LinvilleGorge

They made halftime adjustments and we didn't. D looked fine in the 1st half. Got wrecked in the 2nd half.

Mediocrity? Hell, that would require a significant upgrade.

The Eagles aren't very good. We should be able to beat them.

We're gonna be missing Horn for the rest of the year. That dude ain't playing again this season.

The D was pretty darned good on the first half and never reacted to the adjustments the cowboys made at halftime. The same can be said about the offense. They just got bailed out by the Cowboys taking their foot off the gas and going prevent and pulling their best DB out of the game.

I didn't but I would have had I realized that the Saints would've been missing half their roster and coaching staff. Literally everyone expected the Jets and Texans to be possibly the worst two teams in the league this year.

This is the damn truth. In the season when blows to the head of the QB were initially being emphasized and the mere brush of a QB's helmet became a penalty, the NFL let the league's MVP's head get treated like a piñata on the biggest stage in sports. I'll never forget it or forgive it.

Me neither. He's complete trash as a ref. He might be a great guy for all I know and he might know the rules forwards and backwards off the field, but he should not be reffing NFL football games. Virtually every game I watch that he's calling features some straight up gaffes by the ref crew.

I get making stoppage of forward progress non-reviewable since it's basically a judgement call with no concrete evidence to point to in a review situation. But that's also why refs are generally pretty slow to blow that whistle. In this case, there was no whistle until after the play was over and the ball carrier was on the ground. It was only then that they determined after the fact that forward progress had been stopped. That cannot happen. I mean, that should be a fireable offense level error by a ref.

We gotta get Brown and Christensen on the field at some point to see if they can be the answer, because outside of Moton, the rest of these dudes we're playing certainly aren't.

When in doubt, go with the call that's reviewable. I don't know if refs are taught that but if they aren't they should be. This is why they hold the whistle so much on plays that look like they should be blown dead sometimes. Once that whistle blows the play is dead. What you REALLY can't do as a ref is manufacture a whistle that was never blown and call a play dead after the fact due to the result of the play. That's how you get accused of game fixing or score fixing because it sure looks like you're doing some fixing.

Oh, incompetence was definitely at play. You absolutely cannot after the fact make a determination of stopped forward progress on a play that has resulted in a fumble with no whistle on the field. That's inexcusable officiating.

Top 5-10 in a season is far from "historic". I think we will probably have a borderline top 10 D, but that #1 overall ranking was heavily due to facing horrific competition up until today.

Honestly, probably not. Not unless this OL gets a lot better very quickly. Need to just let the rookies learn on the job. These vets are awful and they aren't gonna get any better. The D just got outflanked and outschemed at half. The Cowboys made great adjustments and we didn't counter.

Like Blandino said, it simply wasn't. The ball was dislodged at the moment of contact. My question is how was this call made after the fact? There was no whistle on the field. Had there been a whistle indicating a stoppage of play at least the stripes would've had something to lean on for their call. That call wasn't just atrocious, it appeared completely manufactured in the moment.

The OL has to get a lot better and do it quickly for us to make any noise. It's not gonna happen from this current unit. Christensen and Brown have to get on the field.

If so, this is getting to Fox/Rivera level of frustratingly hard headed depth chart decisions.

The way they utterly outflanked us at halftime was stunning. Their adjustments just wrecked us. I think Kellen Moore may end up beating Joe Brady to a head coaching role. Dude's legit.

You were simply dogging on odd fronts and it wasn't accurate. If you're saying we don't have the personnel to duplicate what all those dominant Steelers' defenses of old did I would agree with that. It's not a condemnation of the scheme itself as a whole. We just don't have the right personnel to implement it against an OL like the Cowboys and a RB like Zeke. That's a lot different than simply making a blanket statement like odd fronts just suck overall against the run.

Agreed. The vets aren't getting the job done. Time to play the youth that might have the talent and potential to improve because these vets are who we thought they were and they are not gonna let us off the hook.

They adjusted at halftime and we didn't. Felt like the good old days again.

Tell that to all those dominant Steelers defenses over the years.

Agreed. This OL looks like what most of us fully expected it to look like.

My concern is that we didn't look like we belonged on the field with them until they bafflingly went prevent and rested their best DB late.

The signings were awful and I called them out for as much at the time. But I specifically said "OTs". Never has there ever been a planned pair of OTs worse than Bell/Chandler. Both UDFAs. One was actually a college DT.