Next Day Thread: Geno Way! We got Hawked.

[skinsfan66]

These are my thoughts, 

The game we are out of the playoffs or if we lose to the Giants next week, its time to let Ron go the very next day, Jack too if it is another D let down and promote EB with a prove it rest of the season. Start the evaluations for the next season by the new Owners this season. 

The running game is never going to work with this OL and the pass in the second half is the only thing that got it going. So why run for a yard or two over and over? 

Does KC have a 100 yard WR this year? We wanted different now we got it. I like the way EB spreads it around. They still had 300 yds. passing and 3td's.  You have 6 similar WR's and no big targets other than TE's, that needs to change this offseason. It's a plus logan is healthy and playing well but for how long can he stay on the field? D needs new coach with different approach and some player help. 

Time to change the long snapper, not much to lose there? They had others tryout, (another blown draft pick).

They played well and that's all I want this year. Wins do not mean a whole lot to me at this point.  Happy for Howell and I hope he continues to perform.   

 

 

[Passizle]

I went in knowing winning in Seattle was a tough order. Agree with the OP. We DO... FINALLY have a worthwhile QB. Im happy watching him grow and learn in real time. We didn't run enough and when we did, it was vanilla. 2 sweeps to the left where B-rob gashed the hawks following blocks, followed by 2 sweeps to the right where Gibson tried (and failed) to cut inside... Ugh...  This tells me we need to bring in fresh O line talents in the offseason. I hate saying this, but I also feel we were jobbed pretty hard by the refs yesterday. The ejection was completely insane.

[skinsfan66]

36 minutes ago, skinny21 said:

Regarding the receivers, I have to wonder how much of the problem there has to do with surrounding factors making their job harder.  Not absolving the receivers though (Dotson’s drops especially).

 

One dimensional offense (no reason to bite on PA)

Generally poor pass pro (can drop more in coverage and can be more aggressive on the shorter routes)

New system (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Pringle has looked good for us, though a part of that could also be pure vet savvy and experience on broken plays w/ Mahomes)

TEs aren’t a threat (so no extra help needed)

Howell still learning to read defenses, leverages, etc, while also still getting acclimated to the offense (no knock on him, NFL D is more complex, this system has a lot to it, and he’s not getting help from other areas)

Crowder’s new to the team and Brown just isn’t very good

Backs and TEs pretty often having to either stay in to block or chip

 

 

TE's are a treat, we just need a upgrade there as we do OL too. Where would KC, Balti, SF, Philly be without TE's. I agree our TE's are not much of a threat.  And Howell with more time can hurt defenses like the last TD pass of the game and his arm, that was a great throw. 

[Warhead36]

The WRs don't get open against man coverage. Its been a problem all year. Guys like Cooley and Paulsen have said as much after their film reviews. They're blanketed too often. The Giants did the same thing, which is why they were so successful blitzing us so much. If you can't beat man coverage consistently, teams will blitz you at will. 

 

WR is the biggest need on our offense. Yep, I went there.

[KDawg]

2 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

The WRs don't get open against man coverage. Its been a problem all year. Guys like Cooley and Paulsen have said as much after their film reviews. They're blanketed too often. The Giants did the same thing, which is why they were so successful blitzing us so much. If you can't beat man coverage consistently, teams will blitz you at will. 

 

WR is the biggest need on our offense. Yep, I went there.

I suggested you may have been indulging in spirits yesterday with this take. 
 

It’s too early for that today.

 

But the OL is the driver here. We can’t do anything other than short stuff in the passing game because they can’t protect. It’s really hard to separate when they are sitting on those routes.

 

I agree we need receiver upgrades, but not more pressing than OL.

 

But I’m not too far off that we need a possession guy that can make contested catches.

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

5 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

The WRs don't get open against man coverage. Its been a problem all year. Guys like Cooley and Paulsen have said as much after their film reviews. They're blanketed too often. The Giants did the same thing, which is why they were so successful blitzing us so much. If you can't beat man coverage consistently, teams will blitz you at will. 

