Game Day Thread: Washington @ Atlanta

[Conn]

5 minutes ago, ExoDus84 said:

 

Howell can play in this league. However, he seems dead set on setting a new NFL record for sacks taken. 

 

Our line is crap, but he is holding onto the ball far too long and taking a ton of unnecessary sacks. 

Yup. Large flaw that he needs to work on, hopefully he can work on that internal clock and pocket awareness. And hopefully the next FO supplies him an OL that doesn’t exacerbate his largest obvious flaw. 

[Simmsy]

21 minutes ago, Stihl89 said:

It’s always been bad?

 

No, we were moving the ball pretty well there for a bit.

[ExoDus84]

Anybody else think we 100% lose today if we played against Heini? 😅

[Riggo-toni]

Our run game seems really unimaginative.

Howell needed better situational awareness at the end of the second half.  He took sacks when he should have thrown it away, and then threw it away on 3rd down when he needed to run out the clock.

[Riggo#44]

11 minutes ago, ExoDus84 said:

 

This game was a mess. Felt like two old dudes in a wheelchair trying to kickbox each other. 

 

[BRAVEONTHEWARPATH93]

8 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

So are the Falcons.

 

We're inconsistent, not the same as bad.

 

If we're over .500 after the Patriots game, j don't care which we are, we in the conversation at least

The Ron Rivera special. Let's just be in the "In The Hunt" graphic. 

[Forehead]

1 minute ago, Warhead36 said:

Its been line that every game.

 

I have no patience for receivers with bad hands.

 

You have a short memory then.

[Conn]

7 minutes ago, Stihl89 said:

This is a win that pisses you off in April in the draft. I think they lose this game with really any other starter in the league. 
 

This was a battle between two teams just begging for new staffs. We may have won the battle today but it’s going to hurt us in the long run. I’m now out on Sam. His sack totals are just going to be super high. It’s not going to be considerably better. 

I agree with the rest of your post but I’m not willing to say that about Howell after 7 starts. It is right now his glaring flaw and is clearly part of his DNA as a player. I’m not willing to say he’ll never learn to mitigate it, though. I think it’s possible. 

Edited October 15, 2023 by Conn

[FootballZombie]

2 minutes ago, Conn said:

Don’t really see any optimism to take from this win, but I’m in “subsist until Black Monday” mode personally minus observing Howell’s development. 

 

It was rough, and there may have been more bad than good, but there were a couple bright spots to pull from for me.

 

-The D had an effective gameplan. They picked their poison. The only way we were gonna lose was if Ridder beat us, and he was bad today. That was a running team and we took their strength away for the vast majority of the game.

-The O committed to the run game. Nearly unheard of.

-We targeted WRs to an insane degree. 1 tgt to a TE. actually comical in the other direction.

 

 

The D executed what they wanted to do and the O showed a pathway that better focuses on its strengths.

The D has to be the backbone of this team. Its how it is constructed. The O cashed in on short fields.

Neither side was great, but baby steps.

[Redd]

I don’t get how this team for decades can’t seem to put opposing teams away. Washington either gets blown out or barely wins/lose.🤔

[Birdlives]

7 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

So are the Falcons.

 

We're inconsistent, not the same as bad.

 

If we're over .500 after the Patriots game, j don't care which we are, we in the conversation at least

 

I disagree about the inconsistent thing. We’re bad. Allen, Payne, Davis, Fuller, Curl, St. Juste, Sweat, Young, and several depth guys have been here 3+ years and playing together in the same defense and they’re STILL inconsistent, not to mention undisciplined. The league moves too fast. That should’ve been enough time with that many players for at least a Solid defense to coalesce. Hasn’t happened.

[Conn]

11 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

So are the Falcons.

 

We're inconsistent, not the same as bad.

 

If we're over .500 after the Patriots game, j don't care which we are, we in the conversation at least

don’t you get sick of having this mindset 

[redskinss]

4 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

At least he's self aware. 

I give him a smidgen of credit for that.

[Warhead36]

3 minutes ago, Forehead said:

 

You have a short memory then.

Youre only as good as your last game.

[Chris 44]

10 minutes ago, Yng Lady88 said:

very interesting. closed/dome stadium incoming? 

 

I would hope they tour every stadium

[Wyvern]

It's a win, but it was about as satisfying as a tie.  Washington showed it still has problems to fix, and was lucky that Atlanta had major QB problems today.

 

One good thing, this gives Washington's defensive backfield more time to get used to the new players and coordinating better.

[justice98]

I think we saw why Drake London was originally their guy had he slipped. He's a stud.

[Warhead36]

1 minute ago, Birdlives said:

 

I disagree about the inconsistent thing. We’re bad. Allen, Payne, Davis, Fuller, Curl, St. Juste, Sweat, Young, and several depth guys have been here 3+ years and playing together in the same defense and they’re STILL inconsistent, not to mention undisciplined. The league moves too fast. That should’ve been enough time with that many players for at least a Solid defense to coalesce. Hasn’t happened.

Were average.

 

Period.

[Riggo#44]

Just now, Warhead36 said:

Youre only as good as your last game.

Then we kinda suck. 400 yards to Desmond Ridder?

[BleedBNG]

Last year we were 2-4 at this time. Hopefully next week our D won't make Jones look like Mahomes.

[tomwvr]

6 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

Its been line that every game.

 

I have no patience for receivers with bad hands.

He is supposed to have great hands and be precise in running routes

1 minute ago, BleedBNG said:

Last year we were 2-4 at this time. Hopefully next week our D won't make Jones look like Mahomes.

Perhaps Jones will still be out - i heard he was out today with his neck injury

[JSSkinz]

We needed every one of those 3 picks to win, this team is sketchy across the board.  We really don't do anything with consistency besides take sacks.

[Stihl89]

9 minutes ago, Conn said:

Yup. Large flaw that he needs to work on, hopefully he can work on that internal clock and pocket awareness. And hopefully the next FO supplies him an OL that doesn’t exacerbate his largest obvious flaw. 

I don’t think anyone disagrees that he can play. But is it to an elite level that you need in this league to really be competing for SBs? Don’t see it. 

[Riggo#44]

1 minute ago, JSSkinz said:

We needed every one of those 3 picks to win, this team is sketchy across the board.  We really don't do anything with consistency besides take sacks.

 

That's wholly untrue!

 

We also give up a lot of third and long conversions!

[Conn]

3 minutes ago, FootballZombie said:

 

It was rough, and there may have been more bad than good, but there were a couple bright spots to pull from for me.

 

-The D had an effective gameplan. They picked their poison. The only way we were gonna lose was if Ridder beat us, and he was bad today. That was a running team and we took their strength away for the vast majority of the game.

-The O committed to the run game. Nearly unheard of.

-We targeted WRs to an insane degree. 1 tgt to a TE. actually comical in the other direction.

 

 

The D executed what they wanted to do and the O showed a pathway that better focuses on its strengths.

The D has to be the backbone of this team. Its how it is constructed. The O cashed in on short fields.

Neither side was great, but baby steps.

I see some of these things as purely variance, some as actually bad. Not strongly enough to argue too much about it but I don’t see anything EB did with the run game as really showing any sort of commitment to it or understanding of how to scheme and call it effectively. I actually saw a lot of the same flaws, the Falcons just weren’t good enough to punish us for them, so they likely continue rather than being learned from, which spells worse things in the future. 
 

Won’t even get into the defense, it’s bad. They dared Ridder to beat them with his arm and despite being awful, he almost did and had a chance. We only were able to make them pick that poison and “succeed” and win because Ridder is that bad. A slightly better QB would have beaten us despite a full commitment to stopping their run game.