Thurman#1

No. And not close. Knox, Levy and Saban are the best three. After that, there's a gigantic abyss. Some day McDermott may be considered up with those guys. Now, not in the same ballpark. And I'm sure he'd agree, both publicly and privately. And your stuff about Marv is nonsense. He was a terrific coach.

We needed help to win that game? Like the help the refs gave us when our receiver went up, caught the ball, came down with the ball and it was called an interception? Please. That call was far far worse and went against us. More, the P.I. call was in fact P.I. Yeah, most refs might not have called it under the circumstances, but it absolutely was P.I.as the guy rode our WR down the field 15 yards and did in fact prevent the completion by doing that. D is the weakness? I'm not really sure of that at this point. I thought it was very clear the first four games but the offense hasn't been especially good the past three weeks. It's probably still true, but not all that clear at this point.

They're both terrific, but the difference in effect between an elite QB and a good one is a lot larger than the difference between an elite coach and a good one. Neither one's as good without the other. But Belichick has a bigger handicap this year. The Pats roster is quite a bit worse than the Bucs.

Romo and Collinsworth are #1 and #2. Yes, agreed. I like him a lot too. And Spielman, as several noted above.

This'n. When the two of them are out there the defense suddenly functions much better. It'll be tough to re-sign Milano. They'll likely do their absolute best to accomplish it anyway.

Not really buying that at all. I mean, does Edmunds sometimes make those mistakes? Yeah, fair enough. But the staff has made it very clear that run fits are a problem and it's not just him. The wash he gets caught up in is often the extra player that Star used to occupy when the defense was operating the way that McDermott put it together. The whole D is having problems and that causes problems in how the D functions, including the situations Edmunds faces. I've used this example a million times here, but only because it's so on-target ... Ray Lewis was widely considered one of the two or so best LBs in the game for his first six or seven years in the league. Then his monster space eater, Siragusa, retired. And suddenly Ray was widely considered to be past it. He was (apparently) over the hill, a shadow of his former self and we heard many of the same things about him we're hearing now about Edmunds, that he couldn't get through traffic anymore that he wasn't getting off blocks ... on and on and on. Then they drafted Ngata as a 1-tech about three years later and lo and behold at the crazy coincidence, Ray Lewis was suddenly All-Pro again for the next seven or eight years. The state of the DL has a massive affect on how LBs look. McDermott's scheme is specifically dependent on this, which is why he brought in Star in the first place. If Zimmer starts performing well at 1-tech, and Edmunds gets healthy and Milano's back, I personally expect people to notice Edmunds taking an unexplainable leap forward.

Just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Kuechly was no fireplug or heavyweight at 6' 3" 238. Tremaine plays the same position. His build isn't a problem for McDermott. Last year he was already a Pro Bowler at MLB in a defense that performed superlatively. The position he's playing simply isn't the problem. The problem is his injury, the lack of Star and some other problems around him imparing the function of the D as a whole.

My impression is that he still isn't playing as well as he did before he was injured. They're hoping he'll get back there, and if he does he'll be out there again. But you never know if a guy will get back to what he was till he does or he doesn't.

Wrong, repetitious and consistent in it's attempt to steal every thread. He's an MLB and when healthy a very good one. People don't want to deal with it, but they should.

Both.

It's not all that small a percentage. He's out sometimes. But the guy who said it put in the caveat, "except for his broken leg." And looked at in that light, he's right that he hasn't missed all that many games. Your snap count chart doesn't tell the tale you think it does, IMO. In his rookie year he played all 16 games but mostly wasn't starting. First three weeks, zero defensive snaps, but played STs. And after those first three weeks he had a lot of weeks where he saw as many STs snaps as he did defensive ones. He played 10 defensive snaps, but also 23 STs snaps (Week 9), or 14 defensive snaps and 19 STs snaps (Week 10) or 25 defensive snaps and 20 STs (Week 11) or 13 defensive and 23 STs snaps (Week 12). His lack of defensive snaps wasn't only caused by injury that year, but also by him being a rookie. Take out the broken leg in 2018 and he played nearly all year. Last year he played 86% of the snaps and missed one game. It isn't all that terrible. Yes, this year he's missed a bit. But it hasn't been as much over the course of his career as you seem to be playing it up to be. Any is too much, but it hasn't been overwhelming, IMO, particularly if you leave out the broken leg.

Congratulations on that. But you also said how it was getting them in 2nd and 3rd and long which allowed us to use them. Yet, they were used for all downs and distances. The first time they noticeably use it, for example, was a 3rd and 4, at 8:57 in the 1st quarter. They've had plenty of 3rd and 4s so far this season but we haven't seen much of those packages. A bit later, they run a nice left side blitz on 1st and 10 at 3:00 in the first quarter. I think it's fair to say that they've faced one or two 1st and 10s as a defense this year. Since one of the most common things they do as a pressure thing is move Edmunds up onto the line, and we've seen very little of that this year till today, seems likely to me it may be more about Edmunds getting healthy and Milano's wise head being on the field. Having run a package like that on 3rd and 4, they didn't run one on a 3rd and 20. It's at 1:15 in the 1st. They do finally run one in one of the situations you talk about at 0:17 in the 1st on a 2nd and 8. Nothing on the 3rd and 11 that immediately follows. Another blitz on a 1st and 10 at 10:19 .... They were running them on situations that weren't 2nd or 3rd and long, and they didn't run them on several situations that did fit your specs. To me, it's pretty clear that whatever reason they did run more of these, having more 2nd and 3rd and long situations is not the main factor. More, I'd argue that you're misreading the situation when you say that the reason for our success is more 2nd and 3rd and longs. IMO you're confusing cause and effect. It's more like our success is causing more long late downs for opponents.

