tukafan21

Fair point, but at least for me personally, I'm less upset at Bryce today as much as I am the coaching staff, and I think I've made that clear in my posts so far today. Now, if I were to go back and watch the All 22 view and see Bryce turn down the downfield passing opportunities that were there, that would change things for me and put some blame more on him. But without seeing that film right now, I'm upset with the coaches, not the players. With the one exception being that I still think Bryce NEEDS to call audibles when we're inside the 10 and T-Mac gets 1 on 1 coverage, call a hot route and just throw it up for him to make a play over the DB's head. But again, that still might not even be on Bryce, that might be on the coaches if they're not allowing him the freedom to make those calls at the LOS. But there's also just no way for fans to know the answer to that particular question.

You do realize though that most people don't take notes throughout the game of the issues they had, right? Asking for very specific examples so quickly after a game is tough. Personally, I just found myself, even in a 30-0 blowout win, constantly yelling at the TV for bad play calls and the lack of even trying to pass the ball down the field at all. Just dink and dunk nonstop, just like Bryce's first few years, we learn nothing about who he can be, unless it's the staff's way of flat out telling us that he's just not THAT guy and it's why they do this stuff with him. We played this game like a contending team who was just content to win the game. We needed to play it like a team trying to figure out who their QB can be and use the safety of a blowout victory as a way to let Bryce play loose and throw the ball around the field, instead of him playing tight like usual because he's afraid of losing us the game.

I guess that's my point though, our gameplan sucked and we were just lucky to play a team that poo the bed even more today. 9 pass attempts to WRs after the first drive of the game. If that was our gameplan, then we need to be firing Canales before the day is over. Because, AGAIN, this season isn't about winning or losing games, it's about finding out who Bryce is. And gameplans like that don't accomplish that goal in the slightest, if anything, they just open up more questions than create answers.

And again, if you don't think missed FG's put wind into the sails of the team that didn't give up those points while also demoralizing the team that missed them, then again, purposefully obtuse. Not saying we lose the game if they make those, but it's 100% a different game if they make those two and it's 7-6 into the 2nd Quarter.

Yes. Finding out who Bryce is, is the ONLY thing that matters to me this year, because we need to either extend him or move on from him after this year, we can't go into next year still not knowing if he is our future or not. I don't care about winning games like this, I don't care about winning games at all, just like I don't care about losing games either. I only care about Bryce and the staff proving themselves to be our future or not to be our future, this game didn't move that needle even the slightest. Hate on me for not being able to enjoy wins more, but I want a SB, not meaningless wins in an ugly game in a 6-11 season. The best path to a future SB for this franchise is by learning what Bryce can be (or not be) THIS season and being able to make a long term call this offseason because of it.

If they make those two FGs, it's a 7-6 game into the 2nd Quarter, if you don't think that wouldn't have completely changed this game, then you're purposefully being obtuse.

Oh yea, not giving them credit, but just saying maybe we shouldn't be claiming as much credit as some fans seem to be. Falcons had 2 missed FGs, an INT, and a fumble all in our side of the field. The people celebrating "we blew out a division rival in a shutout" are a classic case of not being able to see the forest through the trees right now. We won, we shut them out, fug the Falcons, all of it, but I'm also always going to call it like I see it, and this wasn't some statement game, we won, but we still didn't *actually* look all that great out there.

I also think people are looking at the shutout and 30 point win and forgetting that it only happened because of two missed FGs and Penix gifting us some turnovers that were his fault and not something our defense caused. So yea, we won, we had a shutout, but I'd still say those things were much more because of the Falcons own mistakes than us forcing them into those.

In a year we are contenders, yea, I'm more willing to enjoy a win no matter how it comes, and save the complaining for Monday morning. But as I've said countless times over the last few months, I don't care one bit about winning or losing games this year. I want to see improvement from the players and staff, as well as determining Bryce's ability to be our future QB. Games like today don't help evaluate Bryce one bit, we only had 17 chances to do that this year, he sucked in the first two and now we threw away the 3rd chance by not letting him throw the ball more than 5 yards down field on more than like 3 pass attempts. So ya, I'm going to question the play calling, this isn't a team in a place to just coast to wins because the other team poo the bed. We need to use these games to our advantage and push the envelope to see what Bryce can do since we had the win in the bag, and if he made a few mistakes, so be it, we were still going to win it.

Egbuka is going to win it Already has 3 TDs, Godwin isn't yet back, and Evans just got hurt today and was immediately ruled out from returning. In that offense and the role he's going to take on, I can't see how he isn't going to put up some real big numbers this year, while T-Mac gets Bryce and a coach who won't throw his way in the red zone.

We had 224 yards of offense, are you really THAT thrilled with our performance today that you're willing to overlook that we blew them out because they missed 2 early FGs and then Penix was god awful the rest of the way? It's always great to blow out the Falcons, but I'm not going to not ask questions about the game planning and play calling just because of that. In fact, I think there's a very real argument to make that in a game like this, we shouldn't be playing it safe, we should be going the other way and open up the playbook because we have the cushion to do so. This game did absolutely nothing to evaluate Bryce's future as we didn't let him do anything other than short check down type of passes again. I like wins, but in reality, I don't care about wins or losses this year, I care about the development/evaluation of Bryce, and to me, we just threw away 1 of the 17 games we have to evaluate him, and that is coming off of 2 terrible performances as is.

