GameTime Observations

[twylyght]

Yeah... another individual thread on someone's observations on the game last night.

Far and away, Jerry's biggest offseason move may have occurred 1/11/11 with the hiring of Ron Rivera and then his subsequent staff. The more that I find out about this man and his team, the more I am inclined to loathe John Fox in the grand scheme of things. Fox's style of coaching may be good for a team without much talent, but it is more and more apparent that over the past years, our worst enemy was us because of him. Regardless of how our guys put it on the line, our previous coaching staff simply couldn't match that effort/production. I am excited to see just what the ceiling is for this corps of guys when healthy and with some solid experience under our belts. For the first time in a long time, I feel a real sense of hope for this franchise.

That said, on to last night's observations (starting with the obvious):

On the play regarding the pick 6, it looks like the play was designed to go to Williams or Shockey to offset the blitz. As Bernadeau just got trucked, Shockey's side wasn't an option since there was immediate pressure up the middle-right on Shockey's side. It is possible that Williams was supposed to buttonhook, but it is unlikley given the layout of defensive pressure coming from the LB. Hence, what likely happened was that Clausen couldn't get the throw across his body as Pierre-Thomas had bull-rushed Gross into the left side of Clausen's face. It was a bad situation where stepping into the pocket wasn't an option, nor any means of scrambling was available to alleviate the pressure that was all over Clausen. He took a chance and was burned for it. The nice thing is that he responded beautifully in the face of a crowd looking for any reason to jutify their hostility at a 2nd year QB that was clearly thrown to the wolves last season. I like the mental toughness of this kid, and I think when Cam becomes the eventual starter for this team, it will be handed on a silver platter. Moreover, the trade value for this kid will be outstanding given the desert of viable QB options in the league right now.

Offensive line - I can hardly believe this is the same group of guys from a year ago. Granted we had injuries to deal with throughout the season, but the fact remains that the end of 2009 to all of 2010 proved to be a stark contrast of what should have been the strength of our team. Last night, JStew and DWill almost averaged 6 yards per carry with the sense that more was to be had if they were on the field any longer. I still cannot simply BELIEVE that Otah means THAT much to our offense. I TRULY hope that does not remain the same, but instead is reflective of the lack of coaching last year.

TIME MANAGEMENT - Likely the single biggest indicator that this is a new regime with respect to in-game coaching. The fact that we had all of our time-outs going into the final minutes of the half is a good sign that we are planning to keep the pressure on for a score at any time. In the Fox regime, we would have burn at least 1 timeout due to a pre-snap read, and likely another to a challenge that has a 50/50 shot of going our way. With a minute left in the first, we used them effectively to severe advantage. Best of all, having those timeouts allowed us to have the entire field in play for us, rather than have to rely on the sidelines to bail us out.

Olsen - Zod has been singing his praises and for good reason. This guy has all the makings of a superstar. Between himself, DWill, JStew and Smitty, we have 4 proven explosive playmakers on this offense that will give Defensive Coordinators nightmares by the middle of this season. If Cam, Jimmy and Armanti continue their progression, that will be even more headaches for opposing defenses.

Armanti - His work speaks for itself. Glad to see this guy turn the corner.

Cam - Looked like a rookie with mid-range accuracy issues and a cannon for an arm. I was a staunch anti-Cam guy prior to the draft. I am glad to see that I couldn't be more wrong by the accounts of everything I've seen up to now.

McClain & Fua - Though I would have liked to see McClain against the starters more than we did, this kid is flashing some serious potential. Fua may be the guy that surprises more people than him though. Even Neblett and Irvin contributed in their own ways. The most important thing is that the DLine provided that push up the middle that has been sorely lacking for this Defense for a long time. It showed with how hard a time RBs could not get any traction for their game. These draft pickups may prove to be every bit as important as the Cam pickup as the season progresses.

Chunks of Yardage - We had a -2 turnover ratio and 5 minutes less of ToP. Moreover, we had almost 10 fewer plays if you take out the victory formation. Given that we still had almost 50 more yards of production and 17 more points of production than the opposition's offense. Conversely, the opposition only had 3 points of offensive production for the entire game. What that says is that we were getting more of our pickups in large chunks than the opposition by quite a lot. In short, this offense is explosive while the defense stymied the downfield pickups for the Giants. THAT was with a mere 50% completion rate for our passing (mostly contributed by Cam during his stint). Once we get that up to par, then this offense will prove to be even MORE formidable.

Charles Johnson

Greg Hardy

Jon Beason

Thomas Davis

Chris Gamble

Captain Munnerlyn

Charles Godfrey

Steve Smith

These are the starters that sat out the entire game last night. Four of these are pro-bowlers, and all have the potential to be high-impact players. The bulk of those persons account for over half the defensive starters, while the lone offensive starter has a legitimate shot at changing the on-field dynamic even more than what we breifly witnessed last night.

The areas of concern:

3rd down conversions: We have GOT to shore this up if we are to give our defense some time to recouperate. I think with the utilization of our TEs and RBs out of the backfield, this will get rectified.

Goodsen's fumbling: We get to see how good this coaching staff is with this fellow. If he can remain explosive while maintaining possession, we can feel good about the depth we have at RB as being the best in the league. Until then, we are all on pins and needles when this guy is running while holding the ball like it is a pizza box.

Defensive backfield: The pass rush had BETTER be amazing if we aren't going to be exposed throughout the year for this lone weakness on our team. The guys we faced last night were pedestrian at best. The NFC South will feature some amazing WRs, and we will need to be prepared for some serious shootouts if we can't get this properly addressed.

The talent we have on this team is clearly better than 9 other teams in the NFL, while steering shy of the top 9 teams of the NFL for THIS YEAR. Where we end up in this middle ground will be up to us, but given the glimpse of what I saw last night, I am very excited to see what the next few years brings.

[jasonluckydog]

I'm sure you have a lot of good points but it's still to early to read all that.

[Neylus]

Did Otah play last night?

[twylyght]

Did Otah play last night?

Briefly. Pass protection was better on his side, but he didn't have to go against Pierre-Thomas during that time