IrepDC

Their first opening drive touchdown of the year. Not surprisingly against us.

Why is JDR still employed?

St. Juste has taken a step back this year

Take the check down

Excellent 3rd down throw from a collapsing pocket

Run blocking has been bad all year

We have had more successful 2 minute drills, at the end of the half and end of the game, than I remember in the past decade. We've had more successful screen plays than I remember as a fan of this team. Those are two huge credits to EB that I tend to keep in mind.

Kid has to make the plays that are there for him. As a DB, you're going to get beat sometimes, but when you make game changing plays like INTs, you can become a star- see Trevon Diggs. Forbes has dropped a few would be INTs, and he obviously needs to fix that. More concerning to me, though, are the short routes he's starting to hesitate on. On one of DJ Moore's big plays, for example, he ran a simple hitch. Forbes sees Moore break down, but instead of immediately attacking and taking away the throw like I've seen him do on film, he hesitates and back pedals a second more before attacking. That tells me that the double moves have gotten in his head, and now he's playing indecisive. You can't do that as a pro DB. A coach needs to be in his ear about reading his ques (hopefully they are working on this in film study but our DB coaching is suspect), trusting what his eyes see, and playing at full speed every snap. Weight aside, he has the tools to be better than we have seen. At minimum, he should be balancing out his losses with takeaways now and again. The opportunity is there. The rookie needs to capitalize on those moments.

Agreed on all points. I admit that these are all factors in #17s usage. Still I wouldn't mind Terry turn into #CantGuardMike Thomas of 3-4 years ago and run slants throughout the game. Play around it with different setups and formations. Isolate Terry and have the slant as a hot route on the backside. Mix in a slant-go or an in-and-out route to keep the defense honest. This is 100 percent me speaking from fandom, mind you. It's just one of my personal preferences that Howell and Terry connect more often.

I need Sam to limit the turnovers in his next stage of development. He has had the throws to learn from. I want him to be smarter with the ball going forward. A 1:1 TD:INT ratio isn't going to cut it, but I understand he's developing. It would be great if that ratio improved before the end of the season. Secondarily, I need to see Sam get better chemistry with #17. McClaurin is a legitimate playmaker and, while I love spreading the ball around, he should be a feature of the offense. This point isn't as critical as the first, but it's a personal preference of mine to utilize a playmaker like #17 more intentionally.

There was a run where we had both DTs lined up outside of each Guard and both DEs lined up wide 9 outside of the Tackles. The LBs were playing off. So the Bears smartly audible to a run up the middle and easily gash us because there's literally no one there. A more innovative Defensive Coordinator wouldn't telegraph like that unless it's a trap i.e. stunting back to the middle or blitzing the middle. Or when we telegraph man coverage with our rookie CB against a top 10 WR, a more innovative DC would use that as bait and role coverage that way. Instead when we telegraph weaknesses, it is exactly what it appears to be. A weakness. Easily exploitable and there for an offense to attack all game.

Our defensive scheme is somehow complex for our players, yet simple for opposing offenses to decipher. We have the worst of both worlds.

What's crazy to me is how many veteran CBs were speaking about Forbes positively before last week. Richard Sherman went out of his way to applaud Forbes on NFL Network. Aqib Talib does the same thing in another interview. And we all know how Fred Smoot felt. Those guys had me hyped about Forbes until AJ Brown took his lunch money and DJ Moore took his free lunch. I want to believe Forbes can still turn it around, but it's not looking great.

