09-29-2014, 08:49 AM
The Good:
I think I'm in love with Blake. He made some rookie mistakes, but he had some OMG moments too. Issues he had aren't ones he can't learn to avoid in the future. He was overall making good decisions with the ball and the completion percentage was awesome.
We saw an even split in carries with Denard and Toby and the run game actually produced some. Honestly I would not be surprised to see D-Rob getting more carries as the year goes on.
AR15 and Hurns both look the part. Hurns' long catch would have been a TD if he didn't try to catch it with his facemask lol. But at least he caught it.
The D-line played well for the most part. The first half was great for them. The second half not so much as San Diego adjusted to get the ball out quicker, but the pressure was there. Marks continues to be a beast and Bryant against the run is almost unfair lol.
Cyp played well. I don't know who else noticed this but Cyp basically either lined up closer to the LOS or was shadowing Gates the whole game. Take a look at what that produced for Gates and you'll see how good of a game Cyp had.
McCray didn't play badly. He allowed a TD, but I can't blame him for that. He had great coverage and had the inside position stride for stride, but Rivers just threw an amazing ball. Overall I think McCray will be a guy they try out more on the outside depending on how they adjust the back end of the defense.
The Bad:
Before Gratz went out he wasn't playing very well. He's great against the run. Maybe it's a scheme thing, but I still can't figure out why we aren't trying to jam WR's off the line. At least try to knock them off their initial push within the first 5 yards. Get scrappy with them. You'll probably draw a couple more penalties this way, but it'll throw off the entire balance of the passing offense if the WR's are continually jammed off the line.
I think Guy is pretty much done. When he came in, he gave up a long TD.
Evans is a mystery to me at free safety. I still don't really know if he has the side to side speed to be the over safety in the cover 3. Cyp plays the under well enough, but this whole cover 3 thing won't work if the FS doesn't have the speed to react. Evans made a couple of plays, but then got beat badly on a couple others. I don't know if it's simply a physical attribute that he's missing (side to side speed) or if it's just a learning curve for him being a second year 6th round guy. There's going to be an adjustment to the safeties if they don't get it figured out in the next couple of weeks. If they can't do the cover 3, then just switch the safeties to cover 2 and go from there until you find the player you need for that position.
Linebackers had about an average game. Geno was great against the run, but bad against the pass. Poz was meh against the run and worse against the pass. Reynolds didn't do much of anything good either. I think we're basically just waiting for the offseason for this group. We knew that the offense was a focus in this past offseason, and I think defense will be a focus in the next one.
So some good, some bad. But for the first time in a long time I was excited. Actually excited every time our offense got on the field. I wasn't thinking about our next 3 and out. Blake had the 2 best drives of this whole season after Toby turned it over the first time.
Now we get Ace back. Honestly I'm not too concerned with Shorts not being there because of how Robinson and Hurns have been playing. With Ace back, even with Shorts out, we gain another dimension.
Win or lose, now I'm happy. We've been saying this about our team for the past 3 years, but now I can actually believe it: The arrow is pointing up. Thanks to the QB the arrow is pointing up. It all started with him.
Edit - One other thing. STOP THE SCREENS TO ROBINSON. My GOD seriously just stop it, Jedd. I understand that it was Blake's first start, but it seemed like they took their foot off the gas with him in the second half. We don't have the speed or shiftiness in our guys to run screens like that.
I think I'm in love with Blake. He made some rookie mistakes, but he had some OMG moments too. Issues he had aren't ones he can't learn to avoid in the future. He was overall making good decisions with the ball and the completion percentage was awesome.
We saw an even split in carries with Denard and Toby and the run game actually produced some. Honestly I would not be surprised to see D-Rob getting more carries as the year goes on.
AR15 and Hurns both look the part. Hurns' long catch would have been a TD if he didn't try to catch it with his facemask lol. But at least he caught it.
The D-line played well for the most part. The first half was great for them. The second half not so much as San Diego adjusted to get the ball out quicker, but the pressure was there. Marks continues to be a beast and Bryant against the run is almost unfair lol.
Cyp played well. I don't know who else noticed this but Cyp basically either lined up closer to the LOS or was shadowing Gates the whole game. Take a look at what that produced for Gates and you'll see how good of a game Cyp had.
McCray didn't play badly. He allowed a TD, but I can't blame him for that. He had great coverage and had the inside position stride for stride, but Rivers just threw an amazing ball. Overall I think McCray will be a guy they try out more on the outside depending on how they adjust the back end of the defense.
The Bad:
Before Gratz went out he wasn't playing very well. He's great against the run. Maybe it's a scheme thing, but I still can't figure out why we aren't trying to jam WR's off the line. At least try to knock them off their initial push within the first 5 yards. Get scrappy with them. You'll probably draw a couple more penalties this way, but it'll throw off the entire balance of the passing offense if the WR's are continually jammed off the line.
I think Guy is pretty much done. When he came in, he gave up a long TD.
Evans is a mystery to me at free safety. I still don't really know if he has the side to side speed to be the over safety in the cover 3. Cyp plays the under well enough, but this whole cover 3 thing won't work if the FS doesn't have the speed to react. Evans made a couple of plays, but then got beat badly on a couple others. I don't know if it's simply a physical attribute that he's missing (side to side speed) or if it's just a learning curve for him being a second year 6th round guy. There's going to be an adjustment to the safeties if they don't get it figured out in the next couple of weeks. If they can't do the cover 3, then just switch the safeties to cover 2 and go from there until you find the player you need for that position.
Linebackers had about an average game. Geno was great against the run, but bad against the pass. Poz was meh against the run and worse against the pass. Reynolds didn't do much of anything good either. I think we're basically just waiting for the offseason for this group. We knew that the offense was a focus in this past offseason, and I think defense will be a focus in the next one.
So some good, some bad. But for the first time in a long time I was excited. Actually excited every time our offense got on the field. I wasn't thinking about our next 3 and out. Blake had the 2 best drives of this whole season after Toby turned it over the first time.
Now we get Ace back. Honestly I'm not too concerned with Shorts not being there because of how Robinson and Hurns have been playing. With Ace back, even with Shorts out, we gain another dimension.
Win or lose, now I'm happy. We've been saying this about our team for the past 3 years, but now I can actually believe it: The arrow is pointing up. Thanks to the QB the arrow is pointing up. It all started with him.
Edit - One other thing. STOP THE SCREENS TO ROBINSON. My GOD seriously just stop it, Jedd. I understand that it was Blake's first start, but it seemed like they took their foot off the gas with him in the second half. We don't have the speed or shiftiness in our guys to run screens like that.