I would love to know how this tracks first and second target. There’s inherent inaccuracy with that unless these guys are getting each team’s playbook.

I’d have to look but those games you’re asking about are baked into the 2-18 record, just taking away the major blowouts.

I’m just highlighting the bullshit in a different context without even needing to analyze the drives themselves.

A fun exercise with Bryce to bring context to the GWD narrative: 14 wins total Of those, only 1 game where he led a win by more than 1-score. The ATL game, where he threw for 121 passing yards. 12 of those required game winning drives. Just 1 other didn't where the opposing team carved into our lead but we held it. Now reverse this... He has had 11 games lost by 1-score. So 12-11 in one score games. That's an average at best mark. And most of them had the chance-- it's a .500 mark with the opportunity to have a GWD. The crazy part in this... The rest - he's 2-18 in games decided by 8+ points which is insane. So basically, he's delivered 1 decisive victory led by a defense/run-game, we're .500 with him when we can keep it close, but get blown out nearly twice as much. Summation: Since we can't win decisively with him, nearly all of his wins result in a technical GWD.

Every few years, theres a prominent team at the cusp that decides to blow it up. Could definitely see it being the Ravens.

Even more than Bryce, our second rounders (and who we've passed on) has stung soooooo much. 2022: *traded away for Darnold (2nd, 4th & 6th - great job Fitt) - all-timer 2nd round class- Brisker, Pickens, Trey McBride, Mafe, Bonitto, Kyler Gordon, James Cook, KWIII, Wandale, it goes on... 2023: Mingo- Passed on: Tuli (oy vey), Brents, Branch, Benton, Rashee Rice, *traded away our other 2nd that ended up being Tyrique Stevenson. O-Torrence, DJ Turner, & Brenton Strange right there as well. 2024: *traded away/up for Legette in 1 lol - ahead of Ladd, Fiske, DeJean, Lassiter, Frazier, Edge Cooper...all guys who had big fans around and became studs very quickly *traded up again to get the injured Brooks - over: Frazier again, Sainristil, Nubin, Rosengarten

And the crappy thing is that this was all known pre-draft. Most had him as a 3rd-4th rounder project (but old). He's 25 in a month.

I'm more convinced Legette is a bust than I was with Mingo at this point in his tenure. He has no short area quickness, can't play against zone, you need to scheme him open with presnap movement. Another guy where you have to hyper-fixate to create an offense FOR rather than create an aspiring offense WITH.

GIF of the day

I'll take our original 23' pick (Jalen Carter), DJ Moore back and the likely top-4 pick in 2024 that would have given us Maye after starting some scrub for 2023. And Steichen as HC when we chose Reich. And then no Burns trade at all needed to recoup the Bryce disaster. That would've been nice.

It's gonna happen. It seems entirely appropriate for how things have gone lol

So this is for real folks - if ATL wins tonight and beats NO next week, we are in folks, win or loss....

Canales should let him finish and should immediately start drafting his post-season pitch to management/Tepper. As much as he was outclassed by Macdonald, he gets more leash than Bryce right now and should make his case pronto if Bryce fizzles out (for better or worse)

Also people - less "you don't know ball" or "you're delusional" crap. It gets so tired.

They're sneaky good. Very good. And they had the personnel to match perfectly against us. Seattle played really straight forward cover-2 and cover-3 pretty much all day. They had some nice simulated pressures in cover-3 that baited us to move more quickly than we needed to. They just totally cooked us. It was a full Macdonald checkmate against Canales & the offense. The recipe: Contain the run game enough (check) and have the LB & secondary athleticism to shut us down in the air (check) For any team that can match our OL's run blocking, just run a cover 2/cover 3 all-day. Similar to what the Saints did. Pepper in some simulated pressures to bait Bryce while you're at it. Bryce doesn't play the best against zone. Huge weakness, averages like -.09 EPA/P in his career. How that actualizes - from my eye test as a silly fan, he just doesn't have the velocity for the shorter/intermediates from in the pocket to the outside to get guys the ball in space vs zone. His best games (Rams, Falcons) was when they had a blitz we caught, went man, or it was a critical down with a misdirect/PA and he had the space to throw a nice ball, sometimes with anticipation. 23rd rated QB against zone. 24th completion percentage against zone. 42nd against zone ANY/A with a clean pocket. ANY/A being one of the more consistent correlations to wins you can find out of the EPA stuff you'll see nowadays. He doesn't even crack the top 32 for eligible QBs.

The ick, by gawd the ick

A big fallacy here is somehow you can't make picks to improve this team if we're at pick 19 instead of 17. Win babay. If we get embarrassed in the playoffs, so be it. This season is bonkers. Some of the worst offense I've ever seen at times, but we're somehow here. Let it be and see if we can do something. It will be good for the young dudes.

But you also have to factor how many audibles he made against simulated pressures. They played with Bryce's head a bit with their defense. And there's a balance of checks where Bryce didn't have time, and yeah, essentially sending it off in the flat made sense. But there's others where it was way too quick of dump as seen in one of the clips. It's a mix. They had our entire offense's number yesterday

but why male models?

Yep, where I'll concede (even though I'm no Bryce fan) is there is maybe a bit heavy Bryce blaming from this game in particular going on considering how strong Seattle's defense is. A lot has to do with the stakes and it being essentially a playoff game w/the Bucs losing. Seattle took care of our offense, simple as that. It's all completely fair to highlight. Their front-7 doesn't have any 1 truly lethal guy but what the clips show is how well they play off each-other. You can see in the all-22 stuff how relentless they are and can change direction. Murphy, Lawrence, Nwosu, the secondary clamps down, understands correct spacing in zone. They're elite. And MacDonald is easily my fave young coach right now. Canales is hitting a wall. Even though the season has had some surprises, this was his low.