Post Mortem: Game 2

[d-dave]

Thanks @Mr. Scot!  This was a better game than week 1.  We are not alone in our offense taking a long while getting rolling.  Aside from the injuries, I'm way less concerned with the defense outside of CB.

Offensively, they are going to have to figure out something to get these guys open.  You keep hearing things like "scheme a guy open" but we haven't seen it yet.  Despite the pressure, I thought Bryce looked better.  We just need someone to separate from coverage.

[AceBoogie]

7 hours ago, tukafan21 said:

We made a bad trade and risked the franchise on the wrong QB, it's okay to admit it.  Refusing to admit it won't change things and make them all better.

We're here now and have to deal with it, but sticking your head in the sand and pretending you're seeing things that give you hope isn't going to help.

None of that is to say Bryce can't end up as a good QB, it's still absurdly too early to say anything remotely like that.

But we traded CMC, Moore, 2023 First, 2024 First, 2025 Second and all we got in return was Bryce Young, DJ Johnson and a 2024 5th round pick (and yes, that's literally all we have left from CMC, Moore and those picks, we used everything from the CMC trade to get Bryce and Johnson except for that 5th).

There's no way to slice it, with how Bryce as looked so far, we gave up entirely too much to take the risk on Bryce working out.

And you know that two games in huh? 
Tua, Allen, Trevor, all had bad first seasons and Pat didn’t even start his first season. We won 4 games Cam’s rookie year, but two games in you’re calling a kid a bust. Man I’d love to see you in your professional life. 

[OUCPFL]

7 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Stroud has skill players but a subpar line.

Bryce has a solid line but not much in the way of skill players.

At this point, I'd rather he be protected. We can get better skill players next year.

I would argue his skill players are just as bad as Bryces, and he's missing 4 of his offensive linemen. 

Nico Collins is his number 1. Going into this year, no one thought Nico Collins would be better than Chark nor Thielen. I get it, you're old and shitt. But come on man. 

[OUCPFL]

1 minute ago, AceBoogie said:

And you know that two games in huh? 
Tua, Allen, Trevor, all had bad first seasons and Pat didn’t even start his first season. We won 4 games Cam’s rookie year, but two games in you’re calling a kid a bust. Man I’d love to see you in your professional life. 

Ace man. The stats for Bryce are bad bad. No QB in the history of the NFL has started out this bad. NONE. 

[Pantherxtreme]

1 minute ago, AceBoogie said:

And you know that two games in huh? 
Tua, Allen, Trevor, all had bad first seasons and Pat didn’t even start his first season. We won 4 games Cam’s rookie year, but two games in you’re calling a kid a bust. Man I’d love to see you in your professional life. 

 

We won 6 games Cam's rookie season.

And few more went down to the wire. The Panthers had a putrid defense that season also. 

Not giving up on the kid at all. More concerned about Frank Reich's play calling. 

[AceBoogie]

3 minutes ago, OUCPFL said:

Ace man. The stats for Bryce are bad bad. No QB in the history of the NFL has started out this bad. NONE. 

Josh Allen first 2 starts:

24/48 319 yards 1TD 2int

Bryce: 

42/71 299 Yards 2TD 2int

[OUCPFL]

Just now, AceBoogie said:

Josh Allen first 2 starts:

24/48 319 yards 1TD 2int

Bryce: 

42/71 299 Yards 2TD 2int

 

[AceBoogie]

3 minutes ago, Pantherxtreme said:

 

We won 6 games Cam's rookie season.

And few more went down to the wire. The Panthers had a putrid defense that season also. 

Not giving up on the kid at all. More concerned about Frank Reich's play calling. 

You’re right 6 games. Still nothing to write home about. Cam was 1 of 1. Bryce is a different type of player. He’s not going to takeover games the way Cam did. 

[AceBoogie]

Just now, OUCPFL said:

 

That’s one stat…which is as much as an offensive stat than it is a QB stat 

[OUCPFL]

1 minute ago, AceBoogie said:

That’s one stat…which is as much as an offensive stat than it is a QB stat 

It's a pretty glaring stat is the point. 

