philibusters

I watched the Broncos v. Raiders and I thought it was a well played game by both teams. I thought Russell Wilson looked like his old self. It was an odd game. Denver opened the season with an onside kick which they recovered, but touched maybe a foot before it went 10 yards so the Raiders started the season at the Bronocos 35. Typically there are may 20-24 possessions per game in football meaning each team gets 10-12 possessions. However, in the game, there were only 12 possessions. Each team only got the ball 6 times because there were very few incompletions and clock stoppages. The Broncos had two punts, two TD's, 1 FG, and 1 missed FG in their 6 possessions. Wilson looked good. I think he will be much better with Sean Payton. They got him out of the pocket a lot and he is a much better player when he doesn't have to throw from the pocket on every play. The Bronocos could have easily won but their kicker Will Lutz missed an extra point and fg (albeit a long fg around 50 yards).

Payne and Vea are just different. Vea is the best pure nose tackle in the league and if you have a defense that utilizes that, he is great. Payne can play the nose reasonably well, but when he takes on duo blocks he is going to get moved a much higher percentage of the time than Vea. Payne is a good run defender when playing the 3 technique, but as a nose he'll lose some matchups. As a pass rusher, Payne leaves Vea in the dust. Vea is actually decent for a guy his size at generating a pass rusher, but he just doesn't have the quickness Payne does and is much less of an effective pass rusher than Payne.

I think I much higher on Kyler Murray then a lot of people on this board. I think he is a terrible leader, but he is very talented. He lead an untalented offense to a 11-6 year a couple years ago and while the Cardinals were only 3-7 with him last year, they were 1-6 without him. His running is dynamic and he is a decent passer. I think in terms of talent, he is similar to Lamar Jackson. That said I think he lacks Lamar Jackson's work ethic. If I was a team with a good culture and a decent roster a mid first round pick (say the Steelers if they didn't have Kenny Pickett), I would give up a first for Kyler Murray.

I think Arizona could trade Kyler Murray for a first rounder after this season if they choose to. People think that contract is untradeable, but I think they are wrong. They see 5 years 230 million. But 71 million of that is signing bonus which the Cardinals have already paid and which cap space they would eat in a trade. So its really 5 years 159 million which if you are QB hungry is platable.

One way to counter stunts is just to run the ball well. That won't help you on third and long, but it will make them not stunt on 1st and 10 or 2nd and long because it is so much harder to maintain gap integrity against the run when you stunt.

Fair. I shouldn't have wrote that.

I don't know if I agree. I think at this stage teams are not really trying to improve their depth, if they were they would be going after the veterans, rather they are looking at stealing developmental players. I think the fact that we went out of our way to keep Henry despite the fact that there is almost no chance barring multiple injuries that he will be one of teh 48 active gameday players is an indication that the organization feels if we waived him, we would lose him.

I think you are misconstruing my point. My point is not that we have good depth at those positions. My point was the question the team is really deciding is whether they want to take any developmental guys who were cut by other teams at those positions (like how we claimed Wildgoose and Castro-Fields last year) or claimed Ridgeway off the Cowboys practice squad later in the season. In terms of adding depth, there will be veterans on other teams practice squad and just off the street who will be better immediate depth than a young developmental that you can claim during the season if the need arises. So all you are really deciding at this point are whether there are any developmental guys that you simply cannot pass on right now.

In response to those three observations: A. Sure. But I don't look at that as an indictment on depth on defense. You can only take so much away from preseason. B. Our depth isn't weak at those three position. But I feel with TE and LB if injuries struck, there will be decent options on the street or on another team's practice squad. Usually the claims from the 53 man cuts are for young developmental players (though not always). C. That is true and that is somewhat telling. However, I would not make too much of it, because we cut players like Larson and Armah to protect our young developmental guys. If we would have cut Andre Jones or KJ Henry, I think they likely would have been claimed. The thing about stashing veterans on the practice squad is other team's don't view them as a long term answer. So if a team has a QB injury and wants Fromm as their new backup, they will just claim him off our practice squad. But it would just be a temporary fix. Whereas the young developmental guys who are on rookie contracts are guys where there is at least the potential of something longer and more meaningful.

Hodges to me would be the obvious cut candidate. He can run and great size, but he hasn't shown much in practice or the preseason games. I think Logan Thomas is the best TE on the roster. The beat reporters seem to think he is quite a bit ahead of the other TE's in terms of receiving. If you think he will play most of the year I would definitely keep him. That said I think this is likely his last year on this team unless he takes a veterans minimum contract or something like that next year.

I like the Cowboys a lot. I think they significantly improved their WR and CB rooms. Why are you down on them?

