Official Game Thread - Week 4 - Commanders @ Falcons

[Voice_of_Reason]

Oh, one more thing: the Packers throttled us and then turned around and lost to the Browns.

My point is, don’t rush to judgement. Let the season play out a bit. Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s a week to week league.

 

[heisenberg]

Oh, one more thing: the Packers throttled us and then turned around and lost to the Browns.

My point is, don’t rush to judgement. Let the season play out a bit. Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s a week to week league.

This is true, it is a week to week league and we still have time to improve but the packers have been in control of every game they've played, they just choked against the browns.

We haven't played a good clean football game yet and twice looked atrocious on defense.

Not a great comparison, Id have no problem with a loss today if we looked like the packers have so far this year.

 

[Dlts20]

It’s the answer we haven’t had since Sonny:

JD5.

If you have a top 5 QB, it can cover up literally everything else.

Now, he has to play that way.

But that’s the answer.

It was 2 games. The first 2 games of the year with zero preseason throws and McLaurin missing the offseason, not to mention us having the toughest game of the season, having to travel to GB on a short week in the 2nd game of the year when no one in the league has the legs and stamina to barely play one full game let alone 2 in 4 days and having to travel. 5 will be fine. He's built different. You can tell by how frustrated and angry he was in the post game interview after our opening day win followed up by the same attitude in his presser last week.

He is one of the few athletes who you can really say puts more pressure and expectations on himself than even the fans do. He's a perfectionist. He had over 300 total yards in a two score win against NY and was upset. He legitimately wanted to play the last 2 games despite a clear injury and was upset that he couldn't. He's a true competitor.

He loves Terry but when they ask him about Terry possibly missing games, he says that he was gone all offseason so they are used to it. Any other QB would use that as an excuse incase the offense doesn't play well but he won't even give himself that excuse because he expects him and the offense to be great.

You can tell that he had high expectations for himself coming into the season so the slow start has upset him more than anyone. That's why I'm not worried. You can tell that he's chumping at the bit to get back out there and light the league on fire and you can also tell that's he singularly focused on it and no one is going to out work him to get there. I'm a very skeptical person but this is one kid that I don't doubt. Just skills are great but it's his mindset and traits that you only see in guys like Brady, MJ, Kobe, etc. No one wants it more. He's not going to be denied. Don't lose the faith

 

[Faithful Fan]

There were some positives today. Matt Gay kicked a perfect game, which is huge if he ended his slump and can get back to being automatic inside 50. McCaffery has started to break out and make plays. Deebo still looks very strong all over the field. Our running game looks good if you could get Kliff to stick with it. Sainristil got us our first turnover. Sinnott did okay in Bates role for a guy who was more of a receiving TE coming out of college. Despite the injuries, and as lopsided as it was, we were able to keep it within one possession most of the game.

The loss is still discouraging though, we should expect to beat Atlanta if we are any good at all. We lead the all-time series 18-10-1, including four wins in a row before today. Most power rankings had us in the top ten and them in the bottom 20. Vegas had us favored by 2.5 on the road. Make no mistake, this was an upset, and it’s a little alarming to be dropping what should be the easy ones given the strength of our upcoming schedule.

It wasn’t as close as the score suggests either. We never had a lead or got closer than a touchdown. They beat us handily in every statistical category: yards, first downs, time of possession, 3rd down conversions, sacks, penalties, you name it.

My hope is JD comes back and carries the team, which we all know could happen.

I would feel better if we could steal one on the road in LA. I had us at 3-2 after 5 games, but this one as a win and that one as a loss.

 

[RexTomb]

Others have said Atlanta was highly motivated after getting embarassed by Carolina last week. I think that is true plus a little extra motivation to beat their old coach and quarterback, though you would hope DQ and Mariota wanted to beat their old team too.

There were some positives today. Matt Gay broke out of his slump and kicked a perfect game, which is huge if he can get back to being automatic inside 50. McCaffery made some plays. Deebo still looks good. Our running game looks good if you could get Kliff to stick with it. Sainristil got us our first turnover. Sinnott did okay in Bates role for a guy who was more of a receiving TE coming out of college. Despite the injuries, and as lopsided as it was, we were able to keep it within one possession most of the game.

