Official Game Thread - Week 4 - Commanders @ Falcons

I put something similar to this in the gameday chat. Just sortof immediate reactions:

  1. The defense was nowhere near good enough, even thought it was somewhat short handed.
  2. Atlanta SHOULD have a good, explosive offense. Robinson is a problem. He's so good. London is good, and Penix is going to be good, this was like his 8th start.
  3. Even given the shorthanded nature of the defense + Atlanta should be good, the defense completely let the team down.
  4. I give Kliff a lot of credit for putting together an offense that scored 27 points while missing his starting QB, 2 of the top 3 WRs including WR #1, best bocking TE, and starting RB on IR. They did fine. Maybe better than fine.
  5. 27 points should be good enough to win on the road.
  6. If the offense had JD5 + McLaurin, they might have won this game anyway.
  7. I'm not ready to make any pronouncements about the season overall. It's a long, long season. Either the Chiefs or Ravens are going to be 1-3 after their game today. The Giants just beat a good, well coached Chargers team with a rookie QB making his first start. You never know what's going to happen week to week. I'd like to see the team play a few more games with Daniels, and see how it goes first.
  8. Having said that, the defense needs to improve. Yes, they are missing 3 key pieces. But 2 of them (Wise and Harris) are not coming back. And this isn't good enough.
  9. Lattimore has been a disappointment. He will most likely be released after the season.
  10. I wonder how healthy Amos is, because he looked slow a few times in coverage. He missed practice time this week....
 
RedWolf said:
We had a really good time. Atlanta fans are very nice. The stadium is great...it just sucks that our team lost today
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Glad to hear, I’m still pretty optimistic we can have a good year. We just need to get everybody back and our defense needs to make some adjustments. Maybe when Jayden gets back we can outscore everybody.
 
I think Peters and Quinn are good at their jobs.

And I also think they are people smart and hard workers.

So i know the next point might come off like it conflicts with that. And its a gut feeling. There is no way to know.

That is, i do think this team was celebrated a lot for what they did last season. And i think its natural for some of that to go to your head. And I do think there is some of that with Peters and this coaching staff.

It's not that i think either is arrogant. But they do come across (more so Peters than Quinn) that they think very highly of themselves and their methods. And I am not saying they are wrong. But I do think you can lose a bit of your edge when you think of youurself that way. And sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to be humbled to remind you that your need to keep that edge. A little Rocky 3.

I've made this analogy during the summer thinking their start might not be hot. They might need to be humbled. And I think they will digest it and learn from it.

Among other things last week, Joe Whitt was bragging about how he wanted Kinlaw and he took a victory dance about it. Bragging about the pass rush. the secondary was great. He didn't come off as a dude with a concern in the world about this defense. he basically was talking as if they arrived.

You got Peters smiling ear to ear in his last press conference, implying the roster is loaded and he can't wait to see it.

Again, I am extrapolating. And i could be wrong. And I actually have faith in Quinn and Peters. But i didn't have faith that they wouldn't have to go through some Rocky 3 moments this season.
 
skinsinparadise said:
We saw it over and over today, and the worst was when linebacker Bobby Wagner had to run out in space to cover Robinson on a wheel route, and he never stood a chance.
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Whitt needs to figure out how to make sure this never happens schematically. Because Wagner just doesn't have anywhere near the speed to cover a good TE or RB anymore. He's a rock in the middle, and he's a great leader. But there are things he can't do, and we can't expect him to do, so we need to make sure he's not asked to do them.

That's on Whitt.

Luvu has also been almost invisible this year after a really strong season last year. It's Whitt's job to try and solve that.

I get the injury problems in the secondary. But the front 7 needs to be better.
 
At the end of the day what we have to do is weather the storm and not dig ourselves a hole we can’t get out of in December. Our next game will be in October…and literally nothing that we had hoped for this season is off the table. I have faith. Maybe it’s misplaced, but I really do feel like this team and organization is in a different place now.

I think another playoff season is definitely a possibility and that is something we haven’t done since 91/92.
 
Commander PK said:
Glad to hear, I’m still pretty optimistic we can have a good year. We just need to get everybody back and our defense needs to make some adjustments. Maybe when Jayden gets back we can outscore everybody.
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I can't decide whether or not to be optimistic. I am not passing any judgements, that's for sure.

But I'm wondering if this is just going to be "one of those years" where you have injuries pile up, play people at the wrong time, and just can't quite overcome.

The only way you CAN overcome that is a top 5 QB that just lifts the entire team on their back. I am worried JD5's knee injury isn't going to fully heal in order for him to be able to do that.

I worry McLaurin is going to miss 3-4 weeks and then not be the same this year.

I worry Noah Brown might not see the field consistently the entire season.

If we had healthy JD5 + McLaurin + Deebo + Noah Brown + the rest of the cast performing as they have been (OL, running game, etc.) I think they could overcome just about anything.

The reason I have for pause is I don't know if we're going to see that. Which means the defense is going to have to improve significantly. And I'm somewhat skeptical they can do that.

