Going Commando

17 minutes ago, Llevron said:

 

I think, for a lot of people, that is akin to giving up or admitting that he might not be the guy. What needs to be stressed is that if we don't follow the quoted instruction you have here, the chances are great he will never be the guy. 

 

I don't think you will get a lot of people to agree with you, but I think you are right.

To me, putting a QB in a training wheels offense isn't what giving up on them looks like.  Giving up on them is putting them in situations to develop bad habits, lose their confidence, and then benching them and putting your commitment to them in doubt.  You have to be so on point with your situational football as a coach when you're working with a young QB, and even still, you've got to stay patient and always consider the big picture.  It's a tough job, and that's why smart teams take away any possible temptation for their HCs to deviate from the plan and bench their prospects.  No coach should be empowered to give up on a plan that is an ownership level decision.  And smart teams also run offense that shields their prospects from carrying the load early, and accept that it means they won't beat good teams that are already fully developed.

Running back attempts going down is about efficiency more than health.  It's more efficient to move the ball through the air, and scoring is up compared to the early 2000's even though special teams scoring is way down because of the changes to the return game and extra points.

Teams use the pass to set up their run game now.  If you run everything from behind center and run on first and second downs, you're making it easy on a defense by letting them stay big and defend only a small part of the field.  When you run a shotgun spread as the foundation of your offense, you add a ton of horizontal space to your field, force the defense to go small to match up, and then force those small defenders into conflicts and make life hard on them as tacklers.  Now you can run from shotgun against light boxes or treat short passes as handoffs, but that necessarily means RB carries will be way down.

Spelling skill players isn't just about managing their touches to preserve health.  It's about maximizing their effectiveness via strategic resting.  They are getting fatigued on plays where they don't touch the ball, and they run harder when they are fresh.  Teams would absolutely rotate OLs if it was more effective to play them that way.  But it isn't.  It's a position that isn't as fatiguing as playing defense or running the ball/running routes, and no other group plays with anywhere near the same amount of coordination as every OL has to.  You can rush the passer and beat the blocks in front of you via your own effort entirely, but OLs have to work together to get a hat on every hat.  Rotating them would destroy their continuity and ability to work together.  You see it happen all of the time after injuries force OL subs mid-game.

53 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Luck actually played quite well as a rookie. Threw quite a few picks but he racked up yards and showed clear signs of being elite.

 

Allen struggled, but you could see flashes.

 

I think now more than ever young guys can come in and look at least pretty good right away. 

 

But I agree I'm not gonna sit here and expect Daniels to be as good as Stroud or even our own RG3.

Luck threw for 4000 yards, but it took him 630 attempts to get there and he took a ton of sacks and threw a ton of picks.  A 54% completion percentage and a 76 QB rating are pretty bad.  His season was pretty similar to Howell's first year as the starter.  Allen's rookie year was worse than Bryce Young's.  There was no way to tell he was on track to become the second best QB of his generation from that season.

Rookie QBs struggle, with very few exceptions, and those exceptions are usually guys who ended up on teams with great OLs and a mature set of elite weapons.  They're a long way away from what they can become, and we don't have the kind of roster that can support Jayden really well right now. The left side of the OL is going to be terrible, and McLaurin is his only reliable passing game weapon.  The odds are that he's going to struggle to play efficiently and avoid sacks and mistakes, and that we're going to finish with another high pick.  We need to run a super conservative offense this year where we move the ball via the backs to keep Jayden healthy, preserve his good habits, and to keep the middle of the field spaced out.  Put the training wheels on and acknowledge that his development is more important than winning next year.

31 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Anytime you land a blue chip potential elite franchise QB you should be excited. If that doesn't get you hyped up then you probably need to pick a different hobby.

Often you don't know if the guy is elite during his rookie season, even with the ones who end up becoming elite players.  Joe Burrow and CJ Stroud have warped rookie year expectations.  Most great QBs either sucked as rookies or sat the bench.  In hindsight, the Bengals and Texans had way more talented teams than anyone realized.

Take a look at Josh Allen and Andrew Luck's rookie year stats to see what I mean about setting expectations.  Even the QBs who still managed to tread water and be carried to wins by their teams like Roethlisberger weren't good passers until their third or fourth seasons.  It takes a huge amount of reps for almost all QBs to master the passing game.  You have to see so many situations and coverages before the instinct of how to respond becomes ingrained, and your career is in a really vulnerable state while you go through that growing pain.  That's why QBs who get drafted into quicksand organizational situations are almost always doomed.

