Official Game Thread Week 3 - WFT at Buffalo

I was telling Derek today that del Rio seems to be only relying on the front four and not blitzing much at all. Just because they're good doesn't mean you shouldn't send blitzers.
 
Y'all realize that next week vs Atlanta may be their most realistic shot at a win until December, right?
 
China said:
Defense is getting worse each week. Every week the announcers bloviate about the four #1 picks on the defensive line. They don't seem to be doing much. Chase Young has 0 sacks through 3 games? If he's being double-teamed then shouldn't somebody else be getting home?

I remain unimpressed.
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Absolutely and entirely fair assessment.
 
That win against an undefeated Pittsburgh team last season seems like a long time ago.
Ultimately, we were a team that did well against other mediocre teams themselves in 2020.

The performances vs. Pittsburgh and Tampa, as well as the team's fight to crawl out of a 2-7 hole last year gave people a really false sense of where this team was at.

If I am not mistaken, we are 1-9 in our last 10 games against teams with a winning record, getting outclassed in several of them.

That is why I wanted at least to see our team throw some punches today. That would be a sign of progress. Instead, we got ran over.
 
I hear you Paul. But it wasn’t ‘false’ - they won the games that needed to be won to win the division and gave the eventual Super Bowl champs all they could handle before succumbing. I get all the caveats. Weak division and all. I guess my point would be, before we pack it in after 3 games, there’s still plenty of time for this team to resurrect itself. Do I expect it? Not really. But I thought the same thing last season.
 
China said:
Defense is getting worse each week. Every week the announcers bloviate about the four #1 picks on the defensive line. They don't seem to be doing much. Chase Young has 0 sacks through 3 games? If he's being double-teamed then shouldn't somebody else be getting home?

I remain unimpressed.
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I think they might be pressing for sacks too hard, so screens, draws, etc really fake them out. Then again, the secondary is so bad they pretty much have to or else someone will be wide open.
 
What an ugly game. When I saw the wind was gusting, I knew that was an omen for bad things. I wish I wasn't right on that.

On offense, it seems like the only game plan they have is for Scott to "prove" himself. He has zero interest in establishing a run game. It's like a token run here and a token run there. They are expecting Heinicke to do too much from the opening snap. It's like they really want to prove how right they are on Taylor. I love Taylor, but he's not a one man show and they need to do things to get the ball into other players hands. The screen pass was a great call as it's similar to a run and clearly it worked to get the ball into the hands of one of your best playmakers. But those plays are few and far between. He's still inexperienced and will make bad throws like he did today. Do more to help him and get others involved.

On Defense, I'm sure there is someone playing well, but does it matter at this point? This defense has been brutal to start the year. The players aren't playing well and the coaches aren't calling a good game. MikefromOH said it well just above, they think they can rush 4 all day and have it work. It's not working. Teams are identifying who they have that can block who. Then they double where they need help. Early today, Payne was beating his man. There doubling Allen and knew their tackles could handle Young and Sweat. Maybe it's happening, but I don't see much blitzing, I don't see stunting, twisting, nothing. Just mostly rush four with speed rush from the outside and bull rush from the inside. The line is not getting to the QB and the DBs are not covering. The LBs look lost on pretty much every play. Whatever defensive plan they had coming into the season, they need to scrap it and come up with something new. The coaches need to stop looking at how these guys played in the past and start coaching them as they are playing this year.

Again, just and ugly performance. Outside of a very small number of plays, nothing positive to take from this. And those plays don't even matter when they are surround by such a bad performance.
 
Boone said:
I hear you Paul. But it wasn’t ‘false’ - they won the games that needed to be won to win the division and gave the eventual Super Bowl champs all they could handle before succumbing. I get all the caveats. Weak division and all. I guess my point would be, before we pack it in after 3 games, there’s still plenty of time for this team to resurrect itself. Do I expect it? Not really. But I thought the same thing last season.
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There is absolutely lots of time. I will be honest, I thought the early part of this season might be a bit of a rude awakening for this team. Considering some of the teams we have to play, I can't say I am shocked by the record - and it still might get a bit uglier yet.

At the end of the day, I simply am asking for steady growth, and I am not too sure how much of it is truly happening when the heavyweights routinely steamroll us. I have been patient for 30 years and can be patient for a while longer still. I don't need, nor expect, a Super Bowl in the next few years. However, we seem to take one step forward now and then and follow it up with five steps back. As a team, prove to me that we are truly on to something. Instead, the same things that have plagued this franchise forever have their way of reminding us that they never went away. That's my beef. Where is the consistency in building? We just seem to be consistent at selling false hope and being mediocre.
 
We could be a 3 win team this year. Don’t mistake my ‘it’s early’ for ‘we’re fine’. We are nowhere near fine. I’m just stating the obvious. Our record could still be .500 heading into week 5. If it is, anything after that is still wide open.
 
Is the secondary in a lot of zone for the big plays?
 
Looking back at last season, the only 2 games that stand out are the win against Pittsburgh where the entire team played well and the win against SF that the defense and special teams won.

2 wins were vs an abysmally poor Dallas, Cincinnati after knocking Burrow out of the game, and 2 against Philly where in the finale their coach basically quit.

Dallas is a better team now, the new Philly coach won’t wave the white flag, and the schedule is considerably more difficult. In hindsight the playoff game performance, as exciting as it was, may just have been exactly what this team didn’t need.

I think that a top 5 draft pick is not out of the question in 2022.
 
Here is something that crossed my mind last night as I was wide awake at 2:30 this morning thinking about this team for whatever reason (sleep would have been a way better option). Anyways...

