OT: Non-Hockey Sports Thread X - The Search is on! (Scramblin' Fran Edition)

[Digitalbooya]

I expected a nice boost for the offense, but I was surprised at how well the defense played as well. Sure GB has no punch at WR, but anytime you can keep Rodgers to 7 points thats a W. The only hole in the defense seemed to be the outside checkdowns.

They’re making it a trend to start every year off shitty. Last year they got blown out 38-3 in the first game. The year before that they let a mediocre team score 34 points.

 

[Wild11MN]

It feels like this is still probably a 10-7 or 11-6 team at its peak, but that was an enjoyable performance. I'm just in the camp that it's hard to get too excited when they don't feel like SB contenders.

 

[57special]

- The defensive line seemed stout until later in the game when they were guarding against the long ball.

- Harrison Smith and Kendrick looked great. Healthy?

- JJ obviously.

- O line looked good, and vg on the run. A couple of whiffs.

- Cook and Mattison look like a really good offensive 1/2. Cook was under the radar because he didn't run for 100, but looked fast, strong, scored a TD. There wasn't much of a drop off when Mattison played.

- do we have ourselves a kicker?






- What does Irv Smith do, exactly?

- I know he had good stats in this game, but Hicks seemed to get beat a fair amount. We'll see as the season progresses. I know i am probably going against the grain here.

- Hard to complain about Cousins game, but he sure falls apart when he gets a pass rush.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

Was at the game yesterday.... that place was LOUD

Yes it was, my ears are still ringing a bit this morning.

 

[Jesus comma Brodin]

It feels like this is still probably a 10-7 or 11-6 team at its peak, but that was an enjoyable performance. I'm just in the camp that it's hard to get too excited when they don't feel like SB contenders.

The NFC is just so wide open it seems, while the AFC is loaded with top tier teams with the likes of Kansas City, LA, Buffalo, and maybe to a lesser extent Cincy/Baltimore. There is no clear SB contender group in the NFC, at least it seems to me. The NFC West got slaughtered yesterday, Philly's offense looked strong and they should walk through that division given how bad Dallas was and they lost Dak for 6-8 weeks, but there isn't three teams like Buffalo/KC/LA that are just clearly on top of their conference.

I temper expectations every year, and will continue to do so but I do feel the teams that make playoffs will all have a shot given their health, and how they improve throughout the year.

 

[Jesus comma Brodin]

- What does Irv Smith do, exactly?

He only played 19 snaps (31%) yesterday, he's taken essentially 1.5 years off with his knee last season and thumb issues this summer. Give him time, he will be an option in due time

 

[IceBoxHockey]

- Hard to complain about Cousins game, but he sure falls apart when he gets a pass rush.

I thought he looked much better than normal under pressure and the stats back that up.

 

[Minnewildsota]

I thought he looked much better than normal under pressure and the stats back that up.

Agreed. I also thought is pocket awareness looked much better than prior years. Knew where to slide to prevent/elude pressure a few times. Not perfect, but few are.

 

[57special]

I thought he looked much better than normal under pressure and the stats back that up.

He got VERY lucky when he sent a panicky, lame duck short pass up the middle to Cook, i think? Very lucky it wasn't intercepted. Also threw one away, poorly under pressure that should of gone way out of bounds and instead was somewhat catchable.

At this point, he doesn't seem to be getting much wiser, and he is definitely less mobile than he used to be. Maybe he could be the QB for a SB winner if the rest of the team was terrific. I don't know if our D is deep enough to be good for a whole season...the O line I'm not sure about yet.

 

[Wild11MN]

The NFC is just so wide open it seems, while the AFC is loaded with top tier teams with the likes of Kansas City, LA, Buffalo, and maybe to a lesser extent Cincy/Baltimore. There is no clear SB contender group in the NFC, at least it seems to me. The NFC West got slaughtered yesterday, Philly's offense looked strong and they should walk through that division given how bad Dallas was and they lost Dak for 6-8 weeks, but there isn't three teams like Buffalo/KC/LA that are just clearly on top of their conference.

I temper expectations every year, and will continue to do so but I do feel the teams that make playoffs will all have a shot given their health, and how they improve throughout the year.