We now have reasonable hope that that's not us any more.  But things might still be pretty ugly this year for both Jayden and our team.  The defense looks way better on paper, but the offense still only has five players in it that you could even call average based on their play last season.

4 hours ago, ILikeBilly2 said:

My thumbs down was on your post saying Wylie is average and the line last year was average.  And the fans were just protecting Howell.  The next post disagreed and I felt no need to repeat what has been said sooooo many times.

 

I totally disagree with your take.  Again, it would be repetitive to give the details.

 

Your post that I quoted above is aggressive and if "it is" was changed to "you are", I suspect you would have received a suspension.  

 

Following the logic of your post, you must also be against drive by thumbs up and heart emojis.  Is it " useless" to give a quote a thumbs up without a follow up comment?  Seems ridiculous to me.

KDawg's post following mine wasn't a rebuttal.  He just repeated a contradictory assertion and didn't really engage with any of the arguments I made.  That's fine, I understand his opinions and his take.  And that left plenty of room in the discussion for an actual argument for demonstrating how Wylie was garbage if you or anyone else who disagreed with me had bothered to make one.  I welcome that kind of disagreement, this place would be boring otherwise.  Just adding a negative reaction while generating no actual content is lazy, reddit-caliber bottom tier participation.  Again, it's worse than useless because all it does is piss me off, and I'm the one who actually took the time to write something out.  I don't care if someone agrees with a post via reaction and says nothing more.  Plenty of times there is nothing more to add.  But if you disagree with something, then either make your case or move on.

1 minute ago, FrFan said:

Our GM and coaching staff are much better than theirs. I believe they can make our offense quite lethal, and of course some players will improve ( McLaurin / Dotson ).

As @HTTRDynasty said this guy must be a Commanders fan, I do agree he 's probablys overestimating us but it's always good to get some positive vibes.

Positive vibes are a nice change, but I just want to establish realistic expectations for the year.  When we set them too high, it tends to cause very harsh negative reactions.  There might be a Bryce Young scenario for Jayden's rookie season where he struggles to adjust to the NFL, and doesn't have the surrounding support necessary for early success.  And that's OK.  Most great QBs either weren't very good as rookies, or didn't play at all.  We just need to stick to the long term plan with Jayden, and build the best possible cradle for his development.  This is going to be a learning year, we're probably not going to be that competitive yet, and we still have a lot of building to do in order to become contenders.

10 minutes ago, Xameil said:

Just a friendly tip...calling people out like that is against the rules. Ya may wanna edit before you get in trouble.

The call out thread rule is about creating threads that call out posters for personal vendettas.  That's not what I did.  I criticized that poster for his passive aggressive behavior in this thread.  I've seen people post this criticism before because we had two posters who thumbs downed posts without bothering to write their own takes all of the time.

@ILikeBilly2 it's chicken **** and worse than useless to 👎 posts you don't like while contributing nothing to the discussion of your own.

17 hours ago, FrFan said:

Sorry, Bears fans. While I expect No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams to post impressive numbers for Chicago, I am even more intrigued by the statistics the dual-threat Daniels might generate in Kliff Kingsbury's offense in D.C. 

Much has been made about the Bears' weapons (and for good reason), but the Commanders' runners, receivers and tight ends are arguably just as talented. If Daniels can stay healthy, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner will justify this pick and lead this year's celebrated quarterback class in passing yards and touchdowns.

Saying our offensive skill players are just as good as Chicago's is an outrageous overestimation of our surrounding talent.  Maybe our backs are kind of close, but almost anyone would take Swift/Herbert/Roschon over our three guys.  TE is not a good position for us next year unless Sinnott breaks out way earlier than TEs typically do.  And everyone would take Odunze/Moore/Allen over McLaurin/Dotson/McCaffrey.  Their third guy is probably better than Terry.  Beyond that, their OL is way better than ours too, with high end tackles and guards that have already been together and were the second best OL behind Philly in block win rates last year.  Set aside the question of who is better between Jayden and Caleb, there is no question that the Bears have a better surrounding roster.  I think people have assumed that Caleb is walking into this terrible situation because his coach might be a lame duck.  But I think it's more likely that they saved the coaching staff by pulling in one of the prospects of the decade, and that their roster is already built up and looks like a future power team.  The biggest thing working against them is the quality of their division, but ours isn't a cake walk either.

