Wyvern

Califan -- nice pic to show Heinicke can throw a few medium-long passes , but as I recall he tended to be favor the shorter "touch and impromptu" range of passes, and/or scrambling for a little bit of yardage. Considering Heinicke relied more on touch than velocity... he'd probably try going long fewer times than Wentz. I think Heinicke strength lies in succeeding in the short plays that sustain drives, at least better than Wentz was doing when it was 3rd and 5. However, the lack of velocity could hurt him down in the red-zone.

Overall I agree. Right now Washington is thin at Guard as well as other spots on the O-line. No real good answers What I was reacting to was an folks speculating on how to field the 5 best O-linemen, if they could handle different roles than what they'd started with in preseason. My post was that Leno-Norwell-Tyler-Cosmi-Lucas would be better than Leno-Cosmi-Tyler-Charles-Lucas, because Charles is such a poor pass-protector. I'd rather have Leno-Norwell-Tyler-Schweitzer- with either Cosmi or Lucas being the RT, depending on Cosmi's play upon his return.

Granted, Norwell had some bad moments vs. Tennessee -- but in the Bears game, I saw a bigger problem with Charles -- he had a poor performance in pass protection at Right Guard. I thought Charles was worse at guard than Norwell, as Charles was frequently getting beaten badly and quickly, in straight out one-on-one matchups So if you move Cosmi inside, it should be to replace Charles, not Norwell. (Also, Cosmi has been working the right side of the line in the NFL, so he might be able to handle RT.)

Washington's offensive line and their poor pass protection have already done a "Ramsey job" on Wentz's confidence in the pocket. So, do you really want to do the same to a young, promising QB talent, still being shaped as a possible Washington QB starter for the near future? You might simply turn him into another Ramsey. Rather, until the line gets a little better, it's probably wiser to use Heinicke. Heinicke has greater experience dealing with this poor O-line, quicker grasp of Turner's game plan, and a gritty "escapability" factor to buy the time needed. And even though Heinicke is not in the future plans for Washington, he will play hard as he can because he showcasing his talents to other teams. Moreover, since the O-Line does not currently seem able to pass-protect long enough for Turner's long pass plays, that somewhat means Heinicke's weak arm isn't as big of a negative, ...at least until the O-Line gets better. Also,, I mentioned this in another post -- if Washington wants to avoid exceeding the 70% snaps threshold for Wentz, which triggers having to give up a 2nd rounder rather than a 3rd.rounder...then they should play Heinicke. Heinicke's "dink-&-dunk" style usually results in more snaps per drive than what Wentz (and his long pass ability) averaged. Both Wentz and Howell have strong arms would encourage Turner into trying for the long play --which even if successfull, results in fewer snaps (Fewer number of plays per drive, either due to long yardage gains leading to scoring plays,, or incompletions on 3rd down, or interceptions). In a way its cynical -- using Heinicke to start, because he's viewed as a short primer with Washington, almost a disposable QB, to fill in until conditions are better for trying out the more "valuable" Howell or even Wentz when there are more favorable conditions supporting their style of play.

Oddly, the dink-&-dunk play style that Heinicke uses, improves the chances of not having to surrender the 2nd rounder to the Colts, instead of a 3rd. It's 70% of the SNAPS, not games. And, as I recall, the Heinicke-led offenses inched their way down the field, with lots of short plays, eating clock, but more importantly lots of snaps. His arm wasn't strong enough for a 5-play drive involving a 55 yard gain leading to a score. Howell seems to have the long passing ability, which combined with Turner may leads to drives with fewer snaps (drives ending with incompletes, scoring, or interceptions.) Considering Rivera's value set on loyalty to veterans who give their all, I'd be very surprised if he leapfrogged Heinicke to start Howell.