QB: Howell continues to show good signs. He is still trending upward in his decisiveness, pocket movement, and decision making. His development should continue to be a top priority. OL: This group failed us early and often. Hopefully Stromberg is learning what NOT to do from Gates. We have our weakest Center play in the last decade. I knew the theme of this season would be games our DL wins Vs games our OL loses. The OL let us down early and often killed drives. RB and WR: Limited by OL play DL: Still dominant. Bears used double tight-end sets to slow our 4 man rush. Our back 7 has to cover 2 and 3 man routes. Payne forces a fumble in the red zone. The DEs both got pressure and sacks. Allen makes one or two splash plays every week. The DL is still dominant. We were #2 in sacks league wide coming into last week and added more. Our LBs and DL have zero synergy in run fits. They need more cohesiveness because there are way too many open rush lanes. Granted our DL is mostly facing doubleteams. LB: Barton is a softer Cole Holcomb. Still slow to react. Still slow to get downhill. But Holcomb, once he finally reacted to the play, would at least get downhill and try to hit somebody. Barton takes all that time and then plays pattycake with OL while losing ground. If nothing else, Barton serves as a reminder to appreciate our DL, because there are players out there who can make you miss Cole Holcomb. We will miss the DL being a pillar of our team like we miss the LT spot being a pillar. Jamin is a starting LB but he needs a lead dog to push him. Quite a few of the rookie LBs I've mentioned over the past few years are high quality LBs now- like Barnes in Detroit. As it stands Jamin is our best LB but he's never had a dog beside him to push his development. DB: These guys look lost. Bad communication. Bad technique. Bad everything and it looks like they aren't being coached. Who is developing our DBs? After OL these guys were the biggest letdown last week. They have way too much talent to all be playing so poorly. Forbes and every other corner got beat deep. Curl played well mostly but also got beat by better plays a few times. Percy Butler is an athlete but he hasn't been coached up. Where is Martin? Why is our technique and communication so terrible? We still have to do tackling drills as DBs by the way. Coaches: EB is our shining star. We were down a touchdown the first time we touched the ball. Down two scores the second time our offense touched the ball. It's hard to stay balanced when you're down that much immediately out the gate. Our OL is also hilariously unreliable. JDR should have been dismissed a year ago. Coach Rivera should make some tough decisions about his staff soon i.e. who can takeover coaching this defense. The defensive coaching is hurting the defense right now, but we should've already replaced JDR last season with Turner. We are seeing how much Turner held us back now that EB has us putting up numbers, imagine what innovative coaching would do with this defense. Right now our scheme is "DL go win the game" and even with our DL talent, you still need to play chess with your chess pieces.

Film is always best for analysis, but as I admitted, I haven't watched much of Tampa Bay this year. Next I looked for articles about his play and ultimately landed on his graded performance. You'll rarely see me reference grades in my analysis so that's not really a battle to bring to me. There are many others who rely heavily on them. If these things were already discussed, that's great. I typically do more reading than typing these days, other than GDT, so I should do more work to find those other posts. That's my fault for not getting fully caught up before giving input.

Cody Mauch has a 47 out of 100 grade so far, and I haven't found good reviews about his play this year, but I also haven't watched Tampa Bay much this year. Have you? Have you watched any of the prospects you've listed? Are they performing well?

The only fault I find with those leaning into criticism about this regime is the lack of tangible examples of what can be done better. We complain about QB, but most of the QB prospects, including ones I've liked, have been underwhelming or outright failed, and/or require complete revisionist history. We complain about OL, but most FA olineman across the league haven't been successful. Maybe there are olineman we could have drafted, but I've yet to see someone give an example of a guy we didn't draft AND share evidence that the prospect is actually performing well (vs just throwing names out there). Now maybe those prospects exist, but the conversation here doesn't typically go that far to unpack the evidence. Similarly, those who oppose Rivera, who usually have merit behind their disapproval, rarely bring forward any coaches they believe in. If the conversation is simply Rivera vs Super Bowl Winning Coach, of course we would all pick Super Bowl Winning Coach, but who are we talking about? The majority of the debates have good merit on both sides. I would enjoy them better if we fleshed them out more vs simply throwing out hypothetical scenarios where our opinions are correct. Of course even with being specific, we are still projecting. But I have seen how in depth the posters here CAN be with their insights so I know it's possible in these discussions as well.

Jamin why did you break down? Shoot your shot!

LG jumped early

They're gunning for #13

Wow Tress not himself today

Pant coverage needs to show up here

Zoom shows he's in!!

That's a catch

Let's go win the game