 

WR is the biggest need on our offense. Yep, I went there.

It’s hard to beat man coverage when the corners have zero fear of you getting behind them and making a play, because they know the OL can’t hold up, and the stunts/blitzes will get home.  Corners just sitting on that short stuff with all the confidence in the world is a recipe for disaster.

[PlayAction]

24 minutes ago, KDawg said:

But I’m not too far off that we need a possession guy that can make contested catches.

 

A better version of Pringle or a better TE would certainly help! Even with those issues, the Offense scored 27 points (should be automatic extra point).  In years past, this offensive production would have been enough to win games.  Maybe it's a good thing that the Defense fell apart - otherwise, we might have been stuck with RR's deficiencies for many more years.  Better but never quite good enough.

 

Howell's development will continue over the next few seasons.  We want him to finish in one piece and be the QB that's actually worth the future mega contract.  Getting him there in one piece and able to thrive requires an OL makeover more than the tweaks to WR, TE or RB.  I'm watching these games now solely to form opinions on which players I hope we will part of the team's future.  btw - where is Chris Rodriquez?    

[Warhead36]

52 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

It’s hard to beat man coverage when the corners have zero fear of you getting behind them and making a play, because they know the OL can’t hold up, and the stunts/blitzes will get home.  Corners just sitting on that short stuff with all the confidence in the world is a recipe for disaster.

On the flip side you could argue that its easy to blitz so relentlessly knowing the WRs won't get open to burn you and that better WRs that can get open quicker and more often would reduce the pressure.

 

Something to think about. Personally I think we've vastly overrated our WR talent.

[RandyHolt]

FOL's 3Fers

 

Good

• Howling again. I love that he seems to be sensing pressure and bailing out quicker. LOVE that he can throw on the run, across his body etc. It's not just talent, its practicing it and of course studying Mahomes like he did.  More high difficulty throws were added to his league leading ledger.
• Hands Backs. I love getting our RBs the ball. Look at how BRob Gibson and Walker killed it on simple checkdowns. Time to stop ****ing around and have WRs clear out DBs and make the checkdown THE play a few times a game. I have been bitter since Jay ignored Perine had decent hands. Hate EB all you want for getting 12 yards in 12 plays but at least he knows the value of passing the ball to backs.
• Tress Way - best hands on the roster? 

Bad

• JDR - Same **** different day. **** defense gets abused. The few times he blitzed he had Geno on the run. Didnt generate turnovers. DBs got abused. Pressure basically non existent. Refusing to blitz late in the game over and over after getting abused rushing 4 is painful to watch.
• RR - fumbling and bumbling his way through game management once again. He should have ripped officials a new one on that Gibson spot. Cheeseman - really Ron? Its on Ron at this point.
• RR/JDR - its all on them at this point. I think EB our shiny new hire is potentially complicating firing those 2 by making Harris want to wait to see what we have in him.

Mehgly

• Harris - for making us subjected to JDR and RR despite both showing complete incompetence week after week. Its time. Shoot the glass.
• Howell designed runs - i have been waiting for it but he needs to pick his spots better when he wants to lower his head.
• Depth WR's - Dyami had a nice catch but offset by a drop from Crowder. 

Edited November 13, 2023 by RandyHolt

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

8 minutes ago, Warhead36 said:

On the flip side you could argue that its easy to blitz so relentlessly knowing the WRs won't get open to burn you and that better WRs that can get open quicker and more often would reduce the pressure.

 

Something to think about. Personally I think we've vastly overrated our WR talent.

I think you are discounting the fact that there’s nothing to be scared of deep with this team, due to their complete inability to hold blocks, identify stunts, pick up blitzes, you name it.

 

There’s a handful of guys in the league capable of beating the coverages we are seeing as a result of an inept OL.

Bolster the OL and get a legitimate threat at tight end and I think our receivers look a lot better.

[Warhead36]

3 minutes ago, BatteredFanSyndrome said:

I think you are discounting the fact that there’s nothing to be scared of deep with this team, due to their complete inability to hold blocks, identify stunts, pick up blitzes, you name it.