The loss is still discouraging, we should expect to beat Atlanta if we are any good at all. We lead the all-time series 18-10-1, including four wins in a row before today. Most power rankings had us in the top ten and them in the bottom 20. Vegas had us favored by 2.5 on the road. Make no mistake, this was an upset, and it’s a little alarming to be dropping what should be the easy ones given the strength of our upcoming schedule.

It wasn’t as close as the score suggests either. We never had a lead or got closer than a touchdown. They beat us handily in every statistical category: yards, first downs, time of possession, 3rd down conversions, sacks, penalties, you name it.

My hope is JD comes back and carries the team, which we all know could happen.

I would feel better if we could steal one on the road in LA, I had us at 3-2, but this one as a win and that one as a loss.

Our defense better figure out how to deal with late motion or every team from here on out is going to do it and spring someone wide open for the rest of the season unless we show we can stop it. I'm concerned about LAC, after getting embarrassed by the Giants, you know they will have a little extra motivation. I fear we drop this next one unless our defense steps up.

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

i thinking you're reaching at straws here.. definition of Nepotism is "the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives, friends, or associates, especially by giving them jobs."
Whitt got the D coordinator job that he is apparently not qualified to be in because he worked with Quinn in Dallas. A position he has never held before while there are others much more qualified individuals available that have held the position before and have had success.
Working in bus corporate space for 25+ years i see this all the time... even if it was a promotion Quinn wanted to make it a nepo based promotion.. and Whitt sucks.. its time to make it right and hire a real D coordnator.

I think you both have made good points.
Conn's point may be more that nepotism is about unearned promotions and at least Whitt had a resume to earn that position. I think that's fair.

However, and I agree with you wholeheartedly here: I am sick of coaches giving positions without giving real interviews and a fair shot to all available candidates in a pool. I do think in this case DQ needed to put a staff together quickly though. He had a smaller window if memory serves because of the way the coaching search played out.

I know there are other coaches who "know plenty of people" and yet do interviews and try to hire the best person for the job. I think (may be wrong) Mike Macdonald did that. I do prefer that.

 

[McD5]

We have a lot of holes, and not enough draft picks. We're just going to have to do the best we can.

We've opened as 3 point underdogs next week.

 

[IdahoFan]

We have a lot of holes, and not enough draft picks. We're just going to have to do the best we can.

We've opened as 3 point underdogs next week.

I’m surprised it’s not more. They are solid on both sides of the ball playing at home. I’ll be there, need JD5 to have a chance.

 

[Gooseneck]

Boys looking better than us right now

 

[bh32]

This team is a mess from GM down to the players..

 

[Petey hodge]

Truth is.... Jayden can cover for our bad defense.... Marcus can not.

So, let's get Jayden back... but who will he throw to? Some WR who we activated recently? (working at Waffle House last weekend?)

 

[Darrell Green Fan]

The game played out pretty much exactly as I had anticipated. The Falcons were dreadful last week, they were going to play much better. Their QB is erratic and was off last week, I totally expected him to play well yesterday. He didn't just play well he played great, so many completions with pressure in his face. In all honesty I'm not sure many teams would have beaten a team with a QB playing that well. This is the level of play we should expect from MM, the games here in the past were an aberration.

 

[DWinzit]

Truth is.... Jayden can cover for our bad defense.... Marcus can not.

So, let's get Jayden back... but who will he throw to? Some WR who we activated recently? (working at Waffle House last weekend?)

Yet Marcus played pretty well and was not the reason for the loss.

Yup, fingers can easily be pointed at injuries, dumb penalties, missed tackles, lack of creating turnovers, not converting third downs and poor play calling.

They need to clean their game up and could have won this game.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Oh, one more thing: the Packers throttled us and then turned around and lost to the Browns.

My point is, don’t rush to judgement. Let the season play out a bit. Who knows what’s going to happen. It’s a week to week league.

And then choked away a game against the Cowboys.

You never know. Sometimes teams catch lightening in a bottle for a game or two.

In 3-4 weeks if the team is still inconsistent, then we’ll know more about who they actually are.

 

[DieselPwr44]

Kliff needs to learn the value of the run game when your receiving corp is depleted.

