Thinking Skins

The thing about Charles is I wonder about the seriousness of his injuries. It's like the Daniels stuff now. It's he really injured or did we need the spot? Charles was thought to be a first rounder in part because of his tape against Young at LT. Maybe that was a fluke but it happened. I think he has the opportunity to get signed to a reasonable deal similar to what Wylie got, maybe a little more. But this is his first real test.

Wasn't he injured?

I kinda agree, but it is only his rookie year, 2 games in and he is getting deflections. He hasn't demonstrated Carlos Rogers or Josh Norman hands just yet.

I was saying the exact same thing on Twitter and would have said it here but we won. That is the main differenece here. Wew pulled the win out. So we unlike that deep ball late to Detroit, we were able to recover and get the W. The other thing is that if you look at the boxscore of the Detroit Game you think Wentz was dishing - 3 TDs 337 yards. But we all remember that right? Drive 1, 3 and out on a sack. Then they score. Drive 2 3 and out. Drive 3 a sack fumble safety. Drive 4 - 3 and out. Our offense was flowing on drive 1 against Denver on Sunday. So its different. Both coordinators and QBs were able to figure out the defenses but this year we didn't look inept.

The good thing about the Denver win is that we can afford to lose to Buffalo without losing ground because its an AFC game. It is a home game though so it is one you want more but we won one we were supposed to lose (cause it was on the road, not talking point spreads). But what I like about the Denver game is that it gave Buffalo and Philly a new layer to think about rather than just the Arizona game. I think Arizona went into week 1 thinking we'd just pound the rock, so EB surprised them with the pass game. Then I think VJ probably expected that but at the same time he had a young QB he was going against so he was preparing to attack the KC offense and attack the young QB. And I think early VJ's drive adjustments worked. Then EB adjusted as well. So I think it becomes a question of what will be the next layers of the offense we see in Buffalo as a preparation for Philadelphia. We know that OL likes to run and we haven't seen the run game develop early yet. Will we see that work early in the game so that we don't see that imbalance 33-7 passing play call? What we have is an athletic OL of former tackles playing G so they can all get to the second level rather quickly and maul guys. Thats what I want to see. We know how good those pass rushes are in Philly and Dallas but how good are they against the run? I know the new era stats say to pass to set up the run, but with all these interior linemen inside and edge rushers in our division, I have no problem trying to push them back and just establish domininion.

At first I was going to do a context post like that, then I realized where he stood so I just said I'd just post the stat. BMitch and JP were saying that it'd be good if he could get a QBR above 50. They said that QBs last year (don't know if they did previous years) didn't get above 30s. Then they had Howell at 46 for week 1. (You have him at 41.7? Profootballreference has him at 48.3. I know it's an ESPN stat that's not public but it shouldn't be that different between different sites. ) Anyway the 50+ was interesting for this to me and I thought I'd point it out. I was thinking about the QB vs this thread but since this is relevant to this game, this thread.

For the year, Howell has a QBR of 54.1

So I'm playing lookahead right now. We have a common opponent in LV with Buffalo and Denver 1 week apart. Josh Allen put up 38 on him and Wilson put up 16. 1. LV (Jimmy G) threw 2 interceptions and a fumble. We can't do that. 2. Buffalo (like Denver) had no sacks. Maybe the Raiders line is just good. 3. It seems like the Allen / Diggs tension is resolved. Or maybe not. Diggs got 7 targets, tied to lead the team, but only 66 yards. Is he happy with this? Will he be happy getting less yards than Davis? Or Targets? 4. LV has no interceptions on the year, so maybe they're not the best benchmark to judge Allen for having a INT free game.

C'mon man, that's my morning workout listen.

More on the distribution RBs - 5 receptions TEs - 7 recptions WRs - 15 receptions What this means is more variability in the offense. Not just in the who its going to, but in where its going. I don't know if thats because of EB or Howell but that was nice to see because it really shows balance and makes it hard to predict. Its only two games but patterns are not emerging right now.

If I had a better option I would, I love sports and local stuff is much better than national stuff. I cant stand stuss like Steven A Smith and the other blow hards. Occasionally in the offseason I'll just stop listening to sports podcasts and listen to audio books or quora threads. And there are still lapses during the day where there is a dought so I can catch a book or two or read an academic paper or learn a skill, but its hard to listen to the office gossip and stuff. I'd much rather listen to Sheehan complain abou Heinicke or Howell. At least Sheehan for the most part is logical. I can't stand Grant Paulsen and that other guy Danny ??? because I didn't understand their logic (I understand Grant's, and the other guy's individually, but togeher they just seem to joke around for 3 or 4 hours and I lose all sense of logic like a black hole). Cooley does film reviews on his podcast occasionally but he's not committed. With the number of film reviewers on Twitter I wouldn't even look to Cooley to do it any more. Its not even beneficial for him any more. Whats the point in him doing it? He's not going to be an NFL coach. He's just doing it for a friend.