 

There’s a handful of guys in the league capable of beating the coverages we are seeing as a result of an inept OL.

Bolster the OL and get a legitimate threat at tight end and I think our receivers look a lot better.

We shouldn't need to have every unit of the team be great in order for one other unit to be great.

 

The WR group, based on their investment, should be elevating the other units.

 

They have been a colossal disappointment this year. Easily our most disappointing unit on the team(yes that includes the DL).

[Redwards]

4 hours ago, Skinsinparadise said:

The Commanders are as they ever were: A team that’s a few plays away

 

Perspective by Jerry Brewer

 

EATTLE — When the Washington Commanders began this season with two white-knuckle victories, it felt as if they were developing some close-game magic. Whether it was luck, grit or the jolt of new ownership, they appeared to be a team acquiring valuable experience pulling out victories, no matter how suspect they looked.

 

 

 

Ten weeks into the season, it’s clear those games were as much about the shortcomings of the Arizona Cardinals and Denver Broncos as they were about the improvement of the Commanders. On Sunday, Washington fell to a 4-6 record with a last-second, 29-26 loss to the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. They again played just well enough to expose that they’re not good enough.

The Commanders fought through their defensive mistakes and offensive imbalance. Promising young quarterback Sam Howell led a comeback and tied the game with a touchdown pass to Dyami Brown with 52 seconds remaining. Still, they lost. Their past four games have been decided by a touchdown or less. They have lost three of them, with the lone victory coming last week against the offensively inept New England Patriots.

 

Since winning its first two games by a combined six points, Washington is 1-4 in its past five games decided by seven points or fewer. In his fourth season, Coach Ron Rivera has done what most functional NFL franchises figure out: He has raised the Commanders’ floor. Their ceiling, however, still isn’t high enough for them to stand up.

 

The epitaph for this season — and for the past four years — is basically this: Hey, we graduated from train-wreck football. But that has left Washington only as a standard-grade mediocre team.

The Commanders entered Sunday one game out of a wild-card playoff spot, and against a Seahawks team with a struggling quarterback and a defense that hadn’t been able to stop the run the previous three weeks, they had a terrific chance to go on the road and even their record. But hanging around contention isn’t the same as contending. The NFC may present opportunities for Washington to remain mathematically in the playoff picture, but this team isn’t worthy. And if that remains true, Rivera and the football operation he leads won’t be worthy of running the team for new owner Josh Harris.

 

The Commanders started well Sunday, scoring on their opening drive with a 51-yard touchdown pass from Howell to Brian Robinson Jr., sparking a day in which Washington’s offense thrived by throwing short passes to running backs. Robinson had six receptions for 119 yards. Antonio Gibson finished with five catches for 42 yards and a touchdown. For the game, Howell completed 29 of 44 passes for 312 yards and three touchdowns. He was really good.

But the offense is still a mess. Coordinator Eric Bieniemy has his young quarterback playing better than expected, but the Commanders can’t control the time of possession with their pass-heavy aspirations. They finished with just 14 rushes in the game, 12 of them by running backs. They rushed for just 68 yards, only 51 of which came from running backs. Imbalance can be tolerated, but this performance indicated more of a stubborn indifference to running the ball against an opponent whose run defense had fallen apart.

 

The Seahawks’ defense had allowed 193.3 rushing yards per game — at a clip of 5.5 yards per carry — and five rushing touchdowns over its three previous games, including Baltimore’s 298-yard rushing performance last week. But Howell dropped back to pass on 17 of the game’s first 21 plays.

 

That’s fine if an offense is thriving and a defense is capable of operating under the stress of being on the field. But Washington gave up 489 yards to Seattle. Quarterback Geno Smith played his best game in several weeks, throwing for 369 yards and two touchdowns without a turnover. The Seahawks also rushed for 120 yards.

 

“I think there were a couple of things that were inconsistent as far as opportunities to stop the run and put ourselves in better situations,” Rivera said of the defense.