Great point. The NFC is absolutely wide open. Tampa should also be worse (o-line for one), and the Rams, Packers, 49ers all looked dreadful in week 1.

 

[Sad People]

- What does Irv Smith do, exactly?

Take it with a grain of salt, because its coach speak, but KOC said the reason for Irvs limited snaps this game were because of matchups, not his health.

 

[Sad People]

 

[melinko]

Agreed. I also thought is pocket awareness looked much better than prior years. Knew where to slide to prevent/elude pressure a few times. Not perfect, but few are.

There was way more room for Cousins to move in the pocket. Previous years our tackles would drop back and it would prevent Cousins from escaping left/right and then the interior of our line would just get steamrolled and collapse right into Cousins lap.

Cousins never had the opportunity to climb the pocket in previous years like he did vs the Packers.

I mean look at all the space he has:

 

[Jesus comma Brodin]

He got VERY lucky when he sent a panicky, lame duck short pass up the middle to Cook, i think? Very lucky it wasn't intercepted. Also threw one away, poorly under pressure that should of gone way out of bounds and instead was somewhat catchable.

At this point, he doesn't seem to be getting much wiser, and he is definitely less mobile than he used to be. Maybe he could be the QB for a SB winner if the rest of the team was terrific. I don't know if our D is deep enough to be good for a whole season...the O line I'm not sure about yet.

He was top 5 in week one for QBR, Passer Rating, Turnovers, Yards per Attempt, completed 72% of passes (6th), and didn't turn it over, yet we're going to talk about 2 questionable balls that had no effect on anything? The one sack he took was Ingram getting completed f***ed be Rashan Gary, and he went in completely untouched. All against a consensus top 5 defense in the NFL.

He doesn't turn it over often, rarely misses a game. I swear he could go 44-45 for 671 yards and 8 TDs and people would bitch about the 1 incompletion.

 

[DeagleJenkins]

He was top 5 in week one for QBR, Passer Rating, Turnovers, Yards per Attempt, completed 72% of passes (6th), and didn't turn it over, yet we're going to talk about 2 questionable balls that had no effect on anything? The one sack he took was Ingram getting completed f***ed be Rashan Gary, and he went in completely untouched. All against a consensus top 5 defense in the NFL.

He doesn't turn it over often, rarely misses a game. I swear he could go 44-45 for 671 yards and 8 TDs and people would bitch about the 1 incompletion.

because that 1 incompletion was a checkdown that should of been a deep shot to a wide open JJ had he just stepped up and looked downfield!

 

[Minnewildsota]

because that 1 incompletion was a checkdown that should of been a deep shot to a wide open JJ had he just stepped up and looked downfield!

All throws, nay, plays, should be deep shots to JJ down field!

 

[57special]

He was top 5 in week one for QBR, Passer Rating, Turnovers, Yards per Attempt, completed 72% of passes (6th), and didn't turn it over, yet we're going to talk about 2 questionable balls that had no effect on anything? The one sack he took was Ingram getting completed f***ed be Rashan Gary, and he went in completely untouched. All against a consensus top 5 defense in the NFL.

He doesn't turn it over often, rarely misses a game. I swear he could go 44-45 for 671 yards and 8 TDs and people would bitch about the 1 incompletion.

Let's see what happens as we go forward. I had heard that GB was supposed to have a good D, but either I heard wrong, or our O line has really improved. I think it might be a little of both. I would love to see an O line that is actually good on this team. It's been a long while.

 

[Minnewildsota]

Let's see what happens as we go forward. I had heard that GB was supposed to have a good D, but either I heard wrong, or our O line has really improved. I think it might be a little of both. I would love to see an O line that is actually good on this team. It's been a long while.

I was thinking about this earlier. Which of our opponents can we say, "If our line plays well against X team, we know we have a good line"? Or do we look at the sum of all games after the season is over?

 

[TaLoN]

I expected a nice boost for the offense, but I was surprised at how well the defense played as well. Sure GB has no punch at WR, but anytime you can keep Rodgers to 7 points thats a W. The only hole in the defense seemed to be the outside checkdowns.

