strato

First reaction to that is what would he have done so out of the ordinary that film study would shut him down? He is the standard PA pocket QB. It wasn’t exotic or mysterious exactly. I don’t think his declining effectiveness was as much the film study as it was a combination of he can’t hold up to the hits and we lost AT in Vegas game I think and the rest of the WR was not that great and there some other shuffles that hurt the OL continuity. General issues that would have affected whoever was playing. It seemed to degrade by the week. Without going back and verifying anything to refresh the memory that is what I’ve got.

I think we saw his ceiling vs Dallas. He played well the whole game and did what he does. He did less, but there can be degrees of more throwing but I don’t think it gets better in terms of his capabilities than that game. That is the peak. But PS, that was a bad defense. What happens against good ones?

I think we had personnel tells as well. I like the 12 grouping for us right now because it doesn’t give away as much in that regard IMO.

Except It being nothing doesn’t square with the taking him from the game last week though. Something happened. Maybe the normal over protectiveness last week did allow a crack in the door to stick Andy’s foot in. I took so much absolute poo last week for saying that the two times Andy came in in week three were noticeably different, but it was true. You don’t need stats to help you see it. The offensive thing comes down to protecting him and is his arm still limber. If both of those things cooperate I expect to see a repeat of what happened in Seattle 2023 Las Vegas 2024 as far as how the offense looks. We have more talent around the QB now also.

And there is always the good chance it won’t be a rocket and you can maybe recover in time to re engage. As I typed the they have respect it, the oddsmakers were in the back of my mind saying well… you know the statistics on that may say otherwise

Interesting idea but if he clicks there I don’t see him wanting to leave. At this point in time anyway, absent some snafu situation arising

That is the (or, one) calculus that got me slammed for questioning him pre draft. I mean I drew indignant crowds of posters with a single questioning of their lil almighty. The margins at this level are so small and the velocity deficit allows these elite athletes to close on the target. And this is a league where they parse 40 times in 100ths of a second. And many plays are made by a small fraction of a second. You give that little bit back to the defender the pass is defended. PS it is probably why the some of the windows he is throwing into are so tight.

That is also true.

Yes and this leads me into what I pictured XL being used for. The Russell Wilson Special I call it. We are not even doing that.

This is where I see the value in trying though. Say you are a CB or and you play the WR the same way, but then he doesn’t stop and gets behind you. They aren’t free to assume an incompletion even though it is the likely result. They have to respect it.

I hear you lol.

The first image in my head when Bryce comes up is that almost immediate bail out and getting some depth to do the running start so he can heave it down the field. Seen a couple or few nice throws from the pocket where he slides and then steps into it but that isn’t his preferred way to go. I don’t think.

It isn’t the same for the QB. Super over protective it looks like. The side of me that says him playing with no injury excuses is crucial to the goal of honestly evaluating him, accepts it.

I saw the signs late 2022 even when he wasn’t tearing it up. He was close. All that upheaval and regression we have suffered was unnecessary.

I was the Mike in my legendary HS football career so have the bias from that. Joking about the legendary I appreciated all those guys. Luke was the ultimate example to me of MLB as QB. Not the only one ever but we got to see it every week with him and he was so good at it. I have listened to the radio broadcast the last couple of weeks and he is great as an analyst. Knows how to dissect the offensive plays and what they did or tried to do. Sees it, knows it. He instantly sees it. I was unaware but really was impressed with him there.

Nutshell of where we are. Or are not. It is intentional how could it not be?

If you are talking about week 3 2023, didn’t people have a hard time even finding the play from the week before where he was impacted? It was a little shady, like Frank just said well you have an ankle this week to prove a point with Tepper.

That is what I was thinking it will be. Maybe even the regular backup with the other guys we have being pretty poor options. If he did have to play you could still use White or Hooker if his ankle was not happy about it. But I don’t see the point in risking a setback.

We were so blessed with Luke. He was stellar, like the ultimate blend of intellect and football player.

Even if we stand pat on Bryce in the near term there needs to be some new blood and some real competition to push this thing higher.

I think the Alex Smith to Mahomes transition might debunk that. They dropped in a better QB and it transformed them.

If his arm isn’t shot we give up some mobility. But we gain an arm and the will to stand in and step into pressure to make a throw. We surely gain better play action performance and more options off of it. Deeper routes can be in play. A little expansion of the effective target area. That is money with a good running game.

You need a good sense of humor to call that funny. But I was lamenting that the other day. We are winning some games with that approach. Took us two and a half years to get back to where we started from.

We pretty much spent a fortune on the OL to buy time in the pocket, which okay right now they are out. But normally we should not be incapable of protecting long enough for a guy to take a drop and step up and send the ball down the field. We aren’t talking about Hail Mary stuff here. Just deeper than red zone depth. Right now we don’t have the guy for that. Ours is slow to get back and when he does he needs time to turn his hips and get his feet set before he steps into the throw. or he has to bail out and concede one side of the field so he can get a run up to launch the ball down the half he left himself to work with. Seems like that is where most of the issue is with having that in the playbook. And trends. One thing thing about football trends is going too far with that leaves you open to be exploited somewhere else. As we always see eventually. Someone bucks the trend and it works. Now you have a new trend.

This is a quick reference that refreshes the memory bank. https://sogsports.com/greatest-nfl-tight-ends-of-all-time/ It doesn’t list their draft position or I didn’t see that but you bet some of these guys were not 1st round picks.