I hate the way preseason is used now. We complained last year about the fake QB Competition. This year they didn't run QB with the WRs enough so Week 1 becomes the real time first test. If all the work is happening in practice, why do we have preseason games anymore? Shifting 1 to the regular season shows how the games are viewed.

This game was really like the old preseason 3 game where starters play and you finalize your status for the season.  When you look at the 2021 stats, this team is already miles ahead of that team. Now they still lack talent especially on the oline but..  the season is long and I feel like we will see improvements. Just might not get rewarded with winning.

I only remember one (maybe two) plays that appeared the QB and WR were clearly not on the same page. 
Others looked like disrupted timing from pressure or errant throws ( I counted 4 errant throws that weren't caused by pressure, but I'll need to review the game to be sure) 

The aspects that still looked like preseason to me were the back seven on defense and the OL. 
ILB, Nickel, Safety, and 4/5's of the OL all looked like they were in need of more work to play together effectively. 

Notably, those units had 3 players involved that either missed tons of preseason play or were not playing with the ones. 

I'm not sure how the new preseason is affecting game prep, but too many of our guys were not quite ready in week one. That's for sure.

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I went back and rewatched our offensive possessions looking for pressures in under 3 seconds