This reminds me of 2012 when everyone underestimated the quality of the Colts roster surrounding Luck, and overestimated ours.  We seemed to be right there with them for one year, mainly because RGIII individually outplayed Luck that one season, and Morris was special in that system and situation.  But it quickly became very apparent that the Colts roster was much better than ours.  Expectations for Jayden's rookie year are getting set too high.  We have a ton of building on offense left to do.

TBH most of Rob Rang's picks felt like edgy, inaccurate takes.  Nabers is walking into the worst situation of all of the WRs taken in the top 34 picks.  There is no world where Cade Stover ends up being better than Brock Bowers, I don't care who is throwing them the ball.  They weren't even remotely close in college and that was with CJ Stroud and Stetson Bennett as the QBs in question.  Fashanu over Latham and Alt is putting a lot of unwarranted trust in the Jets.  And I like Corum way more than Benson for multiple reasons.  Kyren Williams is easier to compete with for touches than James Conner, McVay is a way better coach than Gannon, and that Rams offense is stacked compared to Arizona's, especially the passing game.  Corum will get to play complimentary football for a Superbowl contender.  Haynes as the top guard feels more justifiable, but even still, JPJ is the clear choice.  Beebe at center for Dallas probably ends up being right though.  It's interesting that they moved him to that position.  Kind of feels like an even better fit for him than Guard, and that he can compete with Linderbaum and Humphrey for All Pro selections.  Dallas is getting perilously close to one seed territory.  I don't understand how they can afford to keep such a stacked roster together.

58 minutes ago, Llevron said:

 

Im going to be making this reference all season lol 

 

Hopefully 

I thought the point of Paul's character in Dune was that he was a false messiah of a fake religion seeded onto a planet to control the population and co-opt them into participating in a larger imperial power struggle.

1 hour ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Peters though isn't dictating the offense.  As he said before he caters to the coaches scheme.

 

There was some ex-player who played for Kliff forgetting whom who said that Robinson is the ideal running back for his scheme. 

 

From what I read he does a mix of gap and zone, with an edge toward gap -- counters, duo.  Counter mixed with outside zone to keep teams off balance.

 

They didn't draft a RB, so I am guessing they like this RB room.   

They should install a gap centric scheme, that's what the personnel dictates.  But Peters has been evaluating for zone systems for half his career, and that will naturally shape the way anyone evaluates players.  He's going to want to bring in players who match the stuff that worked really well for his teams before, which is why I think he liked Sinnott and McCaffrey so much.  I could see the offense drifting to increasing similarity with SF's over time.

The other thing is we did sign Ekeler, and it's not very clear what B Rob's role is going to be moving forward.  Is he still going to start?  Ekeler is kind of a big fish if you think last year was just a write off due to injury.  Personally, I think Ekeler is slowing down and that Robinson is a better player than him now, but it's hard to be sure.  Only thing I'm sure about is that Robinson is not a good fit for a SF running game because he's not a bursty and decisive one cut runner.  He's a patient, pick your way up field that's really good at following pulls and running from shotgun.  I do trust Kingsbury to install a scheme that suits him, because I suspect that Kingsbury is going to find out quickly that Robinson is his best weapon outside of Jayden's own dynamic playmaking ability.  Similar to how Peters is bringing in people similar to what worked well for him before, Kingsbury will probably want to create something similar to the Murray/Conner engine he built his offense upon in Arizona.

13 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

Wylie is hot garbage. I do agree that he would probably be better in gap scheme. But there is nothing average about him at all. He was abysmal last season. 

This just isn't true.  And we did run mostly gap schemes last year, and actually ran the ball pretty well when we designed to do so.  But as for Wylie, every objective measure has him at average.  Mostly quiet play with a couple of bad losses peppered in each game is what average OT play looks like in the NFL, especially when you're running a ton of shotgun spread where the OL is in a true pass set all game.  Every team racks up pressures from that style of play, including the ones with high end OLs like KC and Detroit. 

Wylie and the OL were scapegoated last season because fans had an agenda about defending Howell when he was struggling, and judging from the posts about Wylie in here, that narrative stuck.  So how about reframing the discussion about Wylie now that fans have a new agenda to defend Adam Peters: after overhauling 70% of the roster, do you really think Peters would have left Wylie as one of the very few untouched starters from last year if he was garbage?  Not only is Wylie keeping his job, they didn't even really draft or sign anyone to push him.  He and Cosmi and McLauren and maybe Daron are the only guys on the entire roster for whom that's the case.