Some of it was playing the Jets, no doubt. But there was more to it than that. Some of it was having Milano and Edmunds both again. We're a much better team with both guys on the field. They were also running more of the deceptive looks, stuff we haven't seen much of this year, with seven guys on the line, three of whom back out at the snap. It was confusing and pressuring the Jets. It's not clear why they haven't done that much this year when it's been a McDermott staple the last few years, but my guess is they haven't had the guys they fell they need to run those. Yesterday they did. Because Milano was back? Dunno. Because Zimmer seems to have helped toughen up the interior? Dunno, but they were pressuring even when they weren't blitzing and some of it seemed to come from those unpredictable pre-snap looks. I'm more hopeful than I've been for a couple of weeks about this defense.

Yeah, we benefit from playing the Jets twice. Equally, though, it is a major disadvantage to have already played two of the three best teams in football. Overall we haven't been particularly lucky with the schedule so far. Enjoy the feeling. You're pretty much alone feeling it.

Vegas does indeed know. But they know next to nothing about football. And everything about how people bet football.

Yeah, I'm saying it's impossible. They're $82 mill OVER the cap next year. $82 mill. And you're saying they'll add $17 mill to that, putting them $99 million OVER the cap? Please. I mean, just about nothing is absolutely impossible. If he were revealed to be a serial killer, they'd cut him and absorb the dead cap, but this is as close to impossible as you'll get.

Remind me, when they ate the salary cap on Graham and Gallette, were they $82 mill ABOVE the salary cap as they are next year?

No, he's not available. The Saints aren't going to take $27M in dead cap on the guy. But say he were, we still couldn't afford him. I mean, this year we could but next year we have $2.8M available under the cap, and that's even before we pay our rookie draftees. Do you really want Michael Thomas as a one-year rental who you gave up Johnm Brown and a first for?

Singletary in the first 10 weeks of the season last year had these attempt numbers: Week 1: 4 Week 2: 6 Week 7: 7 Week 8: 3 Week 9: 20 Week 10: 8 After that they figured he got it and he never again had single digits. Does that look a bit familiar? Wait a bit. It'll come for Moss.

After Star opted out this year, we have three years left on his deal.

I believe it, but it's something new. We weren't even slightly predictable last year. Even Brady was consistently confused by us. So why are we not running the games anymore where we overload one side but back one guy out of the other side to cover the middle? Where are all the confusing pressures, where we schemed pressure rather than just blitzing? IMO the most likely reason we don't see those this year is they think that with the guys we've got now we can't run them well. Without Milano, maybe? Or with Tremaine's injury? Or without Tre consistently blanketing the other team's #1? I don't know what it is but my best guess is they think that they can't run all of their catalog with the personnel group they're having to field right now.

Hunh? Is this a pop culture reference I'm missing or autocorrect damage or something?

Oh, my God, yes. I learned who Warren Oates was and came to venerate him as an acting god well after I saw and loved Stripes. Till this moment I didn't realize that Hulk was Oates. Holy cow, you blew my mind! Who's this? "And even if we win, if we win, HAH! Even if we win! Even if we play so far above our heads that our noses bleed for a week to ten days; even if God in Heaven above comes down and points his hand at our side of the field; even if every man woman and child held hands together and prayed for us to win, it just wouldn't matter because all the really good looking girls would still go out with the guys from Mohawk because they've got all the money! It just doesn't matter if we win or we lose. IT JUST DOESN'T MATTER!"

Hard to call beating the Jet anyone's finest hour. But I hear you. Good post.

First, Mahomes says hi. So, no. And he turned out pretty decently. Jake Locker was also a top ten guy and only threw 66 passes his first year, mostly in games 13 and 14, not that he turned out that well, but there are other factors that bear in QB success than playing as a rookie, including talent, how well the team develops him, the team situation and in Locker's case, particularly injuries. JaMarcus Russell also didn't play till the last week of the season, though there's no question his holdout may have contributed, not to mention his sizzurp habit. David Carr for one is a guy who should've sat for a year. And second, yes, they most often do play as rookies, even if it is a really bad idea. The reason that it's so common is less that it helps the QB and far more tthat teams that pick top ten QBs tend to be overwhelmingly extremely bad teams with desperate coaches. Has nothing to do with whether the policy makes sense or hurts the development of many of the QBs affected. It's the opposite of lunacy, and while Allen appears to have survived it just fine, he might have gone into the 2nd season with a much better grasp of things and better honed mechanics if they'd been able to keep him on the bench.