Now I see why Green Day once said, "wake me up when September ends".....
After a 1/4 of the season one thing is abundantly clear - we're a bad team. We're not a team that's just, "a couple pieces away". We're a team that lacks talent in a lot of areas. We do the things that bad teams do and we don't do the things good teams do.
We don't play complementary football. We can't overcome penalties. We don't take advantage of penalties on the other team. We don't make the crucial plays when they're there to be made. We can't consistently run the football. We can't defend the run. We can't make the big time throws when the plays are there. We can't defend the big throws when the shots are taken. While we had a tough opponent coming in, they were beatable. They were starting a rookie QB, didn't have their star WR, didn't have their starting LT and LG. They aren't known for having a great defense and were starting a corner who hadn't had an INT in 2 years. Yet, we couldn't take advantage.
We lost 2 out 3 phases of the game and IMO it was a draw for special teams(They missed a FG, but we got pinned on our own 14 and shanked a punt right after the 2 minute warning for only 26 yards...). You can't win football games that way. This week, I'll start out by talking about the defense first because the biggest news to hit the faithful in a long time occurred - we lost Bowman for the year
.Defense - The loss of Bowman can't be overstated. He was such a crucial part of what we did and he was a huge amount of deodorant on a defense that wasn't playing well already. He made up for so many plays that there's no way we can come close to replacing him. This may sound, "sky is falling" but I'll be shocked if our defense isn't in the bottom 5 in the league. What's even more disconcerting about that is that we have spent 5 of the last 6 first round picks on defense already.
D-Line: Our D-line, again, had a manageable situation. They were playing a good OL - but one that was missing 2 key pieces. We should've been able to at least contain their run game. But, we continually got gashed. We played very poor gap integrity and weren't able to win the battle in the trenches at any point. The best run stops in the game came when Bowman was picking up the slack of our D-lineman.
Armstead - While I know he's got a lot of defenders about his shoulder - his problems go beyond the shoulder. If it was just his shoulder than you wouldn't see him push the pocket like he does, at times. His problems are that he still plays too high, doesn't grasp the team defensive scheme and doesn't seem to be an every down player. I would be easier on the guy if he wasn't a mid-1st round pick. The long run Elliot had to set up the 1 yard go ahead TD, Armstead was so guilty, it was
. It reminded me of something Albert Haynesworth or Suh would do when playing D-line and not wanting to play their assignment. There was another occasion where he took the wrong lane on a blitz and pretty much blocked his own guy and it gave up a big passing play.Purcell - dude had a bad game. I mean....bad.... He consistently allowed the center to get to the 2nd level and was neutralized on most of the Cowboys runs. We need Ian Williams back in a bad way, but we also need more depth behind him. Purcell doesn't seem to have the abilities to play the NT position at a starting level. He looks great in pre-season, but against starters on Sunday, he looks over-matched.
Buckner - He's more capable than Armstead, but his technique needs a lot of work still - which I'm more ok with because he's a rookie. However, he's also a top 10 pick. It's one reason I'd prefer us to take some guys that were more NFL ready. If you look at Jarron Reed in Seattle out of Alabama - he was an early 2nd round pick IIRC this year and he's been more than capable when he's been in the game. Buckner may turn into all-pro but he's got to learn leverage, staying low, consistent hand placement and consistently 2-gap.
Buckner and Armstead may start to shine more now that we'll have our top edge-rusher back, but I'm not holding my breath. We did a lot of things to try and scheme pressure in the game as we, again, really struggled to get to the passer. One thing JoN was trying to do was vary who was coming from where to confuse the O-line. It didn't work far too often and we often had our big guys(Buck and Stead) trying to take looping outside rushes - which is not their strength. If we were able to just line up 4 and rush the passer like we did in Fangio's day, I think you'd see more flashes from these guys. But, right now there's not threat that our edge guys are gonna disrupt the QB.
ILB - This is gonna be a rough situation for the remainder of the season. Hodges was already benched. Considering I said last week that he played one of the worst games from a LB I'd seen in a while - not surprised one bit. Wilhoite played a little better, but he's still Wilhoite. He's almost like a Blaine Gabbert of LB's. He can do a few things from time to time to make you start to believe, but in the end is just, "meh". Doesn't make the big plays when they're there and plays too passively. Bellore got taken advantage of when he came in as well. The very first play after Bow went down the Cowboys ran right at Bellore for 20+.
DB - I thought our DB's played fairly well. The biggest problem we had in the passing game was that we couldn't stop the run game consistently. Because we were struggling with gap integrity JoN had to rely on a lot of run blitzes to fill the gaps, which exposed the secondary.
Offense - Overall, we're missing playmakers. Hyde is the only guy who's a consistent threat and teams are aware of it. The difficult thing with our offense is that we haven't been able to take advantage of spreading the defense out. We're facing 6-7 man fronts and unable to run against them consistently. We did far better than we did against the Panthers, but still couldn't consistently run the ball. When you can't run the football you need a stud at QB and some playmakers at WR - we have neither.
Gabbert - Over the first 4 weeks my analysis has usually lined up a lot with what other analysts have said, including Kelly. However, I'm going to differ from Kelly on that INT throw from Gabbert - it wasn't just bad...it was awful. It's the kind of throw that has epitomized his career so far. He does enough things throughout a game to make you start to believe, but then, when the big chance is there and you have everything set for you, he can't do it. That should be a throw he makes 9/10 times. Instead, we've seen it the opposite. It's really a shame because he played pretty well throughout the rest of the game. He had some pinpoint throws and several of his incompletions his receivers did nothing to help him out. But, we don't have the kind of team that can mask any QB's deficiencies. I'm not ready to say he should be benched - especially not on a short week like this. we're not going to be in the playoffs no matter how good our offense is because our defense won't be able to get them back on the field. So, I don't see much of a point to it. If anything, it would still leave a plausible excuse for next year(the offense as a whole was still learning the system). So, IMO, let the Gabbert role til mid-year. Get a good, beyond doubt evaluation of him and if the next 1/4 of the year is like this, pull the plug.
WR's - Kerley is still our best pass catching option - which is quite shocking considering we've known we needed playmakers at WR for a while. I don't see Patton ever being more than he is now. He just hasn't refined his route running. He's got the physical tools but IMO runs poor routes. His corner routes are terrible. He also slows down a lot when trying to make a catch over-the-shoulder. There was one play where he'd beat the corner on his initial cut, but once he turned back, he slowed down so much the corner ended up all over him and the pass looked over-thrown. Also, if T. Smith wants his QB to throw him the ball more, he's got to block more. Dude was the one that Kelly talked about in his presser when he said the QB runs, "didn't get a lot of help from blocking on the edge". Yeah...that was Torrey.
O-line - I thought they played pretty well but had more lapses than I've seen from them. Brown almost looked fatigued, at times, and struggled with a lot of reach-blocks. Both Brown and Tiller are helped out in their pass-pro because they have quick feet and are huge - but it's been a bit of a liability in the run game. They haven't had the speed to get to the 2nd level or, like I said, get to their reach-blocks.
Overall - It's gonna be a long season and we'll see if some of these young guys start to step up as the year goes along, kind of like our defense did last year, and the team as a whole begins to show more. If not, we're still gonna be at least 2 really good drafts away from being competitive.
