philibusters

Probably a second rounder for whereever Bieniemy would go for his next OC gig IF that team needs a QB. With a little bit of bad luck, maybe a third?

Forbes had a good camp and he was a stud in the best conference in the SEC. I think if he plays in the right system, Forbes will eventually be a solid player. Maybe his lack of size limits his ceiling, but I think he can be good. He is just not playing well right now. Lack of fundamentals and maybe a bit of a lack of confidence right. I am definitely not giving up on him, but yeah, he has been beyond terrible in the Denver, Philly, and Chicago games.

I think the team blew their playoff chances last night. Its a mediocre team and when the schedule gets tough they will falter. They needed last nights game. That said I think the team is embarrassed by how they played last night and they will be focused next week so I think they pull out the victory, something like 20-13. That said, it doesn't come even close to making up for this loss. 27-3 in the first half and lack of effort was a key contributing factor. I am pissed.

If we did that, we could probably trade him for a second rounder. That said I don't think we will go up and get Drake Maye or Caleb Williams, so its probably a moot point.

One super specific thing: I liked Kendall Fullers gamble on third down that went for a long TD. It was third and four with 4 minutes left and we were down 10. Fuller tried to jump that route. A number of possibilities including a pick six or just an incompletion. A pick six and we might win that game. An incompletion and we probably lose but we get the ball back with at least a hope and a pray. A first down and the game is essentially over. A first down was as bad a TD, so that is a gamble that I like. It didn't work out and Moore got a long TD out of it. But I thought that was a smart gamble. That is the difference between Fuller and Forbes right now. One knows when to gamble and the other doesn't. Yeah Fuller lost his bet, but no real damage, a completion for the first down effectively gives you the same result, a loss.

Looking back at the draft, of the guys who went in the second round plus Dawand Jones Steve Avila : The guy they supposedly really liked. 298 snaps--60.6 PFF grade. Looks promising and maybe a slight upgrade at Guard this year and a decent size upgrade over the next four. Joe TIppmann: Like Avila he was gone by the time we picked at 47 (he went 44) so it would have required a trade up. 122 Snaps 76.6 PFF grade. That PFF grade is off the charts. My instincts is it goes down with a larger sample size, but with the caveat its a small sample size, Tippmann looks good. Cody Mauch: Unlike the first two guys we did pass on Cody Mauch to take Javartius Martin. Mauch has 257 snaps and a 47.1 PFF grade. He is probably not a real upgrade this year, but could help the O-Line over the next four seasons. O'Cyrus Torrence: This is the pick I probably make at 47. Neither PFF or the The Franchise Guy, the two sources I get a lot of my draft information from other than here, were that high on Mauch, so I like Torrence more. 273 snaps with a 59.7 PFF grade, similar to Avila. Maybe a neutral to slight upgrade this year and a decent size upgrade over the course of the rookie contract. I also get that he is not a great scheme fit cause with his size he is more of a gap run blocker rather than zone run blocker, but even with that knowledge, if I could repick today, he is probably my pick. John Michael Schmitz: I was surprised by how bad his PFF grade is. 197 snaps and a 49.0 PFF grade. I think he is a nice upgrade over the course of his rookie deal, but based off the PFF numbers he is probably not upgrade over Nick Gates this year. Dawand Jones: We passed on him in both the second and third rounds. Unlike the other guys he is a Tackle, which means his rookie contract is slightly more valuable than it is with the interior guys because Tackle free agents are more expensive than interior guys. 273 snaps and a 55.3 PFF grade. His pass grade is 71.5, but his run blocking is only 41.4. He is a better pass blocker than Andrew Wylie right now though worse run blocker. However given our pass to run splits and that even the screens we run are maybe two plays a game, I think he may be more valuable to this Commanders team than Wylie. Based off giving up the most sacks in the league, I don't know if I agree with Eric Bieniemy on what traits we need in O-Lineman for his system. I think John Keim said that after week 3 we lead the league in passes with only five men protections and KC Chiefs where Bieniemy came from was 2nd. Based on that we need pass protectors. Given that we only run like 30% time and only throw a couple screens per game, I am less worried about mobility and ability to lead block than Bieniemy. If we had taken Torrence in the second round and Jones in the third round, I think we are literally fine at O-Line moving forward. If we then took a Tackle this year in the first round to replace Leno we have a very nice young and cheap foundatiion. Instead we took a safety in the second round when we already had 3 starting caliber safeties in Curl, Forreset, and Butler, plus Reaves who honestly is a low caliber starting safety himself. Dumb. The year before we use our second rounder on Philadarian Mathis, a decent rotational DT with the upside to be a number 2 DT, but thats it. He was already 24 years old when we drafted him on April 29, 2023 (barely by 3 days, but still). Dumb.

