AKC

I'd like to just add to your points that it was all made possible only by virtue of the Pegula's combined discipline. How many investors in a new field would overcome what it took for the Pegulas to allow the consolidation of power at their head coaching position after the disaster they had just experienced with Rex Ryan? Most people in their situation would have erred on the side of caution instead of allowing their new coaching hire to become an influencer at the GM position but it was their steady decision-making that made the Beane hire happen. It's now paying those big dividends as you have outlined.

Trend: Sean McDermott and Andy Reid are 1 and 1 against each other with the winner in both cases being the visiting team.

FWIW a friend of mine was over for a while yesterday and we watched both the Lamar Jackson and Mahome's collisions. He's a doctor who regularly treats concussions. The gist was that both were concussions but Jackson's was the more common where the brain bounces off the occipital and bangs the front of the skull whereas Mahomes was a temporal concussion where the brain shake was side to side. He said Mahomes inability to get up was consistent and that the symptoms for the two different impact injuries are also to some degree unique.

That’s right, they are asking the simple question of whether Jackson would be better with Diggs on his team and the answer is obvious. But the compound question includes whether Diggs would be better with Jackson as his QB and that answer also is obvious. Bottom line is Diggs is a better WR with Allen throwing the ball and Allen is a better QB with Diggs catching it. That reciprocal dynamic would not exist with many of the other starting QBs in the league and that goes double for Lamar at this point in his career.

Did their sideline reporter just say “Gronk looking confused”?

With all due respect to the fine work Ken Dorsey has done with Josh, the product Chad Hall puts on the field every week is remarkable. Hall is the epitomal overachieving Process grinder, going from a very limited career in the NFL pulling in less than half of his targets to taking an assemblage of diverse talents at WR and seemingly making each more complete at their craft. Our WRs are pumped up, humble and ready to help team first every week. Our receivers go hard to get the ball while most around the league expect the ball to find them. Watching Smoke channel Gabriel Davis on the sidelines last night exemplified Chad’s accomplishments in OP. Brown came to us as a FA with some very good skills but his work on the perimeter was a weakness. Hall should be a guy making a move up the ladder if Daboll becomes a Head Coach. Maybe an Asst. OC title while he keeps the WR job too?

Top round is in the oven. Making weck roles in a couple hours. Raven tastes like cormorant so we’ll leave that to hardier souls than us. Couldn’t be happier that Baltimore D has been playing the 2019 game over and over getting their confidence up. A few surprises coming up for our opponent who lost to a team we beat twice and had the luxury of playing the NFC Easy. Game on!

Edmunds was more effective against the run this year when he was playing at the LOS. His length advantage isn’t sacrificed against that TE short pass offense when he’s along the line either. It won’t be a surprise to see him up and holding one of the edges regularly against the Ravens. For the most part it seems our tackling issues have been against physical runners and not against finesse runners like Jackson who rely on elusiveness versus power. The Ravens may be almost tailor made for setting our D up for a good outing against the run.

The first half story was how badly we got worked on ST yet walked the tunnel for orange sections with the lead. I’m inclined to believe the QB runs today were at least as much to force the next defense(s) we see to be ready so perhaps BD got a little ahead of himself, but the only thing that matters is the advance to next week.

I'm pretty sure the next beer run in Rich Stadium is mine Mr. S! How long has it been- maybe 20 years? I took a couple decades off to hold together an old Super Bowl Bill's Backers Club from Los Angeles to see it through the "quiet years". A strong 800 member group with about 500 at the Bill's Bar on openers/big games. We only have so much time to spend on our Bill's passion! Our management is bought into Epenesa- his real opp to shine will be Saturday and as you point out his edge skills in the run game make him the fit for the start Saturday. Playoffs are when all defenses get better- we shall see if anyone has an answer for our star QB!

You got me on the literal meaning of turning it off! Accurately that actually meant when the game broadcast ended.

It’s been decades since we had a team capable of totally destroying an opponent’s spirit. It was clear against Miami that they suffered a defensive collapse. There were a lot of minutes in the second half where you could even sense their WRs hoping the ball went elsewhere in a no win situation. There were at least 3 other games this year where I turned the game off feeling the same way. What games did you all feel we had that same domination where the other side said “No Mas”?

Seems like McDermott has looked at CB2 and beyond as a place where we can coach up cheap talent versus taking away $ from other areas of need. Putting an experienced player on the field who is likely to influence the game momentum- one way or the other- is almost a proclamation that the strategy isn’t panning out as imagined. Won’t be surprising to see some low round draft spend this year on a real 2. I know you’re imagining just how much better this D would be with even an average #2 CB.

