Bear Hands

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.

1st - stunt took care of our right side and blew up the play. Simple as that. Too quick to know what the reads would be IMO. 2nd - OL is not beat as the post claims. Bryce has the ball out just as Nwosu gets in his face. Still. not great. 3rd- That pass is out quickly considering the protection - but I'm unsure on who the 1st read was. Looks like, maybe, Legette & Tmac were going to be the targets on crossers but they slowed once they saw Bryce throw to the flat. OL protected well. That is a question for Canales on what was going on there IMO. All in all, yes, the team played poorly. This does not need to be Bryce vs. Team. They can all be bad.

https://www.nfeloapp.com/qb-rankings/ This tracks some of the advanced stuff on a surface level for those who want the deets

But at the end of the day, I don't even know what we're talking about anymore lol. Bryce had a terrible game, what is the hugabaloo?

CPOE does not factor in EPA. So your composite preference does make sense. Funny thing for stat junkies, CPOE has historically predicted the YPA most accurately from college to NFL, however, in Bryce's case, he was 8.8 in college and a putrid 6.0 in the big leagues.

oh and Caleb Williams

oh and TLaw

Bryce also has a better CPOE than Mahomes and Nix this year.

Yes

If he's in the pocket, he can't often see the 2nd or 3rd read. He needs to bail to find the sight lines. But problem is he takes the wrong path and needs to immediately commit to a scramble.

Quinn f*cking Ewers just played the same defense Bryce recently did and looked way more comfortable, under duress and found guys quickly. Made smart decisions, no BS. We can find better in the 4th round come May.

Bryce can make better use of a nugget couch than an NFL offense.

Brown, the FAs, and the rookies progressing have been solid for the defense enough to get them in a better spot than last year. Despite having scrubs at LB, it's been alright. Progress, still lower of the NFL ladder. The offense has more "punch", for lack of better term, but the lows have been lower than anything I've seen since Clausen. Like, very terrible football. Not pro level, embarrassing level offense.

14/24 for 54 passing yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT - that's 2.3 YPA In what was essentially a playoff game. Holy hell folks.

That's true. He often bails after a 1st or 2nd read and commits to a scramble when he should still be navigating the pocket and surveying. He has an extra half to near full second to advance in the air. He either throws away, in the dirt, or gains a few yards (sometimes has a good scramble). Still, our offense is not designed to have many quick hits outside of a few designed screens to the outside.

That's where I'm going with this. Put the QB aside, you should be scheming your weapons open. Getting guys space against zone. You've got strong skill position players. Diversify, work in misdirections and motions. It's a lot of bland zone running and mesh concepts. Peppered in with PA setups. Honestly, not far off what Reich was trying to do, just with a bit more pin & pull and outside zone.

It's just so frustrating. It's just a bad situation to be in.

With how this season is going, we're gonna squeak by next week and get absolutely embarrassed in the playoffs. Extend Young, go into mediocre purgatory for the foreseeable future.

Today presented us with the following scenario: We win, we can win the division (Miami just clinched victory) We lose, it means NOTHING. Just retry next week. This was an all-in type scenario. Give them the best you've got. We're at home. Be aggressive against a shaky Darnold under pressure. Push the ball downfield. Get vertical. Get creative. Show us everything you've got. This is for the playoffs. AND THIS IS WHAT WE GOT. THIS IS WHAT THEY CHOSE TO DO. Dink and dunk spectacular with Bryce getting us nowhere. One of his worst performances and absolutely dogsh*t pathetic coaching. Canales has finally been put in my doghouse along with Bryce, Chuba and Horn. This was embarrassing all-around. Terrible football. Defense played well, OL did good enough. Awful gameplan, terrible QB-limiting play, terrible mistakes from undisciplined players. Awful. Eye-gouging painful.

Not exclusively, I agree. Bryce, Chuba, Horn, and the coaches all just didn't want to win. If THIS is what all in, loss has no consequence, type gameplan looks like, we need a sh*t ton of work. This was an abomination by Canales and Young of incredible proportions.