Maine-iac

Before it even gets announced in Buffalo that's a drop.

Looked like more of a shoulder to back than helmet to helmet. What are you going to do if you are the safety there? Two hand touch?

Didn't Talley play for Atlanta for a while after he left the Bill's? Actually just looked it up. I guess Bennet played played for the Falcons also which I had forgotten about. Cox and Graham are pretty disruptive. I still think we missed Dareus even if he was only playing 20 snaps a game when we traded him.

See I thought that meltdown was coming. Maybe not that dramatic but the Falcon's defense had sucked all year and the Pats was the best at keeping teams from scoring. It just seemed like a matter of time. Matter of fact they played better this year but they'er going to get tired. The Eagles are going to roll them.

The score is 12 to 10.

It's amazing that you don't have to run run pass in the second half. You're actually allowed to throw on all three downs.

Brees did the same thing last week at the end of the game. So much talk about missing open guys in here yet even the best QB's do it every week.

I like Bradham coming back. Clayborn is an interesting prospect also. If he could get help us get after QB's better he would be a nice addition.

A very in depth article on 3rd down. Then we have the case of Tyrod Taylor, whom Buffalo benched this week. Taylor actually ranked 10th in conversion rate (42.4 percent) even though he had the fourth-highest need yards (8.7). His ALEX dropped to -0.1 this season, ranked 29th. We've seen this continued change in Taylor's game. In his first season with Buffalo, his ALEX was +4.5, which ranked second in the NFL. It dropped to +2.3 in 2016, but still good enough for seventh in the league, and he was better at converting plays. Taylor's conversion rate was actually a career best this year, but alas he is benched after the Bills allowed 81 points in two losses. A big problem this year was the massive changes at wide receiver. Taylor was targeting running back LeSean McCoy more than anyone on third down, and those 16 targets produced a -10.9 ALEX. In 2016, Taylor's go-to targets on third down were deep threats Marquise Goodwin (+6.2 ALEX) and Sammy Watkins (+7.1 ALEX). Both of those receivers, as well as Robert Woods (+1.4 ALEX), are in the NFC West this year. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/alex/2017/2017-alex-midseason-report

It starts with the defensive line. Because Carolina rarely blitzes, they must be very stout, active, strong at the point of attack, and athletic enough to handle double teams. https://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/11/8/5080004/panthers-vs-49ers-defense-breakdown Even throw you a bone because at no point did I say that McDermott never blitzes. It's just not the meat of what he does. Just like I said and said again. Taken from the same article I just linked. Perhaps 'rare' is an exaggeration, but I think it's safe to say that heavy and exotic blitzing is not a staple of the Panthers' game plan as of late. Instead, they rely on their excellent players along the defensive line to create pressure, squeeze the pocket, and hopefully force the quarterback to make a bad decision with where he's going with the football, all while playing seven men in the intermediate and deep zones to blanket receiving options. Switching gears reading that old article it was interesting to see Dwan Edwards and Drayton Florence's names. They must have headed down there after Edwards left?

Yes maybe in 2013. Schwartz collected 54 a year later in a 4-3 and he didn't blitz all the time either. Again you started the nitpicking when it's clear I never said he doesn't blitz. Matter of fact I'm a big fan of the how and when I have seen McDermott blitz. All that said if you watched the games and have an understanding of how different coordinators are playing most downs McDemott was not sending guys on every play. I think it's the fact that I have explained this and am re explaining it that seems ridiculous and only seems to happen on message boards. The Panthers are blitzing nearly 42.6 percent of the time this season on passing plays, which represents a dramatic 17.3 percent increase over last season under Sean McDermott, according to Pro Football Focus. McDermott left this past offseason to become the head coach of the Buffalo Bills. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2017/10/30/panthers-blitzing-more-on-defense-winning-games/107182386/

You are right. You win the internet. It's yours. I definately meant he never EVER blitzes and you were here to correct me. It's because I never watch the games that I didn't see him blitzing all the time.