I didn't get the sense that Riviera was criticizing Wentz as a quarterback. I think he was pointing out that those other rebuilding NFC East teams had more stability at the quarterback position to build around as they developed their offenses -- at least more than Washington during the same period His point was the other teams could develop their quarterback into their systems; meanwhile Washington had to try to work with a rotating door of QBs ...from all the Smith replacements, to Haskins, Allen, and Heinicke, then to Fitzpatrick, Heinicke, Allen, Gilbert, and finally to Wentz. As you know, he determined that many of those QBs of the previous two years wouldn't really work out -- so essentially the development of Washington's franchise QB had to be restarted each year. And that had implications for developing the offense too. It's not a great argument, but it has some validity. Anyhow, I got the sense that Rivera seems to think (or maybe just hopeful?) that he finally has a quarterback with the physical tools to play the position at the level Rivera/Turner feels is needed for Washington to be successful. -- but that they need time for everything to start to click.

All QBs need time to really get familiar enough with a new playbook to have quick command of the system and the instinctive muscle memory needed to master their role within it. In addition to learning Turner's system, another challenge for Wentz was developing a sense of his teammates' tendencies in order to better coordinate with them on how to be effective in the passing game. But Wentz building that level of rapport was hampered by different kinds of holdouts; such as, contracts, slow recovery of the primary starters from their injuries, and by all the varous new substitutions to the starters caused by new injuries, etc, Not only the WRs and TEs, even the running backs and offensive line were changing from week to week -- especially the interior line. And after Roulier went down, Wentz had to also call the O-Line adjustments since the newly acquired center hasn't learned them yet. That's a lot for anyone to pick up -- especially when they were still new to the system. Then try remember all that, while trying to run the offense while facing huge amounts of defensive pressure due to Washington's porous pass protection, anemic running attack,, and a defense that couldn't prevent opponents from building large leads that forced Wentz into "catch-up"mode and having to work out of the shotgun schemes where defenders could pin their ears back and blitz away. Bottom line: Wentz is getting more familiar with what he needs to do for his role in the offense, but his supporting cast needs to be better, if the team is to see better results, resulting in more "W"s.

I'm not that sold on the Washington D being all that better now. We'll see. The Titans weren't much of a test for how well the defensive backfield and linebackers executed their pass protection duties. Titan WRs aren't top-tier threats and Tannehill wasn't given much time to pass by his O-Line. The Bears offense is a little similar to the Titans (okay Fields is more mobile) so I anticipate Washington's D will look "good" for another game if they can corral Montgomery.

If Washington finds a way to get their running game going and better disguise their pass or run options by keeping Wentz under center -- they can exploit the Bears weaker run defense. Washington D feasts on the poor Bears O-Line play. If they can corral Montgomery, the rest of the Bears offense can be limited to Fields check-downs to their TE or scrambles by Fields. Washington 27 Chicago 20

When Washington was on the 2 yard line with 17 seconds and no timeouts left--- it almost meant Wentz would have to rely on at least the first 3 attempts for a quick completion to a Washington receiver/RB already in the endzone. Washington's running game had shown they would have trouble guaranteeing a 2+ yard gain, and if a run was attempted on first down it likely meant their clock would run out with their possible third down attempt. So, its 3 pass attempts and a 4th down play versus 1 run attempt, one spike of the ball and hopefully one "final" attempt on 3rd down. Even to get to 4 attempts, the first 3 pass plays would need to be quick and not involve much rolling out or lengthy progressions. I figured no more than 4-5 seconds a play, and then the last gasp "dealers choice' play on the 4th down attempt which could take up as much time as was needed, since it was the last play. I also wonder how difficult it was for Wentz to really see the field while staring into the direct sun at that angle. So I was okay with the second down attempt ....assuming Wentz saw Milne, then he might have been the better option, but the direct "bullet pass" straight ahead that was attemlted had promise too. I didn't care much for the first down attempt (even as a throwaway pass it was a little risky). And Wentz gambled and lost on the intercepted 3rd down pass. (The Titan LB had to make a great play and did!) Bottom line -- with one timeout and 17 seconds...a lot of the options TMK suggested would have been good ideas. But for the first 3 attempts Wentz/Turner couldn't afford to get very 'intricate' due to need to avoid being stopped short of the goal line, or using up too much time and exhausting the clock before the 4th down attempt.

