Post Mortem: Game 2

[Mr. Scot]

Said going into the second game what I wanted to see was improvement over the first game. That was gonna be a tall order against one of the best defenses in the league.

Did I see it?

Well, lets take a look.

Starting first with our own defense: They went into the game down a starter (Horn) lost another in the first half (Thompson )and had a third look gimpy near game's end (Burns). Despite all that though, they held up well for a lot of the game. Certainly don't wanna see any more injuries, but I like what Evero is doing scheme-wise.

Mind you, the offense didn't make it easy.

The Saints defense is as advertised, and having a quarterback in only his second start going against them is a recipe for disaster.

But while it wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, it wasn't a disaster either.

Last week's biggest issue for Young was turnovers. This game he only lost one, and even that one I wouldn't put too much on him. The defensive lineman who smacked it out made a great play. That'll happen, but it's not the result of a bad decision so much as a missed block.

On that topic, yhe offensive line certainly had a bigger challenge than last week. And like the defense, they were down a starter. There were going to be struggles. In this case, enough that starter Cade Mays ended up taking a seat for Calvin Throckmorton. We're still at least a couple of weeks away from Austin Corbett being available again, so those struggles might still continue for a little bit. 

In the passing game, I'm gonna guess the staff told Young to be more cautious about throwing to receivers with little separation.

Unfortunately, that seemed like all we had.

Two games in, what's painfully obvious is that our receiving corps isn't giving Young a lot to work with just yet. That left the Saints free to concentrate heavily on the run, and it worked. As a group, our pass catchers are generally smart with good hands, but there's not a lot of playmaking ability there.

Now, you can still work with that against some defenses, but not one as good as the Saints. The staff may need to tweak some of their scheming, mixing up route combinations or other things to try and compensate, but even with that it's likely to be a limitation for most if not all of this season.

So what about Bryce?

Well, besides overall protecting the ball better, he made some good audible calls and even ran a very efficient two minute drill. That's a maked improvement over last week when he looked uncomfortable doing anything up tempo. Yes, it was against prevent, but you still have to execute. He did, even when the Saints realized they'd screwed up and tried to tighten up at the goal line. The TD pass to Theilen was a really nice piece of improv. Happy to see it 

So bottom line for me? Again, watching a rookie quarterback in only his second pro start playing against one of the best defenses in the league would normally fall under the genre of horror. In this case though, it was more of a thriller.

Is that improvement?

Yeah, I think it is

To anyone still looking for magic this season, you're probably gonna be disappointed. But if you put it in perspective and keep in mind where we are (basically mile two of a hundred mile journey) it's progress.

Slow progress maybe, but progress nonetheless.

And I'll take that...

[Mr. Scot]

Also, quick note to the "everything sucks and everybody needs to be cut or fired" crowd that no doubt will want to come in and sh-t all over everything with weeping and wailing, grashing of teeth and absolute assurance that this team will never be any good and it all must be burned down as soon as possible...

Yeah sorry , not interested

You can have your opinions. I have mine. And if you don't like mine (or me) afraid that's not really high on my list of concerns... especially not right now. There are much bigger things on my mind than this.

So if I don't pay a whole lot of attention to whatever criticism or critique you have, afraid you'll just have to deal with it for now. Got more important things to worry about.

If you wanna discuss actual football stuff, cool. But if your whole argument is basically "everything sucks"?

Yeah, don't care

Edited September 19, 2023 by Mr. Scot

[SurvivalSloth]

fug Taysom Hill and fug Frank Reich's play calling.

[App Panther]

Ok, great. Things are really looking up. 

[Mr. Scot]

1 minute ago, App Panther said:

Ok, great. Things are really looking up. 

From last week? Yeah they actually are.

There's still an awful lot of work to be done, but if you weren't expecting that at this point, you should probably reevaluate your expectations.

[OneBadCat]

4 minutes ago, SurvivalSloth said:

fug Taysom Hill and fug Frank Reich's play calling.

For once I just want to see Taysom Hill get absolutely destroyed 

[tukafan21]

We made a bad trade and risked the franchise on the wrong QB, it's okay to admit it.  Refusing to admit it won't change things and make them all better.

We're here now and have to deal with it, but sticking your head in the sand and pretending you're seeing things that give you hope isn't going to help.

None of that is to say Bryce can't end up as a good QB, it's still absurdly too early to say anything remotely like that.

But we traded CMC, Moore, 2023 First, 2024 First, 2025 Second and all we got in return was Bryce Young, DJ Johnson and a 2024 5th round pick (and yes, that's literally all we have left from CMC, Moore and those picks, we used everything from the CMC trade to get Bryce and Johnson except for that 5th).

There's no way to slice it, with how Bryce as looked so far, we gave up entirely too much to take the risk on Bryce working out.

Edited September 19, 2023 by tukafan21

[RJK]

Bryce isn’t ready. Frank is a dinosaur. Luvu deserves the contract Burns wants 

[Carl Spackler]

I hated trading up for any of the QBs and they're all winless. Bryce could use some better weapons, and he's missed some throws, but this was Reich's offense in Indy. Not sure why people expected a Chud offense. He hates downfield throws. 

[MGH1989]

Measured, thought out, and articulate thoughts on the game. Unfortunately it’s gonna be lost among the brigade of chicken littles running around with their heads cut off.

[Eric4280]

3 minutes ago, RJK said:

Bryce isn’t ready. Frank is a dinosaur. Luvu deserves the contract Burns wants 

I sincerely hope we pay Luvu over Burns. Not more than Burns obviously. But for what he’s worth, I’d rather keep Frankie.

[davos]

For having 3 ex-NFL QBs on this staff, one a SB winning OC as HC, an OC that's a McVay disciple/SB winner (and close companion), and a SB-winning HC consulting the offense, it is incredibly disappointing we can barely muster 150 yards in the air, now two games in a row.

What worked against ATL was done even less.  We simply aren't running a competent offense. The lack of response and effective adjustments after game 1 is incredibly concerning.  Furthermore, the lack of nuance to the sequence of playcalls is reminiscent of Foxball.

This would make Matt Stafford look like CJ Beathard.

 

[Mr. Scot]

4 minutes ago, tukafan21 said:

We made a bad trade and risked the franchise on the wrong QB, it's okay to admit it.  Refusing to admit it won't change things and make them all better.

Okay to admit it...if that's the way it works out.

Suggesting that we know it two games into his career is kinda goofy.

[LinvilleGorge]

This seems like some type of fandom Stockholm Syndrome induced by years of watching losing football.