About the third person to either not read everything I said or take it the wrong way. I even re-explained it 8 hours ago in this thread.

How well was Brady reading the defense on the pick 6 we got?

McCoy has 3 really impessive seasons and then every other season as a coordinator or coach has been under 22ppg. Those are the numbers. I don't know exactly how I feel about him but I like him more than Dennison.

Yes and no. Some plays Hughes ran by Bortles and some plays Bortles ran away from Hughes. Especially in the second half.

Read everything I said again. I never said anything about not wanting to get after the QB. I simply don't think McDermott is a high rolling, gamble and blitz everyone type of coach. He's going to play coverage and he's good at that. That said when you have good coverage you can get sacks. We should have had 3 or 4 Sunday. We need a disruptive DT to go along with and/or replace Kyle. Lawson isn't a big time pass rusher but would certainly benefit from that. Hughes is the one who you'd think would be quickest around the edge but Bortles was easily outrunning him. Kind of surprising.

I think it all starts with what you said in that they never expected to make the playoffs or be remotely competitive. The gutted the WR corps and switched coordinators what did they reasonably expect out of the passing game? Then mid season they started "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks". They switched QB's back and forth and tried bringing in a WR who immediately got hurt. All that said if you basicaly have a gutted roster on offense and a coordinator who wasn't your first pick and didn't leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy about what he has to offer wouldn't this be the perfect time to bring in someone better. That said I'm not a large Mike McCoy fan either.

I'm going to sound like a lunatic here so I'll put on my flame suit and begin. I think McDermott plays a coverage defense. To say he plays a defense that doesn't need a great pass rush would sound stupid I imagine but it's true. Now that is out of the way I can say who wouldn't want a better pass rush? I think we missed Dareous and I think a good defensive tackle will help the pass rush more than a pass rushing end. We need someone who can penetrate and/or collapse the pocket and chase the QB's out to the DE's.

You give the defense and special team credit yet they gave up 100 yard kickoff for a TD and two 10 plus play drives in the second half. The offense wasn't capable of keeping it competitive? I just realized that I'm trying to debate such a ridiculous point. It's an offense that scored 104 points in 3 games against playoff competition. What team is going to win a SB if any phase of team play is awful? Is there a team that can play bad defense and special teams and just outscore everyone in a SB? To the original point, Roman is a good coordinator. As far as 2014 he had a bad year. Talent was still there, plenty of yards and general offense. They just had a collapse late in the season. Rushing TD's were way down and Vernon Davis seemingly fell of the face of the planet.

If Thompson continues to develop and we bring him back, should be cheap, with KB we could have a poor man's Evans and Jackson like in TB. The thing we need is people behind them that can play because WRs always get hurt.

You are right I don't think the back and forth helped anything but with that said Pettine had us top ten in defense and top 5 in passing defense with the 3-4 and largely the same people that Rex got after Schwartz. Maybe Thurman was horrible. I definately thought Rob Ryan was horrible, see the Saints, before he came over and Rex couldn't make an impact. How anyone with Mario, Dareus, Kyle, and Hughes coudn't get a pass rush is beyond me. I was hoping Ryan would bring Pettine in after he got done in Cleveland.

You give credit to the defense for setting up the offense but somehow excuse the fact that they gave up 34 points in the first place. We were on the 1 yard line with 1st and goal Sunday. How many TD's did we score? I don't care where a team starts. I care about how many points the offense scores. Getting in the end zone is what it's all about. If the defense has stopped the Raven's all game and the offense only scored 3 points then you'd have something but that's not the case.

If Gailey had brought in Pettine instead of Wannstedt he might still be a head coach.

True. So I'm not sure how much credit he can get on the offense. Either way people constantly argue yards in a game where the scoreboard is what matters. With no established running back, a fairly old and not spectacular Flacco, and retreads at WR they still averaged basicaly 6 points, a TD, more than us. There are other offensive minds out there that make big impacts on thier teams or whatever teams they move to. We don't currently have one of those minds here.