Without reservation Josh deserves all the applause he’s getting for working hard and smart to improve, but for me the contributions of Diggs, the WR room and Chad Hall share a sizable chunk of credit for the outcome . In 2020 we ended fielding a passive WR corps waiting for balls to land in their laps and instead our most important receivers are following Digg’s lead to treat every ball as catchable and fight to get to them. It didn’t all happen just in 2020 but Diggs walks the walk and set the standard for everyone on our team. This helps everywhere including on the stat sheets/ the rating agencies/Josh's confidence/etc. Josh has absolutely improved and his targets have absolutely improved their performance. In my mind it’s about a 50/50 contribution from each side.

Additionally Stefan is better at his craft than a guy whose primary schtick is to get a pre-snap position that allows him to grab his opponents jersey out of view of the zebras, almost always near the elbow, and just mess up the timing/ direction enough on the receiver’s route to get the QB throwing a different direction. Stefan>Stephon. Better name. Better player. Better taste in teammates.

I never felt we were losing ground on the physical front in the Steelers game but the beginning in SFO definitely spooked me. They came out hammering helmets and playing like they meant it but our guys broke them by not showing any signs of being bothered by it. Doesn't appear we can be intimidated.

Rare as it is for the wildly overmatched to reference an Olde English literary figure as their parting shot, I'd guess maybe William Tell or Robin Hood would have been more likely choices? That dude pulled off the Triple Lindy of all tailtucks I've ever seen on a sports message board!

Poyer is so awesome I had to laugh at the PFF “rankings” they put up to start the game. He’s tough, durable, smart and athletic. He’s top 5 or 6. Odd(?) how we need to move 5 guys to the line to be as effective against the run as we were with Star and 3............

I heard Simon was stirring up the pot and since the greatest post ever on this Board was in response to his literary skills I figured I might take a look. How are the Bills doing? 😏 Hope things are going good with you and the balance.

Playing the long game, Tomlin sees an advantage to a playoff matchup against us this postseason if his players are focused on being more physical. Leader of our D isn’t a physical guy. Surprising how many game day analysts including Sunday night have called Tremaine physical. That’s hardly his game. He’s long and laterally fast, but I don’t recall him ever knocking the snot out of a running back. Not too many years ago we had a couple LBs with different games. Tremaine is much more London Fletcher than he is Takeo Spikes. He isn’t getting in the runners grill to knock him out, he’s instead trying to bring him down without a big collision. I love his skills but it’s poor homework to call him physical. Was the team more physical Sunday than Pitt? Maybe, but not by a large margin IMO. My guess is Tomlin looking at the likelihood of seeing us again and shaming his guys a bit for the rematch.

Josh continues throwing to targets who have let him down in games. He does not seem to have any of the “punish receivers who drop passes” reaction that’s not uncommon in this league among passers, even the better passers. Last night he continued feeding Gabriel Davis and Dawson Knox after they’d let passes go that should have been brought down. The flip side of the coin is Diggs who preaches to all of them to catch the ball before doing anything else. Not that Diggs doesn’t have a couple drops this season but he’s exponentially more reliable than Knox. Glad he was successful lobbying for the ball at halftime last night!

It’s like the calculation on STs of whether to send your KO out of the end zone to avoid a return but sacrifice the chance of a turnover or penalty. I’m not suggesting they’ll leave the field wide open for him but I‘ll be surprised if they don’t make it look like there’s room to run when possible. A spy or defender can stack himself and hide from view for periods of time on most plays.

Of those elements of Allen’s game where there have not been improvement this season, ball protection in the pocket and on the run are the most pronounced. I have no doubt Pats* practices this week included a large dose of showing lanes on passing downs to entice Allen to run and then having 11 players going for the strip. He’s the easiest QB to strip on the run that I can ever recall in our uni. Josh just doesn’t have the awareness running backs get trained in because he has too many other things to work on in practice and the offseason and that’s exacerbated by his unwillingness to slide. I’d like to see him leave the running Sunday to our RBs. Belichick will also have them working for strips on every Singletary touch. That could be to our benefit if Devin turns that into a lot of broken tackles. Belichick will bet the other side of that proposition. Also our changeup in Moss could really have a big game for the same reason. He’s a tough tackle anyway and if they don’t focus 100% on bringing him right down he could burn them for some big gains. I like our chances a lot if turnovers don’t kill us.

While there were some cringeworthy decisions to throw the ball yesterday this play was the other end of the scale for me. We've spent decades watching notable opponent QBs throwing that ball and drawing flags while our own QBs would have looked to go to someone who didn't have a defender draped on his chest. Without the throw there's no PI flag. We've had that flag thrown on us over and over during the drought and costing us plenty of games- thanks Josh for proceeding with the play the elite at your position are comfortable throwing and expectant of the reward you earned.

Brady can’t play anywhere else where they will feed him the defensive play call through his helmet receiver and Belichick can’t afford to bring any new QB into that system without fear of exposure for all these years of exploiting Roger's incompetence. Stakes are too high for both of them. Brady isn’t going anywhere.