I didn't see the Braeden Daniels to IR coming. My instinct was to put him on the initial 53 then maybe IR so you'd have the option to bring him back later, but it sounds like the staff is pretty confident that he won't be ready this year and if it injuries hit the O-Line and they need to bring in somebody, they are better off going to our practice squad or signing somebody off the street.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2023-roster-cuts-tracker

Michael Dunn was a four year starter at the University of Maryland. He started a couple years at Guard and a couple years at RT. He was not a dominant player, but he was a good player as evidenced by the fact that he was a four year starter. I don't think Washington needs him, I feel like he is more of what we already have in Shaddiq Charles and Chris Paul, a decent option as your third guard, but not a guy you want starting.

The Fangio defense we run is kind of the NFL's response to the Shanahan offenses, particularly the Sean McVay style Shanahan offenses. The Shanahan offense which is run by over half the NFL teams has a lot of features. It was partially developed during Mike Shanahan coaching tenure here in Washington when Kyle Shanahan was the offensive coordinator and Sean McVay, Mike Lafluer, and Mike McDaniel were on the staff here. The nuances are beyond me and I have never read a book or anything on it, I just pick up tiny bits here and there from listening to a lot of podcasts. But one feature of the Shanahan offense is its marries a wide zone running game to a pass game that used a lot of play action and uses the middle of the field. Presnap its hard to figure out what the offense is doing and the offense puts defensive players in tension by using the playaction a lot. If the defenders start to move towards the sidelines to defend the wide zone run they vacate the middle of the field opening that up for the pass game and if they stay in the middle of the field to defend the pass they are going to give up big runs against the wide zone run. Almost all playaction is designed to look like wide zone runs (compare that to Scott Turner was criticized for sometimes running play action out of formations we rarely ran out of) The system was designed so that for the first half second post snap the offense kind of looks the same whether it is a pass or run. It puts defenders in tension. McVay runs a purer style of the offense than Kyle Shanahan. Kyle Shanahan mixes up the runs--he'll use a decent amount gap runs and inside zone runs in addition to wide zone runs and his passing system puts more responsibility on the QB to read concepts. McVay style versions of the offense are even more heavy on outside zone runs and during its heyday 2018 when it looked like his version was going to take over the NFL, it placed less stress on the QB being able to read concepts after the snap. It got to the point where on most plays McVay was just telling Goff what receiver to throw to because the system put the defense under stress and by just looking at the defensive alignment before snap you knew who to throw to. The Rams were killing it in 2018 until they played the Chicago Bears who had Fangio as their DC. He used what would develop into a Fangio style defense that made it impossible to tell pre-snap what the defense was and even the first half second or so after the snap is kind of an amorphous blob. The Rams offense started sputtering some as others teams starting copying that. They did make the Super Bowl but their offense was toned down and then completely sputtered in the Super Bowl against the Patriots who copied a lot of what Fangio did. The second feature it has is that the two high safeties take away the deep pass which has somewhat limited players like Patrick Mahomes. Early in Mahomes career he looked unstoppable. For what its worth the Chiefs don't use a Shanahan offense they use a modern west coast offense. Andy Reid essentially has his own offensive tree that competes with the Shanahan tree as the two main trees in the NFL's with only a handful of teams using offensives that don't really fall under either tree (Scott Turner as his offense was more of a traditional prostyle offense). With Eric Bieniemy we definitely fall under the Andy Reid tree now. As a second year player in his first year starting in 2018, Mahomes statistically had his best season (by quite a bit). His 8.8 yards per attempt was his highest by far (8.3 is his second highest), his 50 TD's was 7 more than his next best season and he threw for over 5,000 yards something he has done only twice (last season was the other season he did it, but he had an extra game last season to do it because the NFL added a 17th game to the schedule between 2018 and 2022). The reason his 2018 was so special was because defenses have changed since then. There is a lot more two high safeties which forces the offense to throw more underneath stuff. In general scoring has been going down since 2020 after rising for more than a decade which is probably an indication that NFL defenses are successfully responding to modern NFL offenses. Before the Fangio defenses starting spreading the most popular defense in the NFL was the Seattle Cover 3 defense and its offshoots which was developed by Pete Carroll and Dan Quinn. It used a lot of one high safety defenses (cover 3 and cover 1). It was an aggressive defense that allowed to DC's to use a lot of bump and run technique if they had the stomach for the risk of using press technique and played a lot of one high safeties. However it had its weaknesses. It didn't really hide what the defense was doing and it was risky with only one high safety and good QB's with a good deep ball like Mahomes absolutely annihilated it.

We are playing the Fangio style defense, which is categorized by two high safeties and lots of zone match. The Fangio style defense is the most popular bend but don't break defense in the NFL currently. With two safeties high, so you won't have an extra guy in the box against the run. With two high safeties lots of cover 4 and 2, but because its a zone match the exact coverage may matter less than traditional zone. The advantages are it helps take away the long deep pass (two high safeties) and its amorphous before the snap (zone match). If the offense puts a guy in motion we can move a guy with him (making it look like man coverage when its actually zone match) and likewise we cannot move a defender but because its zone match, it does kind of become man to man defense so its harder for a QB to determine where to throw the ball before the snap. So it aims to take away the big play and hide what the defense is before the snap. It probably is the most popular defense in the NFL and we play it well, but it is more of a bend but don't break than an aggressive defense.