GB left a lot of opportunities on the field. Peterson was horrendous, luckily the Packer's passing game is out of sorts.

 

[Jesus comma Brodin]

I was thinking about this earlier. Which of our opponents can we say, "If our line plays well against X team, we know we have a good line"? Or do we look at the sum of all games after the season is over?

The Saints have a great defensive unit, but not a massive pass rush by any means, but we will see how we hold up against them in London in a few weeks.

Philly (Monday) has an awesome interior line, but do not have great passing edge rushing pressure numbers and haven't added anyone there either. Buffalo week 10 will be a nightmare and I think Dallas in week 11 will be tough with their edge rushing. Parson's tore up on SNF.

Run Blocking: Philly/Buffalo

Pass Blocking: Dallas/Buffalo

 

[DeagleJenkins]

GB left a lot of opportunities on the field. Peterson was horrendous, luckily the Packer's passing game is out of sorts.

it looked like hicks could not handle covering the RB out of the backfield, even kendricks couldnt keep up with jones on a couple of those quick outs.

 

[TaLoN]

it looked like hicks could not handle covering the RB out of the backfield, even kendricks couldnt keep up with jones on a couple of those quick outs.

To be fair, Jones is tough for anyone to keep up with. He's every bit as good as Cook is. I was less concerned with our LB play than our CB play by far.

 

[Sad People]

GB was a good test for our OL.

Rashan Gary
Kenny Clark
Preston Smith
Jarran Reed (to a lesser extent)

Those are all good players, especially, Kenny Clark whos one of the best in the league. Ed Ingram did a fairly good job going up against him too.

Looking ahead at the schedule

Saints
Commanders
Bills
Cowboys
Patriots (more so BB and the sum of the parts of that defense)
Indy
Packers again

Those are all teams that have a pretty good DL, and will be a good test for our OL. Commanders early on will probably be the toughest matchup.

 

[DeagleJenkins]

To be fair, Jones is tough for anyone to keep up with. He's every bit as good as Cook is. I was less concerned with our LB play than our CB play by far.

I agree, the cb are far worse…

 

[AKL]

I don't know how many of you follow the Twins, and I'll preface this by saying they're not the MLB team I follow most, but I feel like it's time to fire Rocco. He had two years of playoffs, the first season even being a historic performance by the team, but has since had two years of .500 or less baseball. He even got his pitching help at the deadline, and still gave the division away (Twins in third now).

This isn't all because of the Joe Ryan thing last night either. I recognize Ryan had over 100 pitches, and the win is the most important thing. But it is the straw that broke the camel's back for me. You don't pull a guy who's throwing a no-hitter, especially with a six run cushion.

Analytics are a fine tool to use, but Rocco lives and dies by analytics, and right now he's dying by them. Relying on pure analytics to make coaching decisions takes 100% of the human element out of the game. And when you remove the human element, you remove emotion, and you get a bunch of robots.

I'm sure baseball fans are familiar with the phrase "baseball is a game of failure". These guys (specifically pitchers) are going to make mistakes, give up hits, give up runs, etc. And there does come a point where you want to get a fresh arm on the mound to prevent those from piling up. But it's pretty tiring seeing guys go 5.2 innings with 65 pitches and get yanked because they've given up a couple hits or even a run, only to watch the bullpen come in and give up double or triple the amount of runs. Pitchers need the opportunity to pull themselves out of jams. Especially when you have a younger pitcher like Ryan, he needs to learn how to battle through those tough spots so he's more comfortable with it in the future.

But my god, forget about pitchers being pulled in bad or average games, when you pull a guy who's got a no hitter through seven innings, you're sending a message to your entire starting pitching staff that you don't care about them. You won't reward them for great performances. You won't let them chase history? It's entirely disrespectful. Ryan looked completely dejected in the dugout last night after being pulled. How is that good for morale? He may never get a chance to throw a no hitter again, and Rocco robbed him of a great opportunity to make history. Not to mention, no pitcher is going to want to play here longer than they have to with this kind of coaching.

The Twins aren't making the postseason this year. Fire Rocco now, see if you can breathe some life into this club down the stretch, and maybe something to build on for next year.