Could it be that we have a group of players for the most part that lack maturity, and could that be potentially factoring into this horrible start on defence in particular?

You heard Rivera talk about it over the course of the summer, saying that we just were not there yet or where we need to be. I am sure he preached that message to the players as well.

Then he said after the Bills game yesterday that he fears that when he goes back to the tape, he is going to see a lot of the same mistakes happening that needed to be corrected from the first two games.

That to me potentially signals that these guys might not necessarily be responding to what these coaches are asking of them. Maybe I am way off and I am just overthinking it...but you had guys like Montez Sweat talking about sack records this summer and the defence is laying eggs with consistency. Do they have an inflated sense of self as a unit, and feel that they can get by on talent alone?

When you have Rivera standing there seeming relatively detached from any form of coaching yesterday during a blowout, it makes you wonder. Maybe deep down, he was kind of thinking "I told you so" and wanted the players to get a first hand ass-kicking for themselves to make things hit home a bit (if they aren't going to take in what is being asked by the staff).

Not saying this is what is happening...I am just trying to process the severe regression from the defensive unit.
 
It's my main reason for being mad we let Kerrigan leave. He is a leader, he was respected, and his intensity kept the fire going.

He had lost a step, but he hadn't lost anything mentally. I think this team made a huge mistake letting him go.
 
My overall sense of things this morning?

I got nuthin.

I will say a couple things. There's a pretty good probability that we got smacked upside the head yesterday by a really good team for one simple reason. They're a really good team. And we aren't.

I know some will argue that we aren't playing well. That we don't have a real starting QB. Or a defense. Or an OC. Or an identity. But I think at some point you have to start believing, what we are seeing is who we are. We look pretty bad. And looking pretty bad is the result of lots of things, but #1 always being the other guys making us look bad because they are flat out better than us.

More talented.
More experienced.
More disciplined.
More focused.
Better coached.

Better.

I have no answers. There is hope - because ultimately, if you're going to continue to be a fan and watch these games, what other choice do you have but to try and muster some hope. It's a long season. We're 1-2 and we'll be a game out of first in the NFC East tomorrow. Hardly time to panic. Anything can happen. It was even worse last season. Blah blah blah blah blah.

My basic takeaways haven't really changed over the past 20 years.

Players need to shut up and play better.
Coaches need to shut up and coach better.
Washington needs to finally, somehow, somewhere, some way find a starting QB.
And Dan Snyder is still to blame for our being mired in mediocrity for eternity.

That's about all I've got this morning :)
 
The defense simply hasn’t lived up to the hype. How could they to be honest? Yes, we have talent but we seem to lack real playmakers. Outside of Chase Young who do offensive coordinators fear? As much as I like the guy I don’t think any coordinators are laying in bed worrying about Matt Ioannidis. We also lack veteran leadership of the defensive side of the ball. That’s not to say we don’t have good character guys all over the defense, I think we do. We just don’t have any that have had real success in the pros. I’m not talking Pro Bowls either I’m talking playoff success or better. Who is the guy holding other players accountable? I have no idea.

On a side note: If I have to hear an announcer gush about “Four 1st round picks on the defensive line” one more time this season I’m going to take a header off my couch into the end table. Just stop it.

Offensively it’s been tough sledding. Fitzpatrick was always going to be a giant question mark even if he was healthy, and then he got hurt. As for Heinicke, who doesn’t like his story? Who here doesn’t want this guy to succeed? You certainly can’t question his heart or his effort. He does have some obvious limitations though, and he did not play well yesterday. Is that just one game? What exactly is his ceiling? Have we seen it? Are we just expecting too much? I think so.

Part of the problem here is the Bills are just a better team than we are. Some talking heads have picked them to have a shot to go to the Super Bowl this season, and I agree. They were excellent last season too. We aren’t there yet. Don’t try to shuck and jive me about how we were a playoff team last season either, we got lucky last season.

If we catch a break here or there the team should be around .500, just like last year. I still maintain that nothing is going to really change in DC until we get a franchise QB. I’ve been beating that drum for years now and if anything I’ve become MORE convinced of it. That can’t be fixed at the moment, so,,,, (in best Bill Belichick voice) we’re on to Atlanta.

*Boone beat me to a lot of this...sue me. I hadn't read his before I wrote mine*
 
I agree with those who say the team won't be a perennial contender without a QB.

That said, the problems with this loss have nothing to do with the QB.

We've all heard the philosophy, and Rivera has echoed it, that one way to build a team is to put the pieces in place before you draft your franchise QB. The WFT is year two into putting those pieces in place. Once of those pieces that should be done and established is the defensive line.

I expected the team would lose. I expected ups and downs with Heineke. I expected the offense to move in fits and starts.

I did not expect the defense, and the line in particular, to be the biggest liability on the team. That unit should be humming right now. The team should be losing games 17-10 or 23-20, not 43-21 or whatever it was. Not giving up seven scores on ten drives.

29th in points, 31st in yards on defense is a bad bad bad sign.

That needs to be fixed before next season. Hopefully they figure it out.
 
Anybody have any idea why Turner treats the Qb like a ten year vet instead of a guy on his third start?
 
With the D as bad as it is, the O is basically forced to chase scores, which is what ultimately got Heinicke in trouble at last.

There needs to be at least a little more strategy. Perhaps emphasize better red zone defense instead of sucking all around. I remember one season where the Patriots has been driven on at will be the manned up in the red area, which should be an extra defender.

We’re getting run on as well as being burnt toast in the secondary.
 
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