I don't think you are familiar with Ron Rivera. This team likely goes 7-10.

I am not going to write off this season yet. However I think the standard for this year is playoffs or bust and if we bust again in year 4 I think it would be prudent to move on from Rivera. After last night the odds of us making the playoffs are what...maybe 20%. Its not looking good right. I really don't understand the defensive struggles. So much resources and talent. We spent 6 out of our last 8 first round picks on defense and 3 out of 5 of last second picks on defense. Why is so bad. Also brought in a fairly high price player in Kendall Fuller. Why is it so bad? Giving up 35.5 points over the last four games which is almost unheard of bad. We gave up 33, 37, 34, and 40 points in those games. Given how we have used the vast majority of draft capital there, that is just unacceeptable. And one potential issue with Forbes is that while I think he could eventually thrive in a quarters heavy scheme like we play as he gets more tough on the job training, what happens if Rivera gets fired and we to like a bump and run system, where Forbes doesn't have the physical tools to be a starter level caliber player. I still won't say Forbes was a bad pick, he is a very scheme dependent player. I am so disappointed in this team right now. I took today off from work because I really wanted to enjoy the game and was afraid I wouldn't be able to get to sleep until 1 am. Which pretty much happened, yet I am so disappointed in this team that I am up at 6 am writing on a message board. This one definitely hurt.

I think Jacoby Brissett is also a mentor of sorts for Sam.

With the acknowledgement that I don't know the details of each O-Line in the league, I would guess this O-Line ranks in the mid to high 20's out of 32 teams. In other words its a bad O-Line, but not especially bad. The sack numbers make the O-Line look worse than it is. Some of that is Howell. Some of that is the scheme (Keim had Logan Paulsen on his podcast and one of them, I think Keim said the team lead the league in passes with only 5 man protections, KC Chiefs who run the same system were 2nd in passes with only 5 man protections--and for as good as KC's offense is, they also give up more sacks than you would think--the scheme also uses a lot of RPO's and two of the sacks have been RPO's were we only lost about 1 yard on the sack). The O-Line leads the league in sacks given up and a lot of that is on the line, but this is just a normal bad O-Line. It is probably not the worst in the league and its not hisotrically bad like the sacks number would indicate. We may end up leading the league in sacks given up for the season, but it will be a combo of a scheme that is not afraid of giving up sacks, a QB who holds on to the ball to long, and a weak O-Line. It is not just on the O-Line.

Usually you don't want corners guessing and trying to jump routes, but on that last TD by Philly, it actually made some sense to guess. Because if you don't guess and you give up a 6 yard reception for a first down, Philly just runs out the clock. Whereas if you give up a TD like Forbes did, it means we get the ball back with a chance to tie. So guessing wasn't terrible because if you guess right, you deny them the first down and stop the clock and if you guess wrong and they hit you with a double move like they did, you give up the TD but get the ball back. That said I doubt Forbes thought all that out. Normally you don't want to guess, though in that specific situation, guessing could be justified.

Kyle Pitts actually had 1,000 yard receiving season as a rookie (1,026). Then they went to from Matt Ryan to Marcus Mariota to Desmond Ridder.

That pick was ball skills. Receiver broke the run way, he wasn't simply running after the receiver, he saw the ball and went and got it. The problem is the book is out on him and that he is can be overaggressive. He has ball skills and he is used the jumping routes. The double moves are working on him because he is trying to jump routes. He had a strong camp. I am not worried about him. He may also be a bit of gambler which leads to some periods of really good play and some periods of bad play, but overall I still think he will be a good player. He just needs to get more fundamentally sound. He is trying to rely on instincts to make a big play rather than being fundamentally sound.

On a couple of the plays he just got overaggressive including that one there. Philly faked the WR screen and he was looking to get around AJ Brown's block and never had a chance when Brown went up field. And realistically on a WR screen he is going to to have a difficult to be able to take on AJ Brown's block and get off and shed it to make the play on a WR screen so I kind of get him trying to be aggressive and just get around the block, but obviously there is a down side to that. On that last TD he got beat on a double move. I think we all thought Philly was going to try to eat up the clock and not a shot down the field, so he was trying to break on Brown's route to get a pick or pass breakup. I think part of being a rookie is just learning on the job.