#5 isn't going to be able to spackle over anything on defense and let's not forget that he wasn't exactly lighting it up before injury either.

Magee has been touted as a "real" linebacker by Quinn and his staff. He's healthy now. Why can't he get on the field?

It was always going to be hard to replicate last season's performance. That was a once in 50 years occurance. Every season is different and performance varies. The way the defense is playing, they'll be lucky to make the Wildcard so gird your loins.

 

[CuredFromBatteredFanSyndrome]

It’s the answer we haven’t had since Sonny:

JD5.

If you have a top 5 QB, it can cover up literally everything else.

Now, he has to play that way.

But that’s the answer.

I get all that, and recognize the playoffs aren’t made in September.

But he’s already missed 2 of 4 games with a knee injury and his top weapon of whom he already was rusty with, has no timetable for return from injury.

And on the other side of the ball we still can’t rush the passer or defend the forward pass. I’d feel better if we were waiting on guys to heal up on this side of the ball but unfortunately there’s no saviors rehabbing.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Kliff needs to learn the value of the run game when your receiving corp is depleted.

#5 isn't going to be able to spackle over anything on defense and let's not forget that he wasn't exactly lighting it up before injury either.

Magee has been touted as a "real" linebacker by Quinn and his staff. He's healthy now. Why can't he get on the field?

It was always going to be hard to replicate last season's performance. That was a once in 50 years occurance. Every season is different and performance varies. The way the defense is playing, they'll be lucky to make the Wildcard so gird your loins.

I really think the Kliff criticism is over the top. They put up 27 points yesterday. They ended the game with 27 passes and 22 runs, and they were trailing the entire game. They got into a 10-0 hole, and were trying to get out of it the entire day. When that happens, you're going to see a slight tilt towards the pass.

As it was, we were only 55% pass to 45% run, which is pretty balanced between run and pass.

You could always argue you should do more of one thing than the other, however, you also can't get predictable.

I really didn't have any problems with the way the offense was called yesterday.

 

[CuredFromBatteredFanSyndrome]

I’ve seen a lot of chatter about Kliff not running enough, but what I saw yesterday were multiple opportunities for Marcus to scramble and instead he tried hanging in the pocket to no avail. Not sure why he was so apprehensive to take off yesterday.

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

Kliff needs to learn the value of the run game when your receiving corp is depleted.

#5 isn't going to be able to spackle over anything on defense and let's not forget that he wasn't exactly lighting it up before injury either.

Magee has been touted as a "real" linebacker by Quinn and his staff. He's healthy now. Why can't he get on the field?

It was always going to be hard to replicate last season's performance. That was a once in 50 years occurance. Every season is different and performance varies. The way the defense is playing, they'll be lucky to make the Wildcard so gird your loins.

Kliff did it again.

He ran a lot more in a 4q drive than in most previous drives. Drive result: Td. It’s annoying and it has happened many times dating back to last year. For those who say we scores “enough” let’s all admit something: last year, this year, the O needs to carry this team. That is where most of the investment is. It’s skewed heavily there.

So the D needs to make timely stops and the O needs to not turn the ball over and make the most of its drives.

One of the simple differences between the Packers/Cowboys and Packers/Commanders is the Cowboys were more consistent throughout the game with the run as far as I could tell (just saw box score sometimes, bur they typically are and I saw the final line so making an assumption there).

At points in our game there was a pretty decent skew towards pass and meanwhile the Falcons sat at 50-50.

Their D isn’t bad, but when you become more predictable you make good DCs look better. Last year the Comms knocked them out of the playoffs so this was a revenge game of sorts. Hopefully we get an opportunity to knock them our again, even if indirectly!

 

[SkinsNumberOne]

I really think the Kliff criticism is over the top. They put up 27 points yesterday. They ended the game with 27 passes and 22 runs, and they were trailing the entire game. They got into a 10-0 hole, and were trying to get out of it the entire day. When that happens, you're going to see a slight tilt towards the pass.

As it was, we were only 55% pass to 45% run, which is pretty balanced between run and pass.

You could always argue you should do more of one thing than the other, however, you also can't get predictable.

I really didn't have any problems with the way the offense was called yesterday.

That number looks worse in q1-q3 and that is a problem that has shown up more than many people realize I think.