it was a fairly big Price tag --- QB Drew Lock, TE Noah Fant, DT Shelby Harris, two first-round picks, two second-round picks, and a fifth-round pick for Wilson and a 4 th round pick. Plus there's his mega-contract of 245 million with 165 million guaranteed? That's a crippling contract for what I've seen from Wilson current production. And Matthew was trying to beat that offer!! Year Cap Hit 2022 $17 million 2023 $22 million 2024 $35.4 million 2025 $55.4 million 2026 $58.4 million 2027 $53.4 million 2028 $54.4 million

So after watching the 1st half of Russell Wilson in Denver vs the Colts tonight -- do you think signing him to that mega-contract would have helped Washington? He's looked very ordinary and not all that accurate either. And the Broncos defense is fairly decent!

This is a team always settling for the bargain bin folks to bring in, after they've made their 1 "splashy" acquisition mainly brought in for marketing purposes. The problem is that very few decent FAs are willing to come to Washington, unless the money is too much for them to turn down. Maybe Rivera's reputation will lure a few exceptions, but its now at the point where he needs to change a lot of things to make Washington a desirable destination. Fielding a playoff level roster would help too, because the chance to finish out your career as a champion is another lure for FA's.

I hadn't been impressed with Charles in the past -- especially with his pass-blocking. However that clip showed a nice bit of aggressive run-blocking. ...Maybe he's gotten better in 2022? 🤞

Being serious now. The current regime moved away from Gruden's preference for power schemes, looking for more mobility and speed out of their O-Line. However they didn't go to full zone blocking as was preferred and perfected by the Shanahan regime. Part of the reason might be due to RB Gibson not being the typical "single cut-back and go" type of RB that meshes well wiTh zone-blocking plays. (Now, it looked like Robinson was more like that type of runner with the bonus of a little power-running style too, but that's still to be seen). So while they wait for Robinson (or Gibson) to fill that style of running, looks like Turner has had to rely on power blocking running plays more than he'd liked. And now, with all the offensive line injuries -- who knows what style of running plays Turner feels best fits this latest O-Line abilities.

It's Saahdiq, but True Trai -- they have perfected 'El Matador.'

With respect, if Turner over-commits to the running game and the dink&dunk its likely Tennessee will feel comfortable in stacking the box --and then the Washington running game will have problems. Turner needs to play this week's opponent's weakness, not last week's. While their D is stout, Dallas' defense had problems stopping the run; in contrast Tennessee has problems stopping the explosive play (usually a pass play.). We have to threaten to stretch the field, to make the running game effective enough to sell play faction passes. So, pass-pro is going to be very important.

I'm hoping that O-Line Coach John Matzko can get the best out of these 2nd/3rd/4th string players. That bunch has a lot of question-marks responsible for clearing running lanes, and maintaining a decent pocket for Wentz to step up into when he throws a pass. Turner has got to realize that quick check-downs and too many screen plays isn't going to get the job done for a "passing game" especially if they want to keep defenses from shutting down the run. ...And if they plan to stretch the field to keep the defense honest, Wentz will need time (and a clean pocket) for any of the longer pass plays to develop. It was strange to watch how Dallas could stack 8 in the box and shutdown the short stuff, decide they could still get enough pressure with only 3 D-linemen, and when they wanted to simply finish off Wentz with a delayed blitzer. The Washington O-Line was that ineffective in pass protection. Heck, I even started to wonder if all the screens were actually planned plays or simply desperation moves.

Agreed

Okay. Skins -- defend your statement. The W--L numbers in the AFC-south justify the Irsays' years of 'behavior?

Agreed. But never suggest to me that the Irsay were great for NFL football. I've more to say, with Skins, but don't want to derail this thread.

Skins -- you want this in public? You really want to defend the Irsays? They were worse than Snyder before he emerged into everything he became.

Jim Irsay is a complete idiot!

Perhaps Mayhew is part of the problem? Getting fired by the Lions isn't exactly a symbol of excellence.