Next Day Thread: WFT Jedi Mind Tricks the Evil Empire (No, not the Yankees, the Raiders)

[profusion]

That was a hell of a grind-it-out effort on the road. A lot of injuries coming in, and I noticed the difference in the offense as soon as Thomas was injured.

[Dr. Do Itch Big]

I’m concerned with the offense scoring so low. The raiders defense isn’t good. they are averaging 26 ppg after yesterdays game. 

[NoCalMike]

I think the defense is pretty much the main reason for this turn around. The offense looks good in spots, and is getting better at racking up yards, but they aren't scoring enough to beat teams that aren't stifled by the defense, fortunately the defense has turned things around enough in the last month that it is allowing for this style to win games.  

 

Gibson continues to get better at RB, but I still think they are overlooking what he could do in the passing offense if given the opportunities.  

 

Curtis Samuel, is he still playing less than 100% because he feels extremely under-utilized since returning. 

 

Logan Thomas, I guess we should cross our fingers that the "not as bad as we assumed MRI" becomes even better surprise news soon?

 

Heinicke needs to work on getting the ball out or taking off to run, on plays where no one is getting open.  Don't get stuck in the pocket too long. You have the legs to do it, so just goooo when needed.  Bust a few good rushes and it will change the way the defense is playing. 

[TK]

8 hours ago, KDawg said:

Taylor Heinicke - Will leave the various discussions to him mostly in his thread. However: He had bad moments, he had jedi moments but ultimately he shook off the bad moments temptations of the Dark Side and led the team down the field Death Star trench. It's not all his doing of course, ("The Force is strong in him" ~ Obi Ron)  but a game where he was harassed, had a pick due to pressure hitting him and then almost threw a game ending pick it says a lot about his character and mental make up to help drive the team down into field goal  range for the game winner. one in a million shot into the Death Star's exhaust port.

The shtick is strong with you but you're not a Jedi yet. 

[AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy]

Payne and Allen are just an incredible combo. Two ring of fame type guys if we can hold onto them. 
 

Gotta find a way to put more points on the board. Hard to do with the dink and dunk, but we’re gonna have to find another way. Forcing more turnovers would certainly help.

 

Kudos to Bates. Kid’s gonna be a solid player for us.

[ODU AGGIE]

Actually, I think TH does deserve a star for his play yesterday. What about that opening drive for a TD? He completed 76.7% of his passes. He had a 101.5 passer rating. He threw of 2 TDs. He led a come from behind game winning drive for a FG in the closing minutes. The Team flew home with a win, and he deserves a reasonable share of the credit. Just a thought. Cheers, all!

[KDawg]

9 minutes ago, ODU AGGIE said:

Actually, I think TH does deserve a star for his play yesterday. What about that opening drive for a TD? He completed 76.7% of his passes. He had a 101.5 passer rating. He threw of 2 TDs. He led a come from behind game winning drive for a FG in the closing minutes. The Team flew home with a win, and he deserves a reasonable share of the credit. Just a thought. Cheers, all!

He’s gotten it from me. Relax, Uncle Heinicke.

[bakedtater1]

Cole Holcomb had a killer game I thought..pass break up preventing a td and he had another big play..what did I miss?

Sorry I went back to original post and read the bit about Cole H. Fair enough assessment 

[FootballZombie]

D has been crazy ballin. Outside of 2 min drills they have been absolutely dominant of late.

 

If we could put up some points this team would be truly dangerous, but we likely would need some form of deep ball ability to have a reasonable shot at doing that. O is playing in a box right now, and that demands near perfect consistency over sustained drives to put up points. That is not easy for anybody.

[skins island connection]

 

 I agree with McCain, there are times where he looks lost.

There was one play in the 4th where Carr missed a TD throw, and McCain was, well I don't what he was doing, but there wasn't anyone around for him to cover. He should have been alot closer to the WR in the endzone, but he just did a little ' i'm not gonna bother' cut across the 3 yd line. 

This secondary has been fortunate in these last 4 games, but this week there's 3 good WRs and the DC needs to lay off the soft zone stuff; these guys are so used to it they run to their spot and almost come to a stand still at times, waiting to see what happens, and those WRs will streak by them. 

[RoseHill]

2 hours ago, AlvinWaltonIsMyBoy said:

Payne and Allen are just an incredible combo. Two ring of fame type guys if we can hold onto them. 

 

Kudos to Bates. Kid’s gonna be a solid player for us.

Gotta find a way to put more points on the board. Hard to do with the dink and dunk, but we’re gonna have to find another way. Forcing more turnovers would certainly help.