Oh absolutely, and he's the type who is more likely to make those plays than not, so it sucks when he doesn't still make the catch. But this is the NFL, no matter how good the WR is (or how much of a fan I am of theirs), I'm not going to blame them when the defender makes a good play to break it up. Just like I'm going to call out T-Mac for not watching the ball all the way into his hands on the screen and dropping it, he has to make that play.

Was just looking at the box score and now realizing it goes even further than the red zone usage. On the first drive of the game, T-Mac was targeted 3 times, Brycen twice, and Renfrow once. Which means for the remainder of the game, Bryce only had 9 targets to his WRs. And yes, I get it, we won by 30 in a shutout, but it's not like the game was a blowout the whole time where we were just running it to preserve the lead. But just like I felt all throughout 2015, we might have been winning games, but it was in spite of the coaching staff that season, not because of them. They made soooooo many play calls and game plans that made no sense and the players seemed to constantly bail them out, and it was frustrating when fans would get upset at asking these questions just because we were winning. It's also not like we have a clear cut long term franchise QB solution, we had 17 games (and now just 14 more) to prove Bryce can either be the guy or not be the guy, so even in games like this, we need to be throwing it more and throwing it downfield more to see what he can be. I said all off-season, we're not contenders this year, winning or losing doesn't matter to me, it's about finding out if Bryce should be our long term guy or if we should move on after this year. Games like this are nice for the win, but they hurt our ability to evaluate him properly.

Off the top of my head, the dropped screen was the only target that went his way that he should have caught, the others were either realisitcally uncatchable or just a good play by a defender to break it up, but I could be wrong.

I almost put it more on Bryce than Canales, unless Canales isn't letting Bryce call audibles at the LOS. When we're inside the 10 and T-Mac gets 1 on 1 coverage with no safety help, that's then on Bryce to call an audible and the second he catches the snap, throw the fade to the corner for T-Mac to go and make a play above the defenders head. We've clearly shown a willingness to throw those routes on 3rd down and short, we've done it numerous times already this year and he's come down with a few of them. But we haven't done it one time in the red zone, it's maddening.

He had one that he didn’t catch in week 1, I wouldn’t call that a drop when the defender had a hold of his second arm and probably should have been called a PI. What was the other “drop”, was it the one from today when Bryce through it to his wrong shoulder and by the time he could flip his head around the other way all he could do was reach one hand out and never had a shot at actually catching it? I already called out his clear drop on that screen that was entirely on him, I’m not afraid to call out his mistakes, but he hasn’t “dropped” any passes in the end zone in my book, sorry.

This reeks of 2015 and defending Rivera’s constant screw ups just because we were winning. We were great that year in spite of Rivera, not because of him. I’m not complaining about T-Mac not scoring, I’m questioning why we have had numerous chances to throw it up to our best red zone weapon through 3 weeks and haven’t taken that chance one time. Winning games, even a blowout, doesn’t mean you can’t question the legitimate questionable decisions by the coaching staff.

Of course he is lol, and it's great to get a big win, so it's not like it cost us the game. But I just flat out understand how we can have a weapon like him and just flat out have refused to throw him a single end zone jump ball yet given how many snaps we've had in the situations where it was possible. That so far through 3 weeks teams keep leaving him out there on an island, is just a bad look on the coaching staff to not even attempt that pass a single time. You have to punish teams for doing that, even if it ends up an incompletion, you have to put it on tape to make future opponents plan for it and start sending a 2nd player out there, which in turn will open up more options for other guys.

Was upset about this last week when he kept getting single covered down there and we never looked his way besides the one terrible Bryce throw. If there was a single thing T-Mac is best at, it's red zone jump balls when covered 1 on 1 from inside the 10. We've probably had at least 5-7 snaps where we had the opportunity to call an audible and throw that pass and we haven't taken it one time. I just don't get it. Great win, but this is getting frustrating to not see them even attempt to use our best red zone weapon through 3 weeks (and I swear, this is only 2% motivated by my Fantasy team wanting a T-Mac TD already)

Totally get it, and if we've only had a small handful of opportunities this year to do it, I wouldn't be so frustrated. But I'm guessing we've taken at least 15 snaps from inside the 10 already this year, at least half of them T-Mac has been single covered, and the only time we've even looked his way, Bryce threw a god awful pass that he never had a chance to catch.

Cool, we scored another TD, but I'm starting to get soooooooooooooo pissed off that we just flat out refuse to target T-Mac in the red zone, particularly when he keeps getting single covered. It makes no fuging sense to me, he's our best red zone option and I think he has 1 target from inside the 10 yard line in the first 3 weeks despite us taking probably 15+ snaps in those situations already, with a good amount of him getting single coverage on them. Call a fuging audible, throw the ball up to him, what are we even doing?!?!?!?!

Threw it to the wrong shoulder to give him a legit chance though, even for someone who makes crazy catches like T-Mac does, that pass really didn't give him a realistic shot at making one there. Throw it to the other side of him and he can go up strong for it and Moss the defender instead of needing to make a last second turn to attempt a spectacular one handed grab because that's all he could do in the situation.

Yep, I think if we saw the replay from the other angle it would be one where you see him look up field before securing the catch as he knew he had a ton of room. Rookie mistake, it happens and he'll learn from it

Everyone is attacking the play calling right now (and sure, I didn't love the 2nd down run after that 1st down play), but if T-Mac catches that ball, good chance he ends up getting a 1st down there. That one was on T-Mac, not the play calling

Oh I get it, but even with Bryce's noodle arm, if you have a burner on the outside who is beating his man down the field with zero safety help, even Bryce can heave it 55-60 yards to him if he gets the time in the pocket, so you still need to keep a safety with an eye on those routes when he's on the field.