Official Game Thread - Week 5 - Commanders @ Chargers

[Dlts20]

Yep ditto Noah. Should be interesting to see how Jayden does without a legit outside WR.

The good thing is that Jayden doesn't seem to be bothered by it whenever he's asked. He never makes an excuse. He always says that Terry wasn't there all offseason anyways so next man up. Therefore I am confident in Jaydens confidence. The kid is driven

 

[skinsinparadise]

The good thing is that Jayden doesn't seem to be bothered by it whenever he's asked. He never makes an excuse. He always says that Terry wasn't there all offseason anyways so next man up. Therefore I am confident in Jaydens confidence. The kid is driven

Love Jayden, I think he's great.

But he's going up against the #2 defense in the NFL without a legit outside WR -- and we aren't sure yet if Deebo is playing either, he's banged up, too. so this one won't be easy.

 

[RedWolf]

Lane needs to see this as an opportunity and step up

 

[Dlts20]

Kinda sucks that we are starting to look like the 49ers with all these injuries piling up. The good thing is that most of the key guys aren't dealing with anything too serious so I expect us to be an elite team the 2nd half of the year when we are fully healthy and everything is cooking but I also hope we don't have to wait that long to look great. We just need to find a rhythm on both sides.

Special teams looks great though, although Lane needs to realize that no one expects him to score a TD on every return He had that huge game in week 3 and you could tell he was trying to run everything back last week even when most of them should have been fair catches which actually ends up hurting his stats and averages

 

[Dah-Dee]

Just saw the Commanders also ruled out Sam Cosmi for Sunday, not surprising but still another good player not on the field against the #2 NFL defense.

 

[36ST21]

They have terrible pass protection with their banged up online and we will probably have just as many Commanders fans their as Rams fans

Well, WAS is playing the Chargers so I dearly hope that WAS fans will far outnumber the Rams fans in attendance... 👺

 

[36ST21]

In other news, listening to Bram, he just said Ron Rivera is doing the national radio call for the game.

We’re doomed.

Rivera would be lost in the booth. All the guys he drafted are either 5th stringers on other teams or are rounding up carts in the parking lot at Costco.

 

[Dlts20]

Daniels vs Herbert in college

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Rivera would be lost in the booth. All the guys he drafted are either 5th stringers on other teams or are rounding up carts in the parking lot at Costco.

He might get lost getting to the booth.

Not to be entirely depressing, but the only draft picks from Ron's tenure who will play on Sunday are:
John Bates (2021)
Percy Butler (2022 - maybe due to injury)
Chris Paul
Quan Martin
Chris Rodriguez

That's it. That's the list.

Cosmi is on the team, but did not travel as he recovers from the ACL.

Man, those 2020-2023 draft classes are BLEAK.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Lane needs to see this as an opportunity and step up

He had a BAD game last week on punt returns.

McCaffery really did well last week though. He has a ton of physical ability if he puts it together. I'm hopeful he has started to turn the corner. He's been good on kick returns this year pretty consistently, and he's getting an opportunity to play more on offense because of injuries, and he's not doing badly. I'm not going to go over the top, but he had a 43 yard catch against the Raiders and 2 catches in the loss to Atlanta + a TD.

I have somewhat long-term optimism for both him and Lane. I think McCaffery might be closer than Lane.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Thursday injury report:

Players ruled out did not travel with the team.

The obvious 2 most concerning at the moment are Mike Sainristil and Deebo Samuel. I think I heard a report that both were working on a side field and looked ok? I'm not sure where I heard that.

If Deebo can't go we're down to McCaffery, Lane and Chris Moore as the only 3 healthy active roster WRs. They would have to elevate probably 2 players from the practice squad just to have 5 active WRs on gameday. Even if Deebo can go, they probably need to bring a guy up. "Good news" is there are 5 WRs on the PS: Ja'Corey Brooks, Robbie Chosen (who just signed), Jacoby Jones, Tay Martin (elevated for the Falcons game) and Lawrence Cager. I'd assume Tay Martin is elevated again. My guess is another guy is also elevated...

If Sainristil can't go, it's not the end of the world because he has an obvious backup in Noah Igbinoghene. But the CB room gets really thin if he sits. Jones is already on IR. We'd have Lattimore, Amos (who isn't on the injury report, and that's good), Noah I. and Antonio Hamilton as the only CBs. I don't know much about Antonio Hamilton, but I do know the guy who he was blocking ran by him like he was standing still on the punt Lane fumbled, and his guy is the guy who blew up Lane. So color me grumpy about his mere existence. They would probably have to elevate a PS CB as well, only 2 options there: Car'lin Vigers and Robert McDaniel. I believe both were UDFAs in camp, and are now on the PS.

