ImfromClayton

Checks out. I thought the o line was fine except right tackle. That spot was consistently bad Sunday. T-Mac is ridiculously good. I am surprised at some of those defensive grades. We had no answer for that toss play. I expect to see it a lot moving forward. Crazy to say this but I didn’t even think Josh Allen was that good on Sunday. XL continues to be a really tough eval. When he’s good, he’s dominant. He just completely disappears to often, and does the weirdest stuff. Stepping out of bounds for no reason on a route. Holding a block downfield. If he ever puts it together he’s going to be very good, but costly mistakes hurt him. You can tell by snap counts they love what he does. And he is max effort all the time.

I don't think they cut Dalton mid season. I don't think he will retire either. Hendon Hooker had approximately 12 seconds to learn the playbook. I do think backup quarterback just addressed itself as a "need." Bring on Jameis.

Andy Dalton is a great guy, and he has earned every bit of the respect he's garnered. He's in line for a relatively large payday next year, so he has a tough call to make this offseason. But it's over for him as an NFL player. That was absolutely clear. I don't want to pile on the guy, because I do like him a lot, and I think he's a good dude. That was like watching your dog get old. Nothing fun about it.

I don't think anybody with a brain thought or thinks we are a legit super bowl contender this year. I do LOVE the young core group that is forming. Part of the reason I defend Bryce Young is that if he is not good enough, we're going to waste a lot of this young talent we have anyway. You don't go from 5-12 to super bowl contender in one offseason unless you get a major injury back or get an insane free agent haul. We currently can't hang with the best teams in the league. We are also much closer than we were 365 days ago. Progress is good. There's still an outside shot at the playoffs, but I am really excited to see what Dan Morgan does with this offseason. Rico Dowdle a big decision. Jalen Coker, Brycen Tremaine, Cade Mays, Austin Corbett, Brady Christensen, Nick Scott and Christian Rozeboom are the guys we have to make decisions on. But this rebuild should be over next August. Or we have to do it again. Improvements needed at pass rush and linebacker for sure. Expecting us to win a super bowl this year is like expecting a kindergartener to do calculus. Is it possible? I guess so. but 99.9% shot it aint happening. We played like doo-doo against the bills, but that was definitely a penciled in loss from the day the schedule came out. Candidly though, if Bryce is ever going to be it, next year is the year we need to start being really good.

I've seen much discussion on this topic, but its really hard to evaluate it piece for piece due to the cap implications it had. For example: I'm not sure we sign hunt or lewis with burns contract. Those picks obviously turned into XL and Mitchell Evans. So our side of the trade is still very much TBD. That said, as good as Burns has been this year, and he's been really good, He's still a pash rush only DE. He's also getting a lot of 1 on 1 there, as they have Thibidoux (I'm sure that's spelled wrong) and Abdul Carter, as well as Dexter Lawrence in the middle. If you don't double Dexter, your play is not going to work. You can only have him on the field on first and second down if you have a dexter lawrence, or a derrick brown. If you watch the giants, one of their biggest flaws is that teams attack their defense the same way they attacked ours when he was here: Run off tackle straight at Brian Burns. I'm not sure you can win a lot of games with a player like that absorbing so much of the cap. So sure, he's on pace for a ridiculous season, but the giants are not good, and I really don't think he'd be able to put up the same production here. Throw in the way this trade opened up our offense, and I think it's a wash for us at worst.

I personally think Bryce is going to be an extremely good Quarterback for a long time. If you look at modern QB development, it just takes a while. The extreme athletes can get by early, but if you look at the trajectories of guys the last 10 years, were seeing a lot of slow-cooking. Jared Goff, Geno Smith, Baker, Sam Darnold, Trevor Lawrence. The list is long. The guys that were truly special from Day 1 is an extremely short list. The list of things that college quarterbacks are responsible for gets shorter by the day with the transfer portal, and the college offenses. The list of things that NFL Quarterbacks are responsible for seems to get longer and longer each season. I saw an interview the other day in which a rookie quarterback and center were calling plays for the offense. I can't remember the team or the Quarterback, but I definitely remember the clip. It takes time, even for the smartest and most gifted, and the reality is, we have no idea how good or bad the coaching may be until we hear things we aren't supposed to hear anyway. Bryce isn't perfect, but I saw in another thread, his biggest struggle is risk/reward. That is something I only expect him to improve upon. His adjustments, ability to read a defense, and execution have been extremely good considering our rosters in his tenure here. Our offensive personnel and coaching were both so poor his rookie year that I'm not sure it's fair to properly evaluate that at all. Since that time, all we've seen from him is growth and progress.

