Random Commanders Thoughts

Yesterday I started supplementing my diet with organic beet root powder. It supposedly has many positive health affects; among them is improving circulation and lowering blood pressure.

This morning I read over the directions again and found that I had overlooked an important warning-

DO NOT TAKE BEFORE WATCHING A WASHINGTON FOOTBALL GAME
 
Meanwhile ...


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The Giants game is a perfect case example of why Ron has failed here - wildly swinging inconsistency.

After playing ‘up’ to the Eagles twice and Seahawks, Washington players and coaches mentally didn’t focus and prepare to play a 2-7 team they evidently didn’t have respect for.

You don’t come out and commit 6 turnovers and look like you are in a haze if from the top down the team culture truly embodies consistent effort, detail orientation and mastering assignments.

On defense Washington was facing a team with one legitimate weapon and allowed him to beat them.

Whether the JDR gameplan was to cover and shut down Barkley or not the reality is the unit consistently failed to get it done.

The truth is no one knows what team is going to show up on Thanksgiving.

Certainly not Ron and JDR.

From what we have seen so far in 2023, Dallas has been kicking the crap out of most if not all of the teams on their schedule not wearing Eagles wings or 49ers red and gold on their helmets.

This could get ugly fast.

One final thought about consistency - after playing to the end and losing any hope of resurrecting their season against Seattle maybe this team is now on the verge of mentally handing it in for the balance of the season?

Could this be a team that finishes with 4 or perhaps 5 wins?

And gets a top 5-6 pick?
 
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I believe that 0-6 is very much on the table.
While I freely admit that I might be optimistic, I don't think we get blanked for the rest of the season.

This team always has a couple of surprise victories in them every year, over teams we have no business beating (which is pretty much every team left on our schedule this year).

I also see the possibility of some of these teams on our schedule overlooking us.

I figure we finish with 5-6 wins and a draft pick in the mid to upper single digits.
 
While I freely admit that I might be optimistic, I don't think we get blanked for the rest of the season.

This team always has a couple of surprise victories in them every year, over teams we have no business beating (which is pretty much every team left on our schedule this year).

I also see the possibility of some of these teams on our schedule overlooking us.

I figure we finish with 5-6 wins and a draft pick in the mid to upper single digits.

I think we've been hanging our hat on the team's usual late season run. I'm not sure this team, with Rivera and Del Rio dead men walking, has it in them. I don't think the performance against the Giants was a good sign the rest of the way.
 
Am I wrong?


I honestly believe this roster is underachieving.

No, you're not wrong that there is a lot of room to improve at those positions on the field. That said, there is talent on this roster. OL and LB are absolutely talent deficient, but i use this example a lot, and will continue to do so. Austin Reiter was labeled as a castaway here, only to end up winning a SB with the Chiefs. That doesn't mean he was the reason they won, but at a minimum he wasn't enough of a liability to cost them one either. How much of our secondary could we see falling into that same distinction? I have a hard time blaming the secondary when I see Jamin Davis lined up 1 on 1 with Saquan Barkely repeatedly, and gettiing beat. I wonder why no schematic change was made to maybe put Curl on Barkley and see the matchup. We see a handful of times that blitzes worked schematically, and then on 3rd and long we drop into a zone allowing Devito to sit back and survey the field. There's more than one way to prevent a team from getting 13 yards. Defend the ball, or dont even give the QB enough time to let the routes develop that far down the field.

Do we have a secondary good enough to shut down an oppsing offense, single handedly? No i agree, we dont.. there's room for improvement, but I think there is a serious conversation that can be had about them also being set up to basically fail a lot.

We saw our O-Line being asked to block guys 1 on 1 and getting abused. Yes, get frustrated that Leno can't block Thibideau alone... but also.... lets stop asking him to block him alone. If EBs offense is built for him to be able to make that block, we need to address the offense because they clearly weren't in a position to address Leno. Same thing about Davis covering Barkley, Forbes covering A.J. Brown / D.J. Moore. I think there is a level of middle ground that needs to be found. I don't think these units are as bad as they've played at times, but i also agree there is room for improvement.
 
The point on Leno is that, at best, he’s an average LT (and I think that’s being generous). We never even attempted to find another dominant LT after Trent left.

I get Thibodeau is a beast and that Leno can’t handle him. That doesn’t change the fact that we have a marginal talent protecting our QB at the most important spot.

As they say in the Marine Corps, ‘you can’t shine a turd’

Probably every unit on this team is better with different coaches. That’s why I included those on the needs list. But I think in some position groups Lombardi couldn’t make a top 10 unit out of them.

Not saying anything everyone doesn’t already know. You are right though that there may be some guys even in the position groups I mentioned who look better with more competent coaching and better schemes.
 
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Occurs to me that the biggest loser in the NY/WAS game might actually be Danny Dimes. After all, most of his notoriety came from plumping up his stats against us. After Devito beat us like a drum that takes away his only shiny trophy.
 
The point on Leno is that, at best, he’s an average LT (and I think that’s being generous). We never even attempted to find another dominant LT after Trent left.

I get Thibodeau is a beast and that Leno can’t handle him. That doesn’t change the fact that we have a marginal talent protecting our QB at the most important spot.

As they say in the Marine Corps, ‘you can’t shine a turd’

Probably every unit on this team is better with different coaches. That’s why I included those on the needs list. But I think in some position groups Lombardi couldn’t make a top 10 unit out of them.

Not saying anything everyone doesn’t already know. You are right though that there may be some guys even in the position groups I mentioned who look better with more competent coaching and better schemes.


You're right, and you know my biggest arguement against Rivera's draft history success... I 100% agree that we can do better than Leno, and should given where we are in finding a QB.
 
Quite the unfortunate 😉 conundrum for the NYG, for if aware of the season before it started would be looking at joining the QB sweepstakes in the upcoming draft.

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To put something positive out there. I’m so glad that Young and Sweat were traded before this game against the Giants. It’s not unrealistic to see them both having 2 sacks in that game and one or both could have had 3. You then have fans and coaches talking about how you can’t afford to left those guys go and you must re-sign them. So I’m thankful there wasn’t an artificial inflation of the sack totals for guys they had to make tough decisions about signing.

And for the record, I don’t think k having either or even both of those guys changes the outcome of that game. That game was lost on 6 turnovers and 24 points off those turnovers. A defense that hasn’t made a game winning play since week 1, wasn’t going to make one then, even with those guys.
 
As I watch Steelers fire their coordinators and Bills fire their coordinators I can't help but think... Rivera isn't doing much to try to save his job. He didn't try to use the bench. He didn't take over play calling. He didn't fire a coordinator. He just drifts on the lazy river waiting to see where the current will drop him off.
 

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