 

[Dlts20]

Having bates back will be huge

 

[Burgundy Sweatshirt]

Can someone direct me to where I can ask questions about parking/Lyft to a game.

 

[Skinsfan1311]

Can someone direct me to where I can ask questions about parking/Lyft to a game.

https://northweststadium.com/parking There's a link with parking and rideshare info.

Hope this helps!

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Having bates back will be huge

Having Bates back will be helpful but won't offset being without McLaurin, Brown and potentially Deebo. (I think Deebo is going to go, but that's just a gut feeling.)

 

[Dlts20]

Having Bates back will be helpful but won't offset being without McLaurin, Brown and potentially Deebo. (I think Deebo is going to go, but that's just a gut feeling.)

I think that Deebo will go and I honestly don't like brown anyways. I'd rather play the young guys

 

[skinsinparadise]

Was listening to a Chargers reporter talked about how good St. Juste is. Couldn't believe it. Then I looked up his PFF scores and they were very good.

Whitt the opposite of the CB whisper? You can argue that St. Juste was even worse last year than he was previously. ditto Forbes. Ditto Lattimore.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

I'm going to start this here, and probably say it 5,492 times between now and the end of the game on Sunday:

Unless JD5 puts on a superman cape, the chances are we are going to at the very least see a REALLY ugly performance this week for the following reasons.

1. It's REALLY hard to have a consistent offense when you might not have your top 3 WRs. We might have 1 of the 3 in limited fashion. That's going to make the offense one dimensional to some extent towards the run game. We will certainly have to bring up at least 1, if not 2 PS WRs for this game.
2. The Chargers are well coached and have a good defense to match up with our lack of players on offense.
3. Our defensive secondary stinks, and we're playing a top 10 QB. Butler looks like he might play, however Sainristil has not practiced this week, Lattimore is struggling, and Amos is a rookie. Harris and Jones are on IR. There is not a lot of hope that it's going to get a lot better this week.
4. We're also thin on the DL. We have lost Wise and Jean-Baptist to IR. Payne has been limited this week with a knee injury.

I am not making excuses for the team. They need to go and compete. However, if anybody is expecting some type of bounce-back, look really good, Mona Lisa masterpiece of a game, they are fooling themselves.

The best we can reasonably hope for is an ugly win.

And we're going to see some ugliness, and people are going to question the coaching, the players, the GM, all of it. And that's fine. But we should set expectations now that the team is going to be short handed and will look inconsistent at best.

On offense, we're going to see 3-outs. We're going to struggle to move the ball consistently. JD5 is probably going to have to hold the ball longer than he would like to because the WRs are at best inexperienced and worst not very good. That could lead to more sacks and pressures. We can try and run the ball, but running against a Jim Harbaugh coached team when he knows you have to run against them, you're going to struggle to have consistent success.

Defensively, Herbert might be the best QB we've faced. (It's either him or Love, who I think are basically the same tier of QB.) We're thin at CB, probably have to activate a guy from the PS who might have to play. We are thin at DL. We're going to get gashed here and there, hopefully not that much. With any luck the secondary at least squares away the communication problems. However, even if they do, we're going to get gashed.

The equalizer could be Daniels if he just takes over the game. Which he has proven that he CAN do. Is he healthy enough to do it this week? Dunno. Even if he is healthy enough, can he? Again, dunno.

So, this is the "set your expectations" post. Especially to our typical grumbly posters on game days. Set your expectations.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

I think that Deebo will go and I honestly don't like brown anyways. I'd rather play the young guys

Brown was very good last year when he played. He has basically not played this year at all.

I THINK Deebo will go also, but that's far from certain given he didn't practice Wednesday or Thursday.

Somebody from the "younger guys" has to step up. McCaffery seems to be on a good trajectory to contribute more. Lane is playing his 5th game in the NFL. We'll see.

 

[Voice_of_Reason]

Was listening to a Chargers reporter talked about how good St. Juste is. Couldn't believe it. Then I looked up his PFF scores and they were very good.

Whitt the opposite of the CB whisper? You can argue that St. Juste was even worse last year than he was previously. ditto Forbes. Ditto Lattimore.

It's possible St. Juste just needed a change of scenery. That happens sometimes.

I haven't thought about it, but maybe it's not Whitt, maybe it's the CB coach? I'm not even sure who that is? (And I have to run to a meeting so won't look it up right now...)