To this point, we have the worst pass rush in the league. Nothing in football happens in a vacuum. Corners have been fine. Not great mind you, but fine.

IMO, if Ceedee plays against us, the game probably goes the other way. Same with Tyreek Hill and the Dolphins. Our team just isn't designed to beat teams with two high level receivers like that. But when you look at the league, how many teams really have two guys of that caliber? There's nothing wrong with defensive adjustments, but sometimes I think a lot of fans want Evero to call a different play like a game on madden, and defensive football just isn't like that. That said, I thought we did a much better job this season against the Cowboys of flipping Jaycee and at least making them work for it, opposed to last season when they literally just lined CeeDee up on the other side of the field every single snap. For us to just straight up switch to consistent man coverage, or a different zone, or whatever, we likely would consistently need different personnel on the field. Doing it a few times a game is a gamble and can work, but if we consistently run man coverage against the Cowboys, eventually a RB is going to beat a linebacker, or something of that nature with our personnel. Part of the reason Evero likes this scheme is that, while we have our defaults and presets, what we do is very multiple, and you can do a lot of different things pre and post snap. We are a challenging defense to read. But as you said, if guys are getting beat, it doesn't really matter what you call.

I don't think officials are biased. I think that is lunacy. That would be about the only way to break the multi-billion dollar money printing machine that is the National Football League. I do think some teams are harder to officiate than others. Some teams do a better job taking advantage of the rules. And officials make mistakes. We see it more with teams like the Cowboys and the Chiefs because they are on national TV more often.

I'm not sure how much I'm changing mid year, especially when we are seeing some success. Most Pass Rushers are physically gifted. Scheme and personnel help, but you gotta have the Jimmys and Joes, especially at that position. We will likely lose games when the other team can throw for 400 yards, and has multiple high level receivers, but I think at this point in the development of our franchise, we have to be ok with that. You can't address every single issue at once. Really looks like we have plugged some holes on offense, and definitely in run defense. In the next draft, if we hit on a CB, an ILB and a Pass rusher, we will be pretty dangerous.

We’re 6 games into their careers. it’s never as good as you think it is. It’s never as bad as you think it is. im stoked right now, but let’s pump the breaks on this.

But a bunch of people on this chat page told me Bryce Young can't throw the ball downfield.

These threads really expose some people. First: We run a primary cover 3 zone scheme. We can't just move Jaycee wherever the other team's #1 goes. If you watched us, we did a good bit of randomly switching sides and roles yesterday to try to mess with them. They simply audibled and motioned into plays and packages that put george pickens away from Jaycee. They did the same thing with Ceedee Lamb last season. It's ok to say that the other team did a good job of something. Second, We have allowed about 40 combined rushing yards the last two games. There is absolutely nothing wrong with our defensive game plan. In fact, a lot of folks owe Evero an apology. The issues on defense is that we do not have personnel capable of rushing the passer, and we do not have a 2nd corner capable of covering the best receivers in the NFL. I can live with the 2nd problem, but the 1st one has to be addressed in the draft. Princely and Scourton have been solid, but they aren't going to be 10 sack guys as rookies. They may get there though. The more we can force teams into 3rd and 4th and long, the more chances we will have for turnovers. I think the job Evero has done with this crew has been pretty solid.

I like the wild and crazy stuff. I like the traditional stuff. It's the blend of the two that looks awful to me. When we go all blue, it looks way better with the black helmet. Blue jerseys with silver pants looks better with silver helmet. Every other pair of pants looks better with the black. When we go all black, it looks better with the black helmet. Silver pants = silver helmet. When we go all white, it looks way better traditional, with the silver helmet. Silver pants = silver helmet. black or blue pants = black helmet. ^^^ These should be the rules. I've enjoyed the creativity, but we look downright silly, like a 6 year old with a madden controller some weeks. I'm a sucker for white/white and black/silver though.

I think Rico is really good, but he has an insanely small sample size here. Look at the production in Dallas. He was good there too, with an extremely good O-line. That said, what he's done here the last two weeks is not sustainable. At some point, the production will decrease, or he's the best player in the history of the league. Those are the two options.