Official Game Thread Week 2 - WFT vs. New York Giants

[Kel Varnsen]

The WFT was getting bad spots all night, but that had to be one of the worst calls I've ever seen. How do you miss a spot by FOUR YARDS?

I get missing it in real time. Spotting the ball is probably the hardest things refs do. But how does the replay booth buzz down, then see the replay, and they still miss it? What’s the point of replay if you can’t get the really obvious calls right? It’s almost as if they didn’t even know the rules.

 

[Elephant]

I did not watch a single down but I did see the excitement on social media.

Congrats to you guys, Heinicke certainly is exciting.

Edit: Also, the amount if disrespect given to this team is unreal. You have to scroll down on NFL.com to see any news from Thursday Night's game. I mean, it should be a headline after such an exciting win for them.

Nope, scroll halfway down the page before you see the first link in a smaller window.

 

[Chris]

Is Taylor Heinicke a likable Joe Theismann?

 

[MikefromOH]

That very well could be true.

 

[Om]

Just some quick off-the-cuff notes and observations:

Joe Judge is an ass.

Our offensive line provided pass protection for first time this year—including preseason. Which was my number one priority offensively going into this one, so very pleased. That will need to continue if we’re going to compete with all the playoff teams coming up.

The defensive line is still inconsistent, but seems to slowly be waking up applying pressure. Strangest development of 2021 so far.

Too many defensive broken assignments … most obvious in secondary with wide open receivers. Do we have a chemistry thing? Are guys freelancing? JDR--crack the whip.

Tackling was much better this week. Needed to be, particularly given all the wide open guys catching the ball in space.

Run blocking by the OL continues to be pretty good.

Gibson appeared a bit more engaged this week, and still isn’t all that great secuing the ball in traffic, but did seem more aware of the risk.

Why the flock did our guys keep falling down untouched?

TH4 is a baller. Opposing DC’s may start to figure out his weak spots, but for now he’s making plays and--with one very notable exception (INT)--making good decisions. He has a deceptively good arm when he is on balance. He was late on a few throws that led to breakups, mostly when throwing off his back foot and/or double-clutching. Didn’t use his legs at all, which in a win I’m okay with. I suspect he’ll be on the run a bit more next week against Buffalo’s aggressive pass rush. He reminds me of a slightly edgier Baker Mayfield. For better or worse.

Another week of terrible officiating. And Messrs. Buck & Aikman only seemed to notice when it affected the Giants. Or was that just me? Still can’t believe the zebras missed the blatant PI on McClaurin early in the game, on the 2nd and 22 Cosmi got with the brain-dead PI, that should have been a first down.

And I’m still trying to figure out why Cosmi decided to bend over and use his helmet to spear a DB to get the personal foul. Dude. WTF.

Chase Young isn’t lighting up the stat sheet, but is facing double teams on a regular basis. Someone else should be winning their matchups. Also, at least three of the false starts on NY were by the guy opposite Chase on passing downs. As the D gels, and the secondary starts figuring one another and their assignments out, I’m hopeful JDR will slowly start to amp up the schematic pass rush and Chase will get it going.

We have lost that game dozens of times over the past couple decades. More than I can stomach to think about. Yeah, I’ll admit it … I was sure this was the same old horror flick we’ve seen over and over and over. Then they flagged a Giant for offsides on the missed FG. What’s this? Then, after a gift for the ages from the Giants on the first missed attempt bought him a second chance, Hopkins’ second attempt started out wide right … then slowly … bent …. back … in … and good. Not unlike the one against Dallas back in the day when Troy Vincent blocked the kick, Sean Taylor picked it up and ran us back into FG range (with the help of a facemask call), and Novak got to try a game winner. That kick started wide right and blew back in too.

Winds of change?

 

[SirClintonPortis]

I do know one thing. Heinicke made Troy Aikman orgasm.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

Om on the blown coverages, I think it’s a holdover of guys who where brought in just because they were good elsewhere and aren’t part of the system. That blown coverage last night was on Collins. That was cover 2 and Collins jumped the route over the middle leaving the WR wide open deep, which is where Collins should have been. I think he was involved with some of those blown coverages with Norman too. Eventually Norman stopped playing his assignments too and it turned into a full blown disaster. Collins can still hit, but he showed last night he still can’t cover and he also is slower than Daniel Jones.

 

[MikefromOH]

Moreland goes and it seems the corners are suffering

Kerrigan is gone and the DL is suffering.

Maybe stop cutting quality guys!

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Even without a busted Achilles....Jones is faster than Collins.

 

[Kel Varnsen]

The exact same play, minus the holding downfield.

 

[Win4us]

Moreland goes and it seems the corners are suffering

Kerrigan is gone and the DL is suffering.

Maybe stop cutting quality guys!

I agree with all these. Think we may be able to add in JDR’s scheme has been figured out as well.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

I agree with all these. Think we may be able to add in JDR’s scheme has been figured out as well.

Two weeks in a row we got shredded on D. Collins almost single handedly gave up 14 with the Jones run and Slayton drop. The quality of competition is only going to get better.

Chase could still use a little guidance from Kerrigan to stay settled down.

 

[DieselPwr44]

With the miscues and missed assignments going on...it makes me think back a couple of years ago when I heard an interview with Belichick on NFL Radio where he was basically complaining about shortened camp times,contact rules in camp etc.
He basically said that they were still installing the month of Sept and that things didn't start rounding into form until October....and I can see that.

Rivera's teams usually get better as the season progresses. That's my hopes here.

BTW, as someone mentioned earlier, Seeing Redskins fans behind the set of the NFL Network panel sing Hail to the Redskins was awesome but hearing the faint sound of the song after they scored was heart warming too!

 

[Boone]

I’m not a Landon Collins fan, but I think it would be unfair not to point out this is his first year playing in this offense after being out all of last season. May take some time for him to find his footing, assuming he’s going to.

 

[Boone]

Personally, I’m skeptical anything is much different with Kerrigan and/or Jimmy Moreland are here. I think the coaches probably know better than we do which guys have the most talent and fit best into what we are trying to do.

 

[MikefromOH]

I'm skeptical of thinking coaches know better when they do things like...empty backfield on an opening drive or calling a pass play at the end of the game when our backs were tearing them up.

 

[Boone]

Talent and evaluation (from the coaching staff who sees the players every day) and playcalling are two completely different things.

 

[MikefromOH]

My point still stands. Just use examples like Ricky Williams, Herschel walker, RG3.

 

[Boone]

My point still stands. Just use examples like Ricky Williams, Herschel walker, RG3.

I don’t like some of the playcalling either, I just see roster decisions as more cut and dry. As far as whether a cut was the right thing or not, all we can do is opine because it can’t be proven right or wrong either way.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

I’m not a Landon Collins fan, but I think it would be unfair not to point out this is his first year playing in this offense after being out all of last season. May take some time for him to find his footing, assuming he’s going to.

He had a couple months before his injury on Oct 25 and Jones burnt him in a similar way on Oct 18, 2020.

He's the instinctual reactive player who likes to "improvise" but doesn't have Troy Polamalu's godly intuition. It shouldn't be that hard to understand "play cover-2 coverage".