 

After Howell tied the game with 52 seconds left, Seattle went 50 yards on seven plays. Smith did most of the damage on two passes to DK Metcalf totaling 44 yards, which put Seattle in range for Jason Myers to win it with a 43-yard field goal as time expired.

 

The lack of train-wreck football doesn’t mean the Commanders aren’t frustrating. They’re not a weekly embarrassment, not dysfunctional, and there’s little reason to question their most basic priorities anymore. But all that adds up to is a team that continues to win seven or so games, which is about three short of sustained success. The Commanders are a 7-10 program. That’s what they roughly were under Jay Gruden, Rivera’s predecessor, before a collapse in Gruden’s final season that resulted in a 3-13 finish. For the past eight seasons, Washington has mostly been stuck in the same place. The texture of mediocrity changes depending on who’s guiding the team, but the results are disappointingly similar.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/11/12/commanders-seahawks-mediocre/

It's a good article.  

 

But saying you're a "few plays away" for four years in a row = actually being a galaxy away.  

 

We're not close to anything.  But we seem to have found a QB.   So...we got that going for us.  Which is nice. 

[Ball Security]

The League explanation for the Forbes ejection is laughable when nothing happened to the guy who hit Logan Thomas in Denver. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

Just now, Warhead36 said:

We shouldn't need to have every unit of the team be great in order for one other unit to be great.

 

The WR group, based on their investment, should be elevating the other units.

 

They have been a colossal disappointment this year. Easily our most disappointing unit on the team(yes that includes the DL).

I don’t think it’s possible for a WR unit to to elevate a bad OL.  Defenses are playing way up with no concern that there will be enough time for anything to get behind them.  Dotson, while a first round pick, isn’t built for beating tight man all day, not many are.
 

Receivers have been disappointing from a drops perspective.  So many big drops, but they are all big when you play nearly every game at a razor thin margin.

 

 

 

[RedskininATL]

It surprises me that people still have their holdups on Howell.  Playing in just his 11th NFL game doing what he is doing.   Philly, New England, and @Seattle isn't the easiest run of defenses to be performing against with a woeful  (better lately) offensive line.   He has been much better lately about getting the ball out of his hands and into the hands of Gibson and now Robinson too.   Sure he had a couple where he held a little too long yesterday but overall he has been fantastic.      JDR needs to go.  Not sure what his scheme is exactly anymore but if I see a Mayo covering a Jackson Smith-Njigba type WR on a crossing route more than one time in a game  (three that I can remember yesterday), I'm positive he has no clue what to do with his LB's     No blitzes at all.  QB's with 5-7 seconds to throw are going to feast week to week.   Jack, what you're doing isn't working.   Try something else. It can't be any worse.    Like a lot of others, I didn't expect this to be a playoff season, but I wasn't expecting Howell to look quite as good as he has either.    Losing respectably @ Seattle is always a better feeling than getting run out of your home stadium by the Bills and Bears.   But it's no thanks to Ron and JDR who won't change whats not working.   

[Warhead36]

2 minutes ago, RedskininATL said:

It surprises me that people still have their holdups on Howell.  Playing in just his 11th NFL game doing what he is doing.   Philly, New England, and @Seattle isn't the easiest run of defenses to be performing against with a woeful  (better lately) offensive line.   He has been much better lately about getting the ball out of his hands and into the hands of Gibson and now Robinson too.   Sure he had a couple where he held a little too long yesterday but overall he has been fantastic.      JDR needs to go.  Not sure what his scheme is exactly anymore but if I see a Mayo covering a Jackson Smith-Njigba type WR on a crossing route more than one time in a game  (three that I can remember yesterday), I'm positive he has no clue what to do with his LB's     No blitzes at all.  QB's with 5-7 seconds to throw are going to feast week to week.   Jack, what you're doing isn't working.   Try something else. It can't be any worse.    Like a lot of others, I didn't expect this to be a playoff season, but I wasn't expecting Howell to look quite as good as he has either.    Losing respectably @ Seattle is always a better feeling than getting run out of your home stadium by the Bills and Bears.   But it's no thanks to Ron and JDR who won't change whats not working.   

