I’m glad they were able to win. I’ll start off with that. But they need more than just Daniels and McLaurin on offense. I know Robinson has been good most of the year, but running was hard yesterday. But as we saw at the end of the game, if McLaurin are off or can’t do it all, then it could all fall apart. That needs to change.
The biggest sucks yesterday were the OLine and the coaching. The OLine gave very little in the run game and the coaching decisions were not good. Play calling was bad on offense and on defense, it seemed like they had no plan in place for when Rattler came in and was getting rid of the ball quicker. Maybe the score in the game contributed to that, but no adjustments to what he was doing.
The kicking situation still scares me and Quinn kicking a long FG late was a bad decision. I think he was more worried about getting criticized for punting in FG range. But that was thrown on him by Kliff who should have run on 2nd down to burn the clock. Then on 3rd down you decide how much more you need for a FG or first down and adjust your strategy that way. By throwing on 2nd and it being incomplete, you stop the clock and you make your decisions more difficult on 4th down.
And of course the refs. I’m not a conspiracy guy. I’ve always said incompetence not conspiracy. But yesterday’s game had me thinking more about conspiracy. It’s so frustrating when the game is called unevenly. Every touch and slight foul on one team is a penalty, then on the other side it must be egregious or way over the line. And the clock issues were inexcusable. I would have a hard time refuting a conspiracy after watching that game.
As far as what was good, McLaurin is amazing. Yea, he should have caught the 2nd of the 3 deep passes, but he was the best player on the field. Daniels was great as well, despite being just off on those two deep throws. He is a great to watch and has exceeded anything we have seen at QB in a long time.
I thought the defense played well. Everyone will point to the 4th quarter and say the defense collapsed. But they had New Orleans stopped before a completely bogus roughing the passer call. And on the last drive, I thought the scheme was giving up the short plays that turned into good plays. They also ran when the defense was expecting pass. And we know the TD shouldn’t have happened and now the defense gives up only 2 TDs, one of which was a great trick play and a tremendous catch by Kamara.