[mrcompletely11]

8 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Said going into the second game what I wanted to see was improvement over the first game. That was gonna be a tall order against one of the best defenses in the league.

Did I see it?

Well, lets take a look.

Starting first with our own defense: They went into the game down a starter (Horn) lost another in the first half (Thompson )and had a third look gimpy near game's end (Burns). Despite all that though, they held up well for a lot of the game. Certainly don't wanna see any more injuries, but I like what Evero is doing scheme-wise.

Mind you, the offense didn't make it easy.

The Saints defense is as advertised, and having a quarterback in only his second start going against them is a recipe for disaster.

But while it wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, it wasn't a disaster either.

Last week's biggest issue for Young was turnovers. This game he only lost one, and even that one I wouldn't put too much on him. The defensive lineman who smacked it out made a great play. That'll happen, but it's not the result of a bad decision so much as a missed block.

On that topic, yhe offensive line certainly had a bigger challenge than last week. And like the defense, they were down a starter. There were going to be struggles. In this case, enough that starter Cade Mays ended up taking a seat for Calvin Throckmorton. We're still at least a couple of weeks away from Austin Corbett being available again, so those struggles might still continue for a little bit. 

In the passing game, I'm gonna guess the staff told Young to be more cautious about throwing to receivers with little separation.

Unfortunately, that seemed like all we had.

Two games in, what's painfully obvious is that our receiving corps isn't giving Young a lot to work with just yet. That left the Saints free to concentrate heavily on the run, and it worked. As a group, our pass catchers are generally smart with good hands, but there's not a lot of playmaking ability there.

Now, you can still work with that against some defenses, but not one as good as the Saints. The staff may need to tweak some of their scheming, mixing up route combinations or other things to try and compensate, but even with that it's likely to be a limitation for most if not all of this season.

So what about Bryce?

Well, besides overall protecting the ball better, he made some good audible calls and even ran a very efficient two minute drill. That's a maked improvement over last week when he looked uncomfortable doing anything up tempo. Yes, it was against prevent, but you still have to execute. He did, even when the Saints realized they'd screwed up and tried to tighten up at the goal line. The TD pass to Theilen was a really nice piece of improv. Happy to see it 

So bottom line for me? Again, watching a rookie quarterback in only his second pro start playing against one of the best defenses in the league would normally fall under the genre of horror. In this case though, it was more of a thriller.

Is that improvement?

Yeah, I think it is

To anyone still looking for magic this season, you're probably gonna be disappointed. But if you put it in perspective and keep in mind where we are (basically mile two of a hundred mile journey) it's progress.

Slow progress maybe, but progress nonetheless.

And I'll take that...

You know its bad when one has to write a dissertation to try and hide the fact that we suck

[Pantherxtreme]

Just now, AceBoogie said:

You’re right 6 games. Still nothing to write home about. Cam was 1 of 1. Bryce is a different type of player. He’s not going to takeover games the way Cam did. 

Cam rookie campaign was something to write home about. But that's neither here or there.

I think Byrce Young is going to be a good Qb, I wish it was sooner than later because we have a defense and division that we can contend with now. 

Maybe that's not fair, but the boneheaded moves this franchise has made the past few seasons is frustrating.

He's a rookie but him and the coaching staff has to show something on tape as to why we pulled the trigger, the other young guns like Stroud and Richardson despite his injuries are starting to assert themselves in this league in just a few games. 

[mrcompletely11]

6 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Not smartly, you couldn't.

We invested in protecting him first. I'm good with that because that was the most important thing.

Skill players come next.

Well one, there's this thing called the draft...

As far as the other, that's a matter of cap management. And I seriously doubt the two of them are going to take up 50 million in cap per year.

to date Fitt has been gang busters drafting wr in the 2nd

[mrcompletely11]

9 minutes ago, AceBoogie said:

You’re right 6 games. Still nothing to write home about. Cam was 1 of 1. Bryce is a different type of player. He’s not going to takeover games the way Cam did. 

We traded all that capital for a player that is not going to take over a game?