I don't fear Heinicke, but I fear that Falcons run game quite a bit. And while I don't fear Heinicke, with a strong run game behind him, I definitely think he can beat us.

Hindsight is 20-20. But I would have liked to keep Cole. Cody was a bit cheaper, but it does feel like we got a downgrade. Cole knew Del Rio's system and if he could stay healthy he was a good LB. So far that hasn't been true for Cody Barton.

The Giants are 1-2

Landon Dickerson for the Eagles has been good.

I don't agree that the D sucked yesterday. I thought they played okay. Josh Allen is considered the second or third best QB in the league behind Mahomes and he played a good game yesterday. Between the way he can throw balls into a tight window and his ability to run, when the Bills offense is on, he can defeat good defense. That is what is tough about the elite QB's is that even when the defense executes properly, they can extend plays and make throws out of structure (like on that play where Diggs beat Forbes, Allen extended the play then threw Diggs a perfect ball on the run) or just fit balls into a tight window (like that one that Kam Curl played perfectly but couldn't quite make the play) and Allen did a little bit of both yesterday on those third down conversions. All that said, I am not convinced the defense played great yesterday, but I didn't think they played poorly either. They were up against one of the best QB's in the league and Allen was playing well.

Yesterday was difficult to watch, but I kind of saw it coming. I figured Howell would have some rough games and the O-Line would have some rough games and there would be a couple games this season where they both had rough games during the same game and that was yesterday. In terms of Howell, it is not a big deal that he had a rough game. That was predictable. What is important is how he responds to the rough game and if he learns from it and improves. And only time will provide the answer to question of how he'll deal with these games, but I am not upset or discouraged with the team right now.

I had Kenny Pickett and Malik Willis in tier 1, Corral and Howell in tier 2, and Ridder and Strong in tier 3, and a bunch of guys including Zappe and Purdy in tier 4. It was a mild surprise to me that Ridder and especially Zappe went ahead of Howell. I knew Wilis was super raw and could easily bust, but I saw him as having the best physical tools of the bunch.

I think Bagent was likely a developmental guy and they would sign a Carson Wentz before they went to him, but you never know.

I don't think he was being malicious. I think most players that bust don't expect to bust and they go through a stage where they realize they are not great NFL players, but it doesn't happen at once, they start to realize it, but go through stages of denial. I think Fields is going through a stage of denial. He is thinking back to Ohio State where he had Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave, and Jaxon Smith-Ngiba and the best O-Line in the conference and thinking back then my coaches were not giving me all these to track, things were simpler, and if things were more like that in Chicago, I'd be great again. But what he had at Ohio St., is the equivalent of Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, and Cooper Kupp as your slot behind the Eagles O-Line from last year. Its playing on easy mode. But I think he is in that denial stage, where he is refusing to accept he is not good. He needs to accept he is not good if he will ever develop into a starting QB so that he'll be driven to improve. The one thing Chicago did not do, that they could have, is 100% embraced his running ability and hired Greg Roman to be the OC after Baltimore fired him. In that type of system, Fields would be a fine starter. Probably not Lamar Jackson level, but a QB that can get a team to the playoffs. The Bears did not go that route and if Fields in going to succeed in his current environment he is going to have to become a better passer within the structure of the offense.

I think Devin White will want way to much money for how good he is. He is a player who has elite athleticism for the position and is a bit of a gambler so he does make more than his share of splash plays. That said, he gives up a lot of plays. He'll shoot a gap to quick, which means another gap is not covered and because he shot it too quick the RB has time to make a cutback into the open gap, he'll bite on play action or try to jump a route and be wrong. In other words a lot of good plays but a lot of bad plays. That is okay, but if that is your game don't expect to get paid like Fred Warner or Roquan Smith who maybe only have a third of the bad plays as Devin White. I think Devin White benefits from having his LB mate Lavonte David who is probably second best LB behind Fred Warner (I think either David or Roquan Smith is likely the second best). Lavonte David makes so few mistakes it gives Devin White a little more ability to take chances and make splash plays. Josey Jewell would be a guy I would definitely be interested in because he is solid at run defense and pass defense though not really great at either. Wagner and David are both still very good and wouldn't break the bank because of their age. On the other hand they are not a long term solution they would be a one or two year gap filler.

I like their LB'ers. Josey Jewell is an all around LB and Singleton is really solid against the run. I am not impressed by their D-Line though.