So we'll see. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic or pessimistic at the moment. I'm reserving judgement. And I could see signs for either optimism OR pessimism. (Hence the reserving judgement... :) )
 
Conn said:


Couple hours old at this point but Bullock clearly attributing the failures to player execution rather than coaching. Hopefully the staff doesn’t feel the same way or we’re doomed, Lattimore getting spanked in man against bigger and faster WR’s is one thing but the guys running open against zone…if you don’t think you can coach that out of your players then there’s a much larger problem and you aren’t earning your check. Impossible for it NOT to be partially a coaching problem when it’s the entire secondary all the time.

Don’t even get me started on the schematic decision to have Old Man Wagner cover athletic TE’s down the field or across the formation. Idiocy. Why exactly did you draft the young athletic coverage LB’s? Get them snaps in obvious passing situations, it can’t be worse and at least they aren’t athletically outmatched the moment the ball is snapped.
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Definitely on coaching when you have so many blown coverages
 
I am happy to hear the team is heading out to LA three days early that should help them get acclimated to the time change and the climate
 
Voice_of_Reason said:
Whitt needs to figure out how to make sure this never happens schematically. Because Wagner just doesn't have anywhere near the speed to cover a good TE or RB anymore. He's a rock in the middle, and he's a great leader. But there are things he can't do, and we can't expect him to do, so we need to make sure he's not asked to do them.

That's on Whitt.

Luvu has also been almost invisible this year after a really strong season last year. It's Whitt's job to try and solve that.

I get the injury problems in the secondary. But the front 7 needs to be better.
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With Alt and Mack out, the Chargers are certainly gettable. It’s a game we have to win because I would put money on Ben Johnson putting up 40 on us with the blueprint to beat us and all the talent he has
 
skinsinparadise said:
I think Peters and Quinn are good at their jobs.

And I also think they are people smart and hard workers.

So i know the next point might come off like it conflicts with that. And its a gut feeling. There is no way to know.

That is, i do think this team was celebrated a lot for what they did last season. And i think its natural for some of that to go to your head. And I do think there is some of that with Peters and this coaching staff.

It's not that i think either is arrogant. But they do come across (more so Peters than Quinn) that they think very highly of themselves and their methods. And I am not saying they are wrong. But I do think you can lose a bit of your edge when you think of youurself that way. And sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is to be humbled to remind you that your need to keep that edge. A little Rocky 3.

I've made this analogy during the summer thinking their start might not be hot. They might need to be humbled. And I think they will digest it and learn from it.

Among other things last week, Joe Whitt was bragging about how he wanted Kinlaw and he took a victory dance about it. Bragging about the pass rush. the secondary was great. He didn't come off as a dude with a concern in the world about this defense. he basically was talking as if they arrived.

You got Peters smiling ear to ear in his last press conference, implying the roster is loaded and he can't wait to see it.

Again, I am extrapolating. And i could be wrong. And I actually have faith in Quinn and Peters. But i didn't have faith that they wouldn't have to go through some Rocky 3 moments this season.
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I would add:

I think Quinn is a good coach, but he has flaws.

Peters is sharp as a tack, but this is actually only his second year in charge as the final decision maker of an organization.

There are going to be growing pains.

Quinn rightfully gets a ton of credit for last year. And he deserves it, because he put the coaching staff together, had a good plan, and in general, they executed the plan.

That said, the coach who did the best job which DIRECTLY contributed to wins was Kliff Kingsbury, and JD5 had to be superman. And they got lucky a few times.

I don't think there is one iota of regret about the Tunsil or Deebo trades. I think there is regret about the Lattimore trade. But Peters had to do SOMETHING because they couldn't keep St. Juste and Forbes as starting CBs, so he took a shot, and it hasn't worked out.

The other tightrope they had to walk is, it would be really tough to break up the team which just made the NFC Championship game. So, they re-signed Wagner, Noah Brown and Ertz. All older players, Brown has a history of injury. They re-signed a bunch of role-players as well. They "kept the band together."

Maybe hindsight being 20/20, they should have ripped the band aid off and gone with younger players. Instead of bringing back those guys, find younger, more talent versions of those guys.

But then, flip side, they made the NFC Championship game. Why change too much? Add pieces (Deebo, Tunsil, Kinlaw, Wise) and see if you can get incrementally better.

I get the thought.

I don't know if it's going to prove out to have worked.

Also, I think the McLaurin hold out had many unseen effects in a variety of ways, and the whole ordeal really offset the good juju the team had.
 
method man said:
With Alt and Mack out, the Chargers are certainly gettable. It’s a game we have to win because I would put money on Ben Johnson putting up 40 on us with the blueprint to beat us and all the talent he has
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Ben Johnson can go fuck himself sideways up the ass with a chainsaw.

That's all.
 
Commander PK said:
At the end of the day what we have to do is weather the storm and not dig ourselves a hole we can’t get out of in December. Our next game will be in October…and literally nothing that we had hoped for this season is off the table. I have faith. Maybe it’s misplaced, but I really do feel like this team and organization is in a different place now.

I think another playoff season is definitely a possibility and that is something we haven’t done since 91/92.
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I put this in the gameday chat as well: while the team gets it's guys back (assuming it does get it's guys back) they just need to stick around .500 and not lose a bunch of games in division.

The extra hard thing about this game is Atlanta ABSOLUTELY could be one of the teams we will be competing with for a playoff spot. They will have the tie-breaker. And that sucks.

This was not the time for this game, sadly. But it is what it is.
 
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