I think I've actually been more critical of Peters than anyone else here, especially when it comes to the Brandon Coleman pick and the missed opportunities for OLs in the draft.  Yet even I think the decision to keep Wylie as a starter is fine.

1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

This is why analytics and PFF both can be laughingstocks. 

Wylie is underrated in the sense that a lot of fans think he's unplayable garbage when he's really just a league average starter.  He's a fourth or fifth linemen on a good line who seems worse than he is because our line is bad and generated so few wins.  For someone to be the most underrated player on a roster, they need to be a good player by a broader standard.  To me that's B-Rob for us.  But I do think there is some question about his scheme fit moving forward.  I like his style a lot better for a gap scheme, and there might be a chance we'll run a zone heavy scheme instead because of Peters's history in SF.  We'll see what Kingsbury installs this year.

2 hours ago, DWinzit said:

They do keep bringing in WR's, mostly semi bottom feeding hoping for hits.

They should not stop as the overall talent level at WR isn't that great.

They're banking a lot on Luke McCaffrey.  As of today, he's our WR3, and Dotson as the WR2 feels almost as speculative.  It's a WR room with some upside, but not a lot of bankability, which is a frustrating lack of progress from where we were when Dwayne Haskins was the QB in 2019.  Most teams do the opposite and try and bring in stud vet WRs when they are developing high draft pick QBs.  This is something we're probably going to have to do too, unless Dotson and McCaffrey are shockingly good.

12 minutes ago, skinsfan66 said:

 Are you underestimating Tyler Lockett or setting the bar for Dotson high. Lockett is a little older now but if Jahan reached Tyler's career one day, then he would have been a good pick in the 1st. rd. for sure is what I think. I would take a Tyler Lockett type WR any day. 

Lockett wasn't much of a receiver until his fourth season when he was 26.  Jahan has already posted similar production to Lockett's first two years and he came into the NFL a year younger.  I don't think that is too high a bar for Jahan to reach, especially not as his best case scenario.  It would also be a pretty major disappointment if Jahan didn't break out until he was 26.  He kind of needs to do it this year.  Definitely has to if he wants his fifth year picked up.

Hartman has that dog in him.  Keep him over Driskell for the third QB.

38 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Ekeler balled out in the opener last year but then got hurt and had to play the rest of the season injured and on an absolute mess of a Charger team(they actually had worse coaching than us if we you can believe that). I'm excited to see what he can do if healthy.

Ekeler is turning 29 and coming off a three ypc season where he looked slow.  This is pretty much what the cliff looks like for backs.  Moments of old magic are still there, but the general effectiveness and consistency just disappear abruptly.  He's never been a workhorse back either, more of a pass catching and red zone specialist.  At this point in each of their careers, B Rob is much better than him, and Jayden will probably carry the ball more than Ekeler.  I see him as third in the pecking order, and more likely to make his impact as a pass catcher and locker room presence.

Terry played through turf toe.  And he definitely got frozen out by Howell and Bieniemy.  Howell never really trusted him and Bieniemy's system sucked for receivers.  Despite all of that, he still got his thousand yards.

Jahan has somewhat low upside because of his lack of size and strength, although he does have weirdly strong red zone ability for a tiny receiver because he is so good at playing above the rim.  He's not going to have a Nico Collins type of break out because of the lack of play strength though.  His best case scenario is probably Tyler Lockett with a red zone game, which would be huge for us.  Wish we would use him in the return game.  He's the best return man on our roster now that Gibson is gone.

I do think that Jayden will be very good for Jahan at least, as long as Jayden hits the ground running.  You don't want to play a bunch of man coverage against Jayden because of his incredibly dangerous run threat, which should free Jahan up to get off the line of scrimmage.  You also don't necessarily want to play a ton of two high against Jayden for the same reason, and Terry is the one who will dictate the high safety, so Jahan is going to get a lot of one on ones.  The table is set for him to have success.  He just needs to run his routes like a stud and catch the ball.

We could use more speed at WR though.  Speed is what defines Miami and KC and we don't have anyone in our offense with elite speed other than Jayden.  Jayden's a gifted vertical passer, we need multiple guys who can smoke one on one coverage deep to take advantage of this.

We also need a way better OL.  We need a group that can hold up forever in pass pro, and I'm still not sure what kind of run game we are installing.  I'd consider totally reshuffling the line.  Cosmi is our best pass protector and our fastest OL.  Braeden Daniels our second fastest one.  We also know Wylie has an issue with over setting.  Why not try Cosmi and Daniels at our tackle spots and move Wylie inside then?  Especially if you want to run outside zone a lot.

8 hours ago, clskinsfan said:

Love B Rob. But Ekeler is going to get a significant amount of touches. Would love to see some 2 back sets with both on the field though. Move Ekeler in motion to get him open. 

That would be a really nice outcome, but I think Ekeler is going over his cliff.  I think he was brought in mainly as a mentor and third down pass catcher.  At this point BRob is probably a way better player than him.

13 minutes ago, Bifflog said:

Realistically, it's likely the new staff salvages at least one Ron pick into a good player, and I think Dotson seems far more likely than Forbes or Davis.  I liked everything about him his rookie year, clearly was a better fit for Turner's offense (which was pretty sad in it's own right, but in different ways to EB's).

Jamin Davis is already pretty decent.  PFF grades him a 67 last year, which is kind of amazing given how bad the defense was.  If he doesn't stick around, it will likely be due to a numbers game--not wanting to spend too much on LB after signing Luvu, or having Magee break out. But I could also see him having a good year if he can stay healthy.  He's one of our only big players on defense, and he's going to benefit from not having to play inside now that we've got Wagner and Luvu.  At least one of those two should be on the field at all times, unless we get really unlucky with injuries.

Dotson and Forbes are the ones who need to be reclaimed, and I think both will get significantly better under the new coaches.  Dotson seems to have had a personal issue with Bieniemy and Howell, and Forbes was being set up to fail by the last regime in a way that almost seemed intentional.  Joe Whitt is going to figure out how to get Forbes playing well.

I think the dude who is going to explode under the new regime is B Rob though.  For many reasons.  His position coach is going to max out his talent, he's splitting the load with a former All Pro, Jayden is going to give him light boxes + we're going to lean on him to carry the offense while Jayden learns the game, and he's due for his big third year leap.  Somehow he was already pretty good last season despite not getting many opportunities.  Just seems like there are a lot of parallels between him and James Conner, and that he could be due for one of those 1000+ scrimmage yards and 15 td seasons.

Is that Marcus Rosemy Jacksaint between Jayden and Sinnott?  Kind of surprised at how small he looks.  Same for Coleman, he looks smaller than Sinnott.  Maybe Sinnott is just huge.

Just now, FootballZombie said:

 

Those tracker things prolly chaff something fierce.

 

If I'm getting paid millions I'd choose being comfy over a bad look.

Just wear it under the shirt.  Accept it for what it is.

The male sports bra is my least favorite trend in athliesure fashion.  Now Forbes is wearing one outside of a shirt?  Wtf

Beside that, wearing a strand of pearls barely stands out.

3 hours ago, Ball Security said:

I’ll never figure out basketball prospects. They talk up Cody Williams, but this guy couldn’t score a point in the play-in game and was left off the court altogether in closing time.

It's such a leap of growth that people project with basketball prospects.  Sometimes it pans out, but mostly it doesn't.  For every Scottie Barnes there are ten more Kevin Knoxes and Cam Reddishes.  People consistently overrate mediocre shot creation in 6'7+ perimeter players.  They think being able to straight line drive to the basket without tripping over your own feet and having a shot that's not completely broken is the most valuable and projectable trait in a basketball player, meanwhile the kid is completely passive and has zero gravity and took four shots a game for his college or euro team and is a complete nonfactor on the boards and on defense.  And the 7'8 giant that nobody in his level of basketball can score over or defend without fouling is worthless unless he can switch over top of screens onto point guards and drain stepback threes.

14 hours ago, Ball Security said:

We could draft Clingan at number two or wait until he bounces around the league and grab him like Alex Len, Greg Monroe, or Marvin Bagley.

 

(I’m not saying don’t draft him, just saying he is likely to bust like any of the perimeter players.

I don't think he's as likely to bust, but yeah, there is bust potential in all of these prospects.  The upside against risk ratio is more favorable for giants like Clingan and Sarr though.  They can dominate games without scoring, and they will fit in with every single team that needs a defensive anchor.

I don't want us to keep hitching our wagon to perimeter players who are huge negatives on defense any more.  None of the ones in this class are dominant enough to build another unbalanced roster around anyway.  Just get the anchor and then next year we can try again for a better perimeter player to build the offense around.  7'2 guys who totally dominate the paint and can still guard out to the perimeter are rare tickets to 50 win seasons.