Man if we get jd back and Samuel gets right we are gonna be hard to deal with 

 

[NoCalMike]

The O-line pass protection might be the unheralded heroes of the offense right now.  Looked at as a weakness/liability going into the season coming off the Trent Williams debacle and prospect of Scherff going right out the door next, things were looking grim, but the coaching staff has not only been able to assemble a good starting unit, but the depth has been able to come right in when needed and not miss too much of a beat.  Cosmi seems like he can be something special, which is a tough task following in the footsteps of Silverback.  

 

All these throws into the soft zone of defense are only possible when the QB has time to scan the field and find the vacancies.  It is part of what Taylor does best, but on the flipside I think it also might be why the offense often seems to struggle inside the opponents twenty because the field shrinks and unless you have a terribly blown coverage/defender falls down, the throws need to be a lot tighter, crisp, and delivered quick.  That TD pass to Gibson is a good example.  Watching the replay, it should have been thrown way sooner, and because it wasn't it made it a much closer play.  It's hard to criticize a QB on a throw that resulted in a TD, but it doesn't change the fact that those instances in other parts of the game often lead to pass breakups or worse, when initially the WR was open and waiting. 

[skinny21]

9 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

The O-line pass protection might be the unheralded heroes of the offense right now.  Looked at as a weakness/liability going into the season coming off the Trent Williams debacle and prospect of Scherff going right out the door next, things were looking grim, but the coaching staff has not only been able to assemble a good starting unit, but the depth has been able to come right in when needed and not miss too much of a beat.  Cosmi seems like he can be something special, which is a tough task following in the footsteps of Silverback.  

 

All these throws into the soft zone of defense are only possible when the QB has time to scan the field and find the vacancies.  It is part of what Taylor does best, but on the flipside I think it also might be why the offense often seems to struggle inside the opponents twenty because the field shrinks and unless you have a terribly blown coverage/defender falls down, the throws need to be a lot tighter, crisp, and delivered quick.  That TD pass to Gibson is a good example.  Watching the replay, it should have been thrown way sooner, and because it wasn't it made it a much closer play.  It's hard to criticize a QB on a throw that resulted in a TD, but it doesn't change the fact that those instances in other parts of the game often lead to pass breakups or worse, when initially the WR was open and waiting. 

 

Agree on the oline.  To play as well as they have, not just with the injuries, but not having the consistency so important to olines… that’s been huge.  I hope we get Cosmi back at some point this year, and it’ll be great to get Sweitzer back.  I wonder if Larsen returns and knocks Ismael down the depth chart or if Ismael did enough to stay ahead of him.  Considering how many games guys have missed though, I’m not going to feel comfortable until we’re back to 3 deep at G and T (and at least 2 deep at C).

 

As to your earlier point about defense being the main catalyst for the turnaround - I agree to an extent.  The TOP has been a huge help in terms of keeping the DTs fresh, and those guys are instrumental to the caliber of D we’re playing.  Not a lot of 3 and outs from the offense is helping with field position too.  But yeah, the secondary getting their heads on straight, and the DEs staying in their lanes (not giving qbs an easy pocket to move into) - 2 massive leaps for the D.

Edited December 7, 2021 by skinny21

[ILikeBilly]

Taylor needs to keep the ball every so often instead of handing the ball off on those runs to the left.  If he keeps it and runs right or throws on the run, it is easy yards on a couple plays and will force the back side of the D to stay home.  It is wide open because he never keeps it.

[Burgundy Yoda]

I might have missed some bad moments, but Flowers I thought was pretty awesome run blocking for Gibson. Gibson's vision seems limited to me, but it doesn't matter when you can move human beings like Flowers can. He just made it easy for Gibson.

 

Curl, again always in the right spot. He is plug and play, you don't have to worry about him in the secondary. 

 

I think besides our interior defensive lineman duo, these guys were the most consistent throughout the game. Payne missed a play that I bet he wishes he could have gotten back, he tried to arm sack Carr who moved out of his reach on one play, but he was still a force. 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Burgundy Yoda

[duffy]

It's truly a shame the defense hasn't lived up to the preseason hype. I think the offense can be good enough to move the ball and get enough points including those with our 4th kicker. Now imagine that coupled with a top 5 defense and you have a legit contender. Maybe we get that next year? 

[goskins10]

4 hours ago, skinny21 said:

On the season, we’re 14th in red zone td%.  Extrapolate the improvement since the bye over the season, we’d be 11th.  5th if you take out the red zone trip Gibson fumbled (vs Carolina).  9th in scoring percentage in RZ.  Could be better for sure though.

 

Agree on the oline.  To play as well as they have, not just with the injuries, but not having the consistency so important to olines… that’s been huge.  I hope we get Cosmi back at some point this year, and it’ll be great to get Sweitzer back.  I wonder if Larsen returns and knocks Ismael down the depth chart or if Ismael did enough to stay ahead of him.  Considering how many games guys have missed though, I’m not going to feel comfortable until we’re back to 3 deep at G and T (and at least 2 deep at C).