I don't think there is anything wrong with not wanting to annoint Howell. I think just about everyone here is pleased with him and is optimistic except maybe that one guy that bashes Howell for silly things like he doesn't get worked up on the sidelines.

[Skinsinparadise]

33 minutes ago, RandyHolt said:

 

Mehgly

• Harris - for making us subjected to JDR and RR despite both showing complete incompetence week after week. Its time. Shoot the glass.
• Howell designed runs - i have been waiting for it but he needs to pick his spots better when he wants to lower his head.
• Depth WR's - Dyami had a nice catch but offset by a drop from Crowder. 

 

 

My issue with canning these guys is we will get a branch off of that tree to finish this season.  I want a clean break.  i don't want round two of hey maybe Callahan should be the guy.

 

If we want to clean house, we have I think a better shot to let this go to the painful end.

 

 

 

[Warhead36]

Hire real football people at the top first. Let them interview EB. Personally I feel like we can do better with a bright young up and comer. I wanna pair Howell with Ben Johnson.

[Riggo#44]

9 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

 

My issue with canning these guys is we will get a branch off of that tree to finish this season.  I want a clean break.  i don't want round two of hey maybe Callahan should be the guy.

 

If we want to clean house, we have I think a better shot to let this go to the painful end.

 

 

 

 

Every time I hear someone ranting about firing Rivera now and giving the reigns to Bieniemy, all I hear...

 

And I said this on Twitter--Bieniemy is pure Ashburn Syndrome. I don't think anyone else in the league would hire him as an HC now...well, maybe the Raiders.

[BobGriffin]

The drops have to be cleaned up but as far as separating I wonder if the schematic change has something to do with it. It's not like our guys forgot how to run routes. Perhaps NFL defenses have been adapting to KC concepts over the past few years so they are able to anticipate/get on top of the routes. The KC WR group hasn't exactly set the world on fire with Patrick Mahomes and they have some physically talented guys.

[Skinsinparadise]

5 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

 

Every time I hear someone ranting about firing Rivera now and giving the reigns to Bieniemy, all I hear...

 

And I said this on Twitter--Bieniemy is pure Ashburn Syndrome. I don't think anyone else in the league would hire him as an HC now...well, maybe the Raiders.

 

I have some reservations about Bieniemy as the next head coach.

 

For starters @Koolblue13 would have a stroke. 😎

 

But just in general, I've felt up and down about Bieniemy throughout the season.  I do think this offense is too pass happy.  I am ok with being pass happy but when you do it to this extreme it does expose other units more like the defense and offensive line.

 

Some of his comments including referring to himself in third person doesn't scream to me head coach.

 

I don't want any pressure on the new GM to hire from within.  Zero pressure.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Skinsinparadise

[Koolblue13]

4 minutes ago, Skinsinparadise said:

 

I have some reservations about Bieniemy as the next head coach.

 

For starters @Koolblue13 would have a stroke. 😎

 

But just in general, I've felt up and down about Bieniemy throughout the season.  I do think this offense is too pass happy.  I am ok with being pass happy but when you do it to this extreme it does expose other units more like the defense and offensive line.

 

Some of his comments including referring to himself in third person doesn't scream to me head coach.

 

I don't want any pressure on the new GM to hire from within.  Zero pressure.

I have zero belief that we won't be the 17th interview to say no to EB as HC. I'm not worried about it at all.

[GoDeep81]

Once again the O plays good enough to win the game and the D lets us down. Just the opposite of what most figured would be the season long struggle. But at least they competed yet again and didn't embarrass themself. Think that's 3 weeks in a row w/o being a complete clown show! lol Really looking forward to what some fresh personnel (and hopefully a great draft season) can get out of these guys next year! 

[Skinsinparadise]

 

 

[Koolblue13]

We had 12 points in 3 Q and were in the game, but yeah, all on the defense.

 

Our WRs stopped getting open, when they did a lot last year.

 

All 3 TDs happened because the play broke down and Howell excelled. 

 

I can't imagine how bad we'd be if Howell wan't so good.