I think it was up in the air when they would be able to keep Payne. So you are correct, Mathis was immediate depth. And Mathis was insurance if we didn't bring back Payne.

Agree on Darrisaw. In 2021 I woudl have picked Darrisaw at 19 and in 2022 I would have picked Kyle Hamilton at 11 (which with hindsight probably woudl not have been a great pick given the trade back options). But having Darrisaw on this O-Line would be a game changer because he is a foundational piece to build around. Probably one of the 10 best OT's in the league. I don't think we absolutely had to start Cosmi year 1. Plenty of teams will stash a second round pick for a year. That was the plan for Mathis for example. I think we released Moses because we wanted Cosmi to start year 1, and couldn't justify paying Moses 10 million a year to be a backup (he probably would have been one of the 6 or 7 highest paid guys on that 2021 team at 10 million a year) but Cosmi could have taken over at Guard in year 2 after Scherff and Flowers left.

Over time I have come to support Rivera more. I was critical at first. I hated his decision to bench Haskins. I had no idea if Haskins would pan out, but at the time I thought four games was enough time for him to develop. With hindsight (largely coming from hearsay), Rivera probably made the right call as it sounds like Haskins wasn't great at preparation each week. I am not 100% behind Rivera, but at this point I trust him and want him to have some leeway.

I think the actual answer is that we thought we were going to lose Payne after the 2022 season so I think they saw Mathis as a future starter. The odd thing about that post is he picked two players who were pretty bad their rookie year. Ed Ingram was probably overdrafted based on his athleticism. His college tape showed athleticism but somebody who needed more development. The Vikings gambled on that athleticism and took him in the second round and started him as a rookie. And he was bad as a rookie in pass blocking giving up 11 sacks on 58 pressures (44.4 pass blocking grade) which are bad numbers for a Guard. Ingram's athleticism did help him run blocking where he was okay (63.4 PFF grade), but you are not expecting to give 60 pressures and 11 sacks from a Guards position. Goedeke also had a rough rookie year finishing with a 43.7 PFF grade.

The Cardinals D-Line may be the worst in the league. The O-Line may look decent week 1. Week 2 we go against the Bronocos. They have a solid Defense overall, but the D-Line is the weakest unit on their D. Their DB's are really good so Howell could struggle, but I would rate their O-line somewhere in the low to mid-20's so I am not expecting that to be the game that really exposes our O-Line even if we do have some struggles. Week 3 is against the Bills. When fully healthy they have a beast of a D-Line. However we pretty much know they will be missing their best D-Lineman (Von Miller) for at least the first month of the season. Without Von Miller they still have a solid D-Line, but its not near as fearsome as it is with Miller. Without Miller they may have a D-Line right around the middle of the pack. So its possible the D-Line sinks us that game, but its also possible they hold up. Philly should have a legit D-Line and that is where our guys could get seriously exposed for the first time.

I think John Keim said Stromberg looked relatively good for a newbie, just lacking the play strength. Lacking play strength will leave you vulnerable to power rush moves in pass pro on the plays when the offense isolates a defender on the center in a pass rush situation ( probably a minority of passrush snaps, on the majority usually the center starts off with a double team and breaks off if he sees any blitzers) and makes it hard to get a push on gap run plays when the center is one on one with a DT on a run play (more common, but even in the run, a center will be involved in a lot of double teams). So Stromberg has to get stronger, but he is looking good. That said his lack of play strength does make it harder for him to have position flex because as a guard he will be one on one with a DT a lot more both in the pass and run game.

To a certain extent analytics are just stats. But they are stats that try to factor in context and be more predictive of the future than simple stats. For example a relative simple stat for QB's is passer rating whereas a popular one in analytics is EPA per drop back which accounts for things like sacks and down and distance and field position. For example, in EPA, usually completing a 7 yard pass on 3rd and 6th is worth more than completing a 12 yard pass on 3rd and 20 (there may be exceptions to that like if it changed from a 61 to 49 yard fg that 12 yard completion might be worth say 1.5 points whereas getting a first down on 3rd and 6th when you are own 15 might only be worth .7 points are something like that)

I don't think Scott Turner had as much discretion as Bieniemy but I do feel he was the primary author of the gameplan and then almost exclusively responsible for the playcalls during the game. I think Rivera has always been somewhat hands off on the offense.

He is an odd player. Coming out of a college, he was a decent blocker as a TE by college standards and was a good athlete so there was an assumption even if he lacked polish as a pass catcher he would develop into a good one over time. I think he was considered to have a high floor because he had the tools to be a decent blocker and has shown some talent at doing that in college, so the feel was even if he busts he'll likely be an okay blocker who is a meh route runner but due to his athleticism occasionally makes a big play as a pass catcher. Instead, he really has shown very little development in the NFL as either a blocker or pass catcher. His actual outcome is kind of worse than the realistic worst case scenario people thought he had when he was drafted.