 

As to your earlier point about defense being the main catalyst for the turnaround - I agree to an extent.  The TOP has been a huge help in terms of keeping the DTs fresh, and those guys are instrumental to the caliber of D we’re playing.  Not a lot of 3 and outs from the offense is helping with field position too.  But yeah, the secondary getting their heads on straight, and the DEs staying in their lanes (not giving qbs an easy pocket to move into) - 2 massive leaps for the D.

 

I went through this with someone else but can you provide a source for this? During the gme broadcast they showed us dead last in TD RZ%. Based on this source we are 29th. NFL Football Stats - NFL Team Red Zone Scoring Percentage (TD only) | TeamRankings.com

 

It us updated through last Sunday's game. There's had been from early October and then we were better. But since then, we have nosedived. 

 

Here is another sire that has us near the bottom: NFL Redzone (seattlepi.com)

 

 

[Tress Is The Way]

14 hours ago, NewCliche21 said:

 

Was Flowers the one who got in the face of one of the Raiders after a hit on Heinecke?  Stood up for him but didn't draw a flag, loved whoever that was.

And thank you, KDawg, as always.  Love your insights.

Yes indeed that was Flowers. That alone should have gotten him a star @KDawg

Edited December 7, 2021 by ZarG3

[Skinsinparadise]

Being at the game, I decided to pay attention to some things that I have a hard time zeroing in on with the TV broadcasts.  One of those things was watching their formations and guessing what they will do based on it.

 

Based on that, I'll say this, Scott Turner is really good as far as deception at the line of scrimmage.  Excellent at it.  I've said previously, I am one of the people here who isn't a critic of Turner.  I'll take it a step further, I'll say now I am a fan.  Keim's tweet here bringing it him some.  He has motion going one way, and your eyes follow that, then the play goes the other way.   Then a play or so later, the play indeed matches the motion.  A play looks like a run with two TEs on the strong side but then they throw a quick hitch to the weak side instead.   

 

Yes, to some extent every team has feign to the right but punch to the left plays in their playbook, etc.  But Turner has it working to a dizzying effect.  I stopped at one point even bothering to try to guess the direction of the play because it was a waste of time.

 

Jay was really good with play design.  But as far as playing with analytics and using subterfuge -- Jay IMO was really weak on those fronts.  Turner on the other hand, that's his wheel house IMO.   So much misdirection going on with motions and alignments.  With Jay for example you could probably just follow where Bates is lined up and how tight or not he's in the formation and judge run versus pass and the direction of the play.  That's really difficult to do with Turner.   He doesn't have easy tell alls as far as lineup-formations.

 

All our play callers for the most part have been savaged by some of our fans with the exception of McVay after his first season -- in his first season he was savaged too.  And some of that criticism is about some selective plays.   My thought on that is watching football I just never have the vibe that any play caller is making one flawless decision after another.  They all have some questionable calls in the soup.  Do we get everything right on every call we make at work?  So for me its the whole soup.  If its about which playcaller gets it right everytime on everything, with no shake your head type calls -- then every playcaller in the NFL stinks.

 

But yeah in short I was very impressed.  And you can see why the run game is so hard to stop.  the irony is you can also see why it isn't hard to stop on 3rd and 1.  Because on the obvious run plays you can't really trick teams that easily.  You bunch your guys in the direction of the run and hope that your O line and RB plows through.  It's a whole different game than running on early downs.   My point is the playcalling seems to really help the run game.  When teams know its coming and where its likely headed -- this team isn't the Hogs where they can tell the defense its 40 gut and good luck stopping it. 

 

As for Heinicke, all this misdirection helps him.   He's good at selling it, too.  The O line/offense push left, the defense follows, and then Heinicke rolls right, only has to read half the field and finds a wide open receiver there. 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Skinsinparadise

[skinny21]

4 hours ago, goskins10 said:

 

I went through this with someone else but can you provide a source for this? During the gme broadcast they showed us dead last in TD RZ%. Based on this source we are 29th. NFL Football Stats - NFL Team Red Zone Scoring Percentage (TD only) | TeamRankings.com

 

It us updated through last Sunday's game. There's had been from early October and then we were better. But since then, we have nosedived. 

 

Here is another sire that has us near the bottom: NFL Redzone (seattlepi.com)

 

 

Dang, I’m an idiot - found the info on some random site and missed the asterisk saying the info was through week 6, lol.  I edited my post.  My bad and good catch!

[KDawg]

8 minutes ago, ZarG3 said:

Yes indeed that was Flowers. That alone should have gotten him a star @KDawg

 

The OL overall wasn't good enough for any to get a positive review. He wasn't negative. But yes, I mentioned Flowers in the game day thread.

