Rubes

You definitely have a good point there, it sure does seem that way at times.

Definitely not good. At the same time, I’m eager to see how that changes once the new guys acclimate and start playing more. Maybe we’ll even see Miller start getting back to form before it’s too late. Holding the Bengals to 3 points in the second half last night could be a sign of things to come.

I definitely think Dorsey is the main problem, but I’ll also add that I’m deeply disappointed with the performance of the offensive line, which at times looks confused and overmatched despite upgrades at multiple positions. Sure, Brown has continued to suck, but I’m starting to think the OL coach is not all he’s cracked up to be.

He was infuriating but also exciting, and you could see the potential just bursting at the seams. Now he just seems on edge, ready to make a head scratching play at any moment.

Josh used to be exciting to watch every week. Must see TV. Now I have no idea what will happen on any drive or play and I’m mostly holding my breath he doesn’t throw an ugly INT or get sacked by someone who blew by one of our OL.

Loved the acquisitions. The proof will be in their performance. Many of us were optimistic about Settle and Ford, too.

Well, we don't officially have the comp pick for Edmunds yet, and won't until later, so as of this point in time it doesn't exist. It's our current 3rd pick.

Some outstanding replies in this thread. Really proud of my TBD family on this one!

I love how everyone’s talking about a WR, or DT, or LB, or RB…you know it in your bones that you’ll hear about Beane signing someone soon and it’ll be nobody you’ve heard of at a position you never imagined…

A defense missing 4 high quality starters? I can understand if they have difficulties. The offense has no excuse. The strong second halves were more like strong 4th quarters after they wasted most of each game before that.

4 players, actually, when you consider both starting DTs in addition to Milano and White. That's 4 high quality starters missing.

Look, I get it, but we're not just talking about 3 people down. These are the top player at each level of the defense: the best interior DL, the best LB, and the best CB, each of whom is Pro Bowl/All-Pro level. These weren't your average 3 guys out of 11. Most of us are willing to cut the defense a little bit of slack when you lose those three players. It's still a huge problem when you let Mac Jones score the winning TD at the end of the game and can't protect the lead, but the reality is, as others have pointed out: this should never have come down to the final drive. The offense, at basically full strength, crapped the bed most of the game against a defense that was missing their own multiple key starters. It shouldn't have been close. The offense deserves far more criticism for that than the defense.

If he fumbles this week you’re officially banned for a month.

I was ecstatic after the Dolphins game. The last two games this team seriously underperformed, and that's cause for concern going forward. But we'll see. On the other hand, I'm also ecstatic that it's almost Halloween and we're not out of the playoff race already.

I've felt like this is the reason we occasionally see receivers near each other, perhaps because they're not quite making the right decisions based on the coverage, and they just need more reps before getting it down 100%. Do you think that's accurate?

I'm not into the hard core details of offensive passing game strategy, but I know WRs have to make decisions on the fly as to the route they run based on the coverage that they are seeing...or that they think they see. So yeah, maybe there are times when defenses do a great job at disguising coverages or otherwise doing things that mess with WR decision-making. We have no idea, really, what exactly is happening out there or who is messing up, but I could certainly see Dorsey reviewing tape with those guys and pointing out that one of them reacted the wrong way to what was being shown by the defense.

I wasn't watching very closely at the time, but after the fracas with multiple personal fouls I noticed Brown came out of the game. Was that due to injury? Was he benched? Did he come back in the game later?

I'd have to disagree, then. I think we've seen generally good play design by Dorsey. I think the offense is pretty complex and some guys may just not be picking up the nuances well.

Seems to me that this is more likely to be a problem with guys not knowing their assignments as opposed to poor play design by Dorsey.

I can't say for sure, but my recollection is that our breakdowns are isolated. That is, one guy blows his assignment and everything gets thrown off. A good example was the play where Cook completely whiffed on his guy, which forced Allen to scramble and improvise. The other linemen were doing their jobs, just takes one guy messing up to screw up the play. I think that probably was happening several times.

Ah, I gotcha. I thought the other years were his totals over the entire season, not just to the same point in the season.

22 rushes already this year, after 6 games? Is that right? At this rate he's on pace for over 60 rushes this year.

I didn't focus much on Williams during the game, but my sense is that he did reasonably well against one of the worst offenses in the league. I'll wait and see how he performs against a real offense before feeling really good about him.

I do think we'll learn something about our defensive backups, particularly people like Elam, Ford, and Williams. And I think we'll also learn how good McD's scheme is at maintaining defensive performance despite missing key pieces.

I recall reading somewhere online that he would come with a $4 million price tag for this year.