colin

our coaching staff really fails on game day stuff, and that sucks because it's what we see. the results are obviously overall good, and allen is clearly the team, but the philosophical elements we have, stopping the big play and forcing the d to defend the entire field are pretty clearly done well. the situational stuff, time outs, red flag stuff, and the just obvious and dumb play calls (redzone stuff sometimes, shotgun runs on 2nd down, slow developing stuff that doesn't go for a lot of yards) and kinda regularly what we do on 3rd and long is very frustrating. mcd and dorsey put together a gem vs miami, let's see if they can do teh same vs cinci.

our biggest issue is when cinci is on, you have to single cover 3 legit weapons, and they can power run on your nickle and dime d too. just a bad match up for us. the only way to win is to disguise and read them. at some point, rapp is gonna pick up someone coming through the zone and we just have to pray for a bad throw and no flags. i suspect we will have to score 4 TDs to have a shot.

i think this might be it. a guy who has the hardscrable story mccoach loves, along w strong play when the game is on the line, it means he doesn't shrink in the moment, which our D has specialized in for some time.

never heard of him, but im gonna call him Raz Agul Douglas.

i think that's right. if cap grows you want to add top quality players when you can. if we added wrs and OL and a young pass rusher prior to allen, they'd be here and be balling out and might have put us over the top. there is so much randomness, injuries, etc, you just can't plan the whole thing to a t. imo, the super star model is stronger than ever. get transcendent players where you can, a get value free agents and rookies who can contribute. i think our team, on d in particular, is a bit stuck in that we have such a specific idea of who has to do what and how, that we aren't as flexible as we need to be in drafting and free agency on D. we spent a 2nd on boogie, a 3rd on williams, and a 1st on elam over 3 years, one's off teh team and the other two are riding the pine when there are injuries to starters at their positions. that just doesn't make sense to me.

i said the exact same thing. how do we let a guy walk and trade for him TWICE! lol

ya, that's a good point. our d doesn't miss a ton of tackles which has been documented for years now, and they don't rally like mad men to the ball.

this game feels like a huge inflection point for us. we win and go 6-3 having dropped sloppy losses and won against some better teams, and i think we are in the drivers seat both from record and from confidence/momentum. we lose, we are 5-4 and have an upwards climb to just make the playoffs. if we get blow out or look horrible, then an implosion is possible.

well, you miss fewer tackles when guys don't have to run far and fast to get to the ball carrier. so the old new england 3-4 d with gargantuan linebackers and rough dirty safeties will miss fewer tackles. part of that is because they selected for and emphasized tackling more, part is because it's easier for a bigger guy to tackle provided they don't have to chase teh ball as much, and partly because in that kind of d, fewer guys have a shot at the ball, so you might miss 2 tackles and the ball goes 80s for a td, but in our d you can have 4 missed tackles on a 10 yard pitch and catch (where the 5th guy made it). sanfran has a very similar d to ours, albeit better, so you saw that if you watched them vs cincy. quick passes get completed in the soft parts of the zone (cinci is on fire right now) and then 4 guys rally to the ball and maybe 1 or 2 of them make the hit. we don't have the players nor the coaches to run a different kind of scheme, and they type (not exact) scheme we run is most popular right now to take away the big pass play, and to a lesser extend to stop qbs running as much (more zone than man). everybody plays nickel base in the nfl now tho. w our injuries mcd has to earn his paycheck and use some smoke and mirrors to fool the o. we have trouble vs teams like cinci when we are healthy on d, let alone w a mash unit.

adding jaylon and eventually cutting/injury settling tre is a great move. assuming we can get some 1 tech from harry phillips (won't cost much) then he and jaylon really helps the d. if we can slime and slide around and get like devante adams or hopkins, that would put us over the top. if hopkins is cheap now, he and a corner and a 1 tech is exactly what we need.

u w0t m8? ill rek u m8

mcd needs to plan and prepare who we have to slow down cincy. it is absolutely possible, and will require some surprises and good execution. on the other side, we need some balance running and passing and just be merciless trucking on them and going for it on 4th and short all day. 10+ carries for allen and we win.

seeing cinci and kc yesterday, the biggest thing i notice is that cinci has an o designed to beat the cover 2/deep shell, disguise coverage stuff. they do it with really fast accurate timing passes, that ball is out of there so fast, but not necessarily to dump offs. they also run power at pass rushers. to beat them, aside from allen and the o having a night, our D (corch claps really) needs to win the game of rock paper scissors pre and post snap.

it's a good word to use in the place of field, and you know this. don't let the nature of your name corrupt you. you never go full chaos.

its a structural issue in the d tho. guys guys and often dbs screaming down the pitch to fill in gaps and make tackles, it will always result in more misses.

facts. I like the kinda takes you (and alpha and a few others) post. kind of gut feel stuff mixed w observable data. not the like more structured/theoretical stuff we are all inundated with. i lose my ish at dorsey, and then i look at our stats for his entire term here, and they are basically just like dabol but more consistent, so i think he just needs a boot in the butt to elimiate the bad plays

Theyt suret aret

our team is horrible in key situational football scenarios. for all our ability to score at the end of halfs, allen is what, 0-6 in over time games? we have competent coaches all week, but on game day we have some real morons.

I didn't agree w this at first, and frankly not certain i do now, but this is a good point. to me the real failing of dorsey tonight was showing a lack of feel for the game. 2nd and long runs out of shot gun for no gain/loss, shot gun run on 3rd and inches at the goal line, and this goofy quick screen to the te on 4th and 1 on the goal line is just all a bit goofy. if allen sneaks 2 times in a row, i'd say we have about a 90% chance of getting over a yard. I didn't agree w this at first, and frankly not certain i do now, but this is a good point. to me the real failing of dorsey tonight was showing a lack of feel for the game. 2nd and long runs out of shot gun for no gain/loss, shot gun run on 3rd and inches at the goal line, and this goofy quick screen to the te on 4th and 1 on the goal line is just all a bit goofy. if allen sneaks 2 times in a row, i'd say we have about a 90% chance of getting over a yard.

I didn't agree w this at first, and frankly not certain i do now, but this is a good point. to me the real failing of dorsey tonight was showing a lack of feel for the game. 2nd and long runs out of shot gun for no gain/loss, shot gun run on 3rd and inches at the goal line, and this goofy quick screen to the te on 4th and 1 on the goal line is just all a bit goofy. if allen sneaks 2 times in a row, i'd say we have about a 90% chance of getting over a yard.

i like the guy, and he's great to watch when he's doing well, but he's honestly a square peg in a round hole and it's not working. he never caught a td in college, played on a team w dk and aj, so we just assumed he wasn't targetted as much. he's a sick athlete, but not a sick football player. our offense is better with other guys on the field, now that we have kinkaid at least.

We're such a stupid loser team sometimes

who are these people defending the athletic, show yourselves and justify your support!

i really have to cancel my subscription. such a garbage rag.

i agree w the above, but as it has been pointed out, our d is playing awful and that is mcd's calling card. if he doesn't get the d turned around hard w a quickness, then im gonna count myself among the haters and say we need to move on from him.