 

[Skinsinparadise]

My worry about this next game is the O line from what I saw run blocked well.  But pass blocking was brutal at times.  Crosby looked like Reggie White on steroids to my eyes.

 

The best rated pass rusher on some metrics (saw this somewhere but forgetting where) after Crosby is Parsons.  So they got to figure something out. 

[Warhead36]

1 minute ago, Skinsinparadise said:

My worry about this next game is the O line from what I saw run blocked well.  But pass blocking was brutal at times.  Crosby looked like Reggie White on steroids to my eyes.

 

The best rated pass rusher on some metrics (saw this somewhere but forgetting where) after Crosby is Parsons.  So they got to figure something out. 

Crosby is just that good. If you don't have a Trent Williams type at LT you're probably gonna give up pressures to that guy.

[Skinsinparadise]

Just now, Warhead36 said:

Crosby is just that good. If you don't have a Trent Williams type at LT you're probably gonna give up pressures to that guy.

 

I am one of the bigger Chase Young guys here.  Love Montez Sweat, too.  But I've never seen either guy play to Crosby's level on Sunday, and frankly not even close to it -- Crosby created havoc on almost every play.

 

Parsons has been unbelievable this season.  And Dallas moves him around a lot.  Crosby at least mostly plays L-DE so at least you know where he is. 

[Warhead36]

15 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

Being at the game, I decided to pay attention to some things that I have a hard time zeroing in on with the TV broadcasts.  One of those things was watching their formations and guessing what they will do based on it.

 

Based on that, I'll say this, Scott Turner is really good as far as deception at the line of scrimmage.  Excellent at it.  I've said previously, I am one of the people here who isn't a critic of Turner.  I'll take it a step further, I'll say now I am a fan.  Keim's tweet here bringing it him some.  He has motion going one way, and your eyes follow that, then the play goes the other way.   Then a play or so later, the play indeed matches the motion.  A play looks like a run with two TEs on the strong side but then they throw a quick hitch to the weak side instead.   

 

Yes, to some extent every team has feign to the right but punch to the left plays in their playbook, etc.  But Turner has it working to a dizzying effect.  I stopped at one point even bothering to try to guess the direction of the play because it was a waste of time.

 

Jay was really good with play design.  But as far as playing with analytics and using subterfuge -- Jay IMO was really weak on those fronts.  Turner on the other hand, that's his wheel house IMO.   So much misdirection going on with motions and alignments.  With Jay for example you could probably just follow where Bates is lined up and how tight or not he's in the formation and judge run versus pass and the direction of the play.  That's really difficult to do with Turner.   He doesn't have easy tell alls as far as lineup-formations.

 

All our play callers for the most part have been savaged by some of our fans with the exception of McVay after his first season -- in his first season he was savaged too.  And some of that criticism is about some selective plays.   My thought on that is watching football I just never have the vibe that any play caller is making one flawless decision after another.  They all have some questionable calls in the soup.  Do we get everything right on every call we make at work?  So for me its the whole soup.  If its about which playcaller gets it right everytime on everything, with no shake your head type calls -- then every playcaller in the NFL stinks.

 

But yeah in short I was very impressed.  And you can see why the run game is so hard to stop.  the irony is you can always see why it isn't hard to stop on 3rd and 1.  Because on the obvious run plays you can't really trick teams that easily.  You bunch your guys in the direction of the run and hope that your O line and RB plows through.  It's a whole different game than running on early downs.   My point is the playcalling seems to really help the run game.  When teams no its come and where -- this team isn't the Hogs where they can tell the defense its 40 gut, good luck stopping it. 

 

As for Heinicke, all this misdirection helps him.   He's good at selling it, too.  The O line/offense push left, the defense follows, and then Heinicke rolls right, only has to read half the field and finds a wide open receiver there. 

 

 

 

Good post and I generally agree. My only real issue with Turner is not utilizing Gibson more as a receiver and trying to use him as a grinder/powerback a bit too much. And sometimes we fall in love with that shotgun draw play. But that's a bit nitpicky and as you said every playcaller in the league has some WTF moments.

 

 

Just now, Skinsinparadise said:

 

I am one of the bigger Chase Young guys here.  Love Montez Sweat, too.  But I've never seen either guy play to Crosby's level on Sunday, and frankly not even close to it -- Crosby created havoc on almost every play.

 

Parsons has been unbelievable this season.  And Dallas moves him around a lot.  Crosby at least mostly plays L-DE so at least you know where he is. 

You're absolutely right. Sweat and Young are nowhere near Crosby's level. But Crosby might legit be the third best DE in the league(I'd only put Watt and Garrett above him and its close).