Its not just that he was spreading the ball around. But look at how he was spreading the ball around. Drive 1. 4 people Get the ball - Dotson, McLaurin, Robinson, Bates Drive 2. Add in Brown and Thomas so now that's 6 people. Drive 5: Add in Turner and Samuel, so now we're at 8. Drive 6: Add in Gibson and we're at 9 Drive 10: Throw in Pringle and we're at 10. I don't know if its purely a weapons thing or a seeing the field thing or what but this is something.

Some more drive by drive analysis of Howell's stats. Each bracket is a number indicating the yards gained by the pass and the target of the pass. an incomplete pass is a .0 and the target if the pass. Drive 1 [-1(Dotson), 18(Dotson), 5(McLaurin), 21(Robinson), 5(Bates), .0(Dotson)] (4 Rs) Drive 2 [9(Brown), 8(Brown), 5(McLaurin), .0, 18(Thomas), 5(Dotson), .0(Dotson)] (4 Rs) Drive 3 [.0(??), ] Drive 4 [.0(Robinson), 1(Samuel), .0(McLaurin)] 1 R Drive 5 [9(McLaurin), 9(Turner), 6(Bates), 13(Samuel), 1(Robinson), .0(Bates), .0(Thomas), *4(Thomas)] (6 Rs) Drive 6 [.0(??), 14(Samuel), 4(Samuel), 3(Gibson), 35(Bates), .0(??), .0(??)] (4 Rs) Drive 7 [.0(Bates), *30(McLaurin)] (1 R) Drive 8 [5(Gibson)] Drive 9 [5(McLaurin), 36(Gibson), 12(Turner)] (3 Rs) Drive 10 [21(Robinson), 4(Pringle), 8(Brown)] (3 Rs) *Indicates a TD Pass So He had 6 drives with 3 or more WRs. That seems hella impressive to me.

This is one decision that he's being criticized for that I agree with. I think we're up 8 or 11 at that point and this can pretty much ice the game. 1. We have a kicker who was kicking from 65 before the game 2. We can't base the 59 yarder on one bad play (the missed FG earlier) 3. We're playing in Denver where we know that the lighter ball travels easier. 4. People are talking about the defense but it also shows that he trusts the defense to stop them or hold them to a FG.

I want to ask Lionel and Sheehan and all the Brisket defenders who wanted him to start over Howell how they feel now. They were so certain we're were wasting a year and Howell couldn't be the guy. It was frustrating to listen to.

Oh and I put this in my rhymes but don't do chasing stats. Foster was doing that and we almost lost the game. Howell wasn't doing that with the stupid 1 and 1 (passing and rushing) to start the career record, and we win.

1. Resillience. This is becoming a theme. There were some mistakes made (Cheeseman, the deep safety (Forrest?), Foster, thats blame to go all around. But as Young said 'we kept chopping wood". This team is reminding me of the Nationals where they don't know how to just quit. They're toop young to quit. So tthery keep fighting and they pull out a victory. 2. Better conditioning. I was on Twitter making jokes about Beet Juice and maybe there was some truth to it or hte 24 hour rule. But what is tested and proven is that if you wany to run a marathon you've got tto practice running and longer routes. At least that's the most common training plan. So when I heard About EB coming here, I thought what he was doing had been going on here for decades. but whatever. A better conditioned team is better conditioned to win late. And you're seeing it in the second half and 4th quarters. 3. Weight on a young QB I worry about young Sam. On Twitter when he had been sacked 3 or 4 times, i was saying I hope he doesn't become Patrick Ramsey. I don't know why I came to that name, but I had such hope for Ramsey and Spurrier's system and lack of protection ruined him. I had those thoughts when we were down 21-3. Then the magic happened. 4. Imbalance This is something that Jamual over at Hogs Haven talked about a lot yesterday, I was ignoring it before that, but in light of that Igave it more consideration and I think he has a point. So most people have offered sone analysis and I will continue to sprinkle that here and there. But here is some drive by drive stuff Drive1 - RPPPPPP(MissedFG) Drive2 - PRPRPPPPPP(FG) Drive3 - RPPPu Drive4 - PPPPu Drive 5 - PPRPRRPRRPPPP(R-2P) Drive 6 - PPPPPPP(FG) Drive 7 - RPPRRP Drive 8 - RRPPMissedFG Drive 9 - PPPRRRPPR Drive 10 - RRPRPPRRPR Drive 11 - RRRPu I mean you can probably tell from the simple number of pass attempts but look at the number of drives with passes more than runs, or drives with passes and no runs. Its not Spurriwr-lite. But I would have liked to have seen some investment in some runniing game like Samuel in Drive 3 or 4 where he did become a good runner later in the game.

Just had both this weekend and can say with certainty that I feel this way Donuts > ice cream Unfortunately my wife and kids always want to go and get ice cream and never donuts.