Icege

Unrelated to the Cousins/Burrow debate... Consolidated list below: $152M - CLE $138M - KC $136M - DET $133M - LV $131M - DEN $129M - BAL $122M - BUF, CIN, JAX $121M - NYJ $119M - ATL, NO $117M - ARI $116M - DAL $115M - SF $111M - NYG $110M - MIA $108M - LAC, HOU $107M - TEN, CHI $105M - PIT, WAS $104M - MIN, IND $101M - PHI, SEA $100M - NE, LAR $84M - TB, CAR $83M - GB

iirc he batted a pass at the LOS yesterday and has been getting a lot of individual work with coaches

I'm not aware of Cousins entire body of work (though I imagine I'm about to become more familiar with the research I'm about to do :P), but in regards to what you pointed out with the 2017 vs. 2018 Vikings there is a lot of context missing there. Such as: Minnesota's OL in 2017 ranked #6. In 2018 they plummeted to #29 after losing guards Joe Berger (retirement) and Nick Easton (training camp neck injury). The interior offensive line for Cousins' 2018 Vikings: Tom Compton, Pat Elflein, and Mike Remmers The three aforementioned interior offensive linemen gave up a combined 18 sacks. Compton (47th among guards) and Remmers (50th) together allowed 77 total pressures. Rookie 2nd round selection Brian O'Neill started at RT and allowed 31 pressures (but did not allow a sack in 531 pass-pro situations). The team's pass defense suffered greatly with the loss of 1st round selection Mike Hughes to a torn ACL in October which left an undrafted rookie Holton Hill to step up. Xavier Rhodes also happened to have the worst year of his career that same season allowing a catch rate of 65.2%. Cousins worst stretch that season came after the Bye week where the Vikings would eventually go 3-4 over that period with losses to the Bears (twice), Seahawks, and Patriots. The Pats were 8-3 at the time and would finish the season 11-5. The Bears went 12-4 and were only behind the Saints & Rams who had both gone 13-3. The Seahawks finished 10-6. None of these were bad teams with bad defenses. We all saw what a bad offensive line does to a QB just two seasons ago. Putting the 2018 Vikings record on Cousins simply does not match up with what actually happened. Joe Burrow was also 2-6-1 with the Bengals before he broke his leg in week 11 of his rookie season. He did not take them to the playoffs. That was his sophomore season when the team went 10-7 after signing Riley Reiff (Cousins' one solid offensive lineman in Minnesota) and drafting Ja'Marr Chase. Jimmy G could be funny to add to the mix now that you mention it... I wonder what the graphic would look like with him on there.

None of that has anything to do with the point presented in the video though. The point is that Cousins is labeled as somebody that chokes in the playoffs but when lining his stats up alongside Joe Burrow (who is seen in the opposite light) they look incredibly similar with the biggest takeaway being how much better the Bengals defense has performed than the Vikings. Nobody is debating his pay.

I'm expecting DBrown to absolutely ball out this season. With Burns drawing the double teams and Evero liking to send ILBs up the middle when he does blitz there are going to be a lot more one-on-one opportunities for him. If the offense can start getting out ahead of opponents, that's going to allow this defense feast even more.

Meaning that Evero likes to rush just four players so opposing offensive lines can key their double teams on the best pass rusher for the defense. In our case, it'll be Brian Burns. Hopefully that means that Derrick Brown or the edge rusher opposite of Burns produce more pressures and of course, sacks. Evero does like to use his ILBs when he does blitz, which Luvu and Shaq both excel at. With all of the disguised coverages giving QBs an extra tick to process things we might also start seeing more coverage sacks.

It'd be awesome if Amare Barno or Brandon Smith develop. My fear is that Rhule went with the same approach he did with his college teams: acquire a bunch of athletes and be overconfident in his staff's ability to teach them how to play football. Maybe with a top-flight professional coaching staff those guys can flip the switch. Kobe Jones has been popping in training camp from the DE position. He might sneak his way on to the roster. Brown, Tuttle, Williams, Anderson, McCall, and Jones could be a decent enough group to hold down the DLine this season. I think that Marquis Haynes Sr is going to perform respectably this season. Is he going to show out as "the guy" to line up across from Burns? I wouldn't go that far. He could do well enough though so that if we could get somebody out of Barno, Johnson, and Gross-Matos to show up then the pass rush might be "good enough" as gross as it might feel to settle for that.

Which says a lot because offenses are supposed to be ahead of defenses in training camp since they're trying out new stuff while the defense is mostly reading and reacting.

What I'm thinking as well. Having Chinn + Luvu on the field is going to allow the defense so much more flexibility. Luvu can be playing off-ball or rushing the passer. Chinn can line up at safety, nickel, or LB. Those two I think are going to be vital to Evero's scheme.

From Monday's practice, but so nice it's worth seeing twice:

Yea... I'm geeking over this team having and executing a modern NFL offense.

Excited to think about how the Panthers are going to fill out their defensive depth chart. Here's one from Evero's 2022 Broncos defense at the beginning of September: Looking at the DL, I'm thinking we see that filled out by Derrick Brown, Shy Tuttle, DeShawn Williams, Henry Anderson, Marquan McCall, and then choose somebody from Raequan Williams, Taylor Stallworth, John Penisini, Jalen Redmond, Kobe Jones, LaBryan Ray, and Antwuan Jackson. I could see them looking to poach a player from another team's cuts or practice squad here. The DBs will be interesting too... Jaycee Horn, Donte Jackson, and CJ Henderson seem to be locks at corner. The question is, which two (or three) do they go with out of Eric Rowe, Greg Mabin, Rezjohn Wright, Keith Taylor Jr, and Stantley Thomas-Oliver III? Safeties are DEEP with Jeremy Chinn, Von Bell, Xavier Woods, Sam Franklin Jr, and Jamie Robinson. ILB looks to be one of the surprisingly deeper groups with Shaq Thompson, Frankie Luvu, Kamu Grungier-Hill, Deion Jones, and Brandon Smith. OLB on the other hand... outside of Burns and Haynes, a lot of question marks. DJ Johnson is going to take some time to develop, YGM is in a make it or break it year for him as far as it goes with remaining a Panther in the long term, and there hasn't been much of anything reported about Barno. Of the guys listed, I think that we're going to see Shaq, Luvu, Chinn, and Horn ball out. I'm a little worried about the defensive line as well as the team's overall pass rush, but there's no way to know how any of that be until the games get underway. While Evero prefers to rush just four, when he does blitz he likes to bring an ILB (or two). My assumption is that the disguised coverages and blitzes are going to hopefully buy the pass rush time to get there. I'm a little curious how this defense will fair against the run-heavy NFC South with it's frequent use of light boxes. That could all been a part of being in the AFC West though against Mahomes, Herbert, and Carr twice a year (ooo, didn't think about Evero's experience against Carr...). Brown, Shaq, Luvu, and Chinn are all solid against the run and experienced against the offenses that they'll see. Eager to see who steps up amongst the remaining starters (aside from the CBs, of course).

Np! Sharing resources helps us all learn correction from earlier re: primary pass rusher, EJ was saying that Burns was not going to pop on the stat sheet due to being the primary pass rushers and the team often rushing four with the #1 guy drawing the doubles (which was supported by TheHonestNFL's metrics that were linked). Jaycee is expected to have a Surtain-like season. Lots of 2-high, light box looks pre-snap it sounds.

It was on one of the two recently linked podcasts we had in here re: deep dive analysis. I believe it was Brett Kollman + EJ Snyder's Panthers breakdown and/or their NFC South predictions ones. EJ mentioned that Evero's defense uses their primary pass rusher to eat up double teams, so while Brett was excited for him to be at his natural position EJ didn't believe his stats were going to be impressive. Brett talked up how Evero's defense likes to leave the CB1 on an island which will allow more targets to come Jaycee's way. @TheHonestNFL on Twitter has been very high on Evero as well and has had some more detailed stuff to check out. He has a lot on Frank's offensive system due to Frank's time in Philly and the account owner allegedly being a former Philly front office member, as well as stuff from Fangio's time in Philly. The common theme I'm seeing in regards to the scheme is that we're going to be seeing a lot of disguised coverages/blitzes being held for as long as possible. A lot of 2-man looks where the safeties will eventually rotate. They've got a BUNCH of stuff on Fangio's concepts as well as Frank's stuff as mentioned. That last tweet was a treasure trove of info. Can't speak highly enough for what that account brings to the table.

From the way it sounds, Evero's defense funnels passing plays towards CB1. That would mean that CJ is rarely going to be on an island by himself (unless he happens to be CB1 on the play, of course). With a player who's confidence has been shaky at times, that could go a long ways towards making him a meaningful contributor to the defense.

Looking at when the catch was made vs. when Woods pulled up + the angle he was coming from, doesn't look like the hit would be nearly as bad as you think. Plus, I've see Chark hold on to the ball while taking shots or having a defender hanging all over him. Would the safer play have been to hit the RB or TE underneath? Sure, but then we're hearing about how Bryce is scared to take shots downfield or doesn't have the arm to push it. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. It is what it is.

Hmm... interesting. I was curious as to whether or not PFF's grades were influenced by usage and that might be the case. Prentice only had 3 targets last year of which he caught all 3 for 9yds and a 1st down. Out of curiosity, do they have JK Dobbins ranked? He had 7 catches on 8 targets with no drops for 42yds, 1 TD, and 3 1sts. Wondering how low they'd consider him if usage is as heavy of an influence as it might seem. From what it sounded like at training camp today, they were lining Laviska up all over the place as well as letting him take handoffs in the backfield. I'm a big fan of the former part of that, because if the team makes it a point to move him all over the field it can allow them to use him as a gadget player early on before letting him be the decoy later once defenses start keying in on him. That's going to make life even easier for Bryce.

For disagreeing that Miles Sanders is a good enough pass catcher as an RB? Nah. I stand by that. But I will let him know that they're doing what a lot of us are hoping to see that he just mentioned earlier: utilizing Laviska out of the backfield more often this season than last.

@CRALooks like they might have a plan for Hasta Laviska similar to what you mentioned you were hoping for in the other thread

Doesn't have a forced fumble, but he does have two picks and plenty of pass deflections! I understand that folks want him to have sacks, but we can't ignore the other net positive plays that he creates for the defense that have impacted the opposing QB. I'm interested to see if he's going to have more opportunities to get to the QB. Allegedly, Evero's system rushes four while using the primary pass rusher (in our case, Burns) to eat up double teams. Hopefully pairing that with how the scheme is also known to disguise coverages pre-snap will give DBrown more opportunities to get to the QB.

Out of curiosity... who was #149? If it wasn't Chuba Hubbard, then throw that baby out with the bath water (imo). But in all seriousness, that's incredibly hard to believe just looking at the numbers for other RBs. AJ Dillon: 43 targets, 28 catches, 7 drops (16.3% drop rate) Nick Chubb: 37 targets, 27 catches, 4 drops (10.8% drop rate) Breece Hall: 31 targets, 19 catches, 5 drops (16.1%) James Conner: 58 targets, 46 catches, 7 drops (12.1% drop rate) It's hard for me to look at those stats along with Sanders' 26 targets, 20 catches, and 2 drops (7.7% drop rate) and not take that PFF grade ranking with a grain of salt. Hard to get Bryce more when we had to stock the team beforehand. Free agency first, then the draft. Unless we want to rehash the old argument about whether or not they knew it was Bryce all along, but I don't think we've gotten that bored again.

Agreed on Chuba having stonehands. However, he could also develop into a quality starting RB like Miles Sanders has. Regarding Sanders as a pass catcher, he definitely had issues in his sophomore season. His 53.2% catch percentage from that season is heavily influenced by how much Wentz sucked when targeting him, arguably more so than his 7 drops (which were way too many, don't get me wrong there). 52 targets, 28 of them catches, 7 of them drops... that's 17 passes that completely missed him. It's worth noting that since that season, he's only dropped 3 total passes (1 in 2021, 2 last season). I'd also like to point out, in support of how bad Chuba's hands are, that he dropped 7 passes on just 37 targets during his rookie season. He dropped 1 of his 17 targets last year though. Also have to take into consideration the QB + style of play. Jalen Hurts rarely targets his RBs, which is backed up by Sanders' targets prior to Hurts starting. Just look at his targets from 2021 + 2022: 2021 Targets 104 - DeVonta Smith, WR 76 - Dallas Goedert, TE 62 - Quez Watkins, WR 57 - Jalen Reagor, WR 50 - Kenneth Gainwell, RB 34 - Miles Sanders, RB 2022 Targets 145 - AJ Brown, WR 136 - DeVonta Smith, WR 69 - Dallas Goedert, TE 51 - Quez Watkins, WR 29 - Kenneth Gainwell, RB 26 - Miles Sanders, RB Gainwell was also the change of pace back for the Eagles. Yea, in the postseason they started going with him primarily but that could also be due to them thinking they put some wear and tear on Miles. Kenneth Gainwell 2021: 298 snaps (29%), 68 rushing attempts, 50 targets 2022: 331 snaps (28%), 53 rushing attempts, 29 targets Miles Sanders 2021: 426 snaps (53%), 137 rushing attempts, 34 targets 2022: 673 snaps (57%), 259 rushing attempts, 26 targets I don't agree that Miles Sanders is not an effective pass catcher out of the backfield. Is he as elite as CMC? No, but in terms of being a 3-down back he fits that role and I think will do just fine for Bryce Young as his safety valve out of the backfield.

Stoked for the kid to ball out in this defense!