Rew

That was the most mundane game I've ever attended (I've seen most jersey homes games the last 15 years). I can say that watching cook live is incredibly impressive. You don't really get an appreciation for his combination of vision, wiggle, and drive on broadcast coverage. Also, shout out to the party at F-9

Initially I was critical of not challenging this, but after reviewing I think it was called correctly. They've been calling it this way for a decade in the interest of player safety. There was a major point of emphasis on this a few years sgo. All the guidance to officials and teams has been that the ball is dead and the QB is protected as soon as he begins a sliding action. He doesn't have to be air borne, he doesn't have to have a knee touch the ground, he doesn't have to do anything other than look like he is sliding. While I think this could have been a first down, there is no way it would have been overturned. You could also tell by Josh's reaction that he knew he goofed. Silver lining is that Josh is protected from a lot of damage when he's at the end of runs.

Is it a stretch to say that solid defensive fundamentals were the difference this game?

It's amazing how quiet it gets on here when we have a decent shot at winning.

Not happy with Palmer giving up on that play

Not sure how you can effectively evaluate the scheme with execution this bad.

We used all 3 of them once the Ravens hit the 30ish to preserve time to try and do something.

Which worthless one? All 3 timeouts were used to preserve clock at the end.

Seriously wth are you talking about. McD started preserving time for the offense even before the fumble. The entire end of that drive was aggressive time management with intent to do something.

Why is everyone talking about safeties and not the D-line or LBs that are like a sieve.

Everyone blaming OC for Allen's read on 2nd down...

People really miss the (not so) subtle cues.

Thank you! Seeing this year after year gives warm fuzzies.

I agree with you in the macro sense. But you have to have interacted with enough people to realize that motivation, while it doesn't change talent, can certainly impact the observed performance of talent. Bulletin board material doesn't make a player better, but it definitely can help them show up and play their best. People have off days, with less energy or a "I'm not feeling it today". My life experience says that people use different coping techniques to find motivation to attempt to be at their best. Enough athletes talk about getting motivation from perceived slights for it to be a real factor in their thinking. On this specific topic, I doubt Starks' comments are really going to have any bearing on Josh. He seems to have his motivation pretty figured out and this won't really impact the chip on his shoulder.

He's no longer on the team. Using past tense to describe a time period of two plus years ago seems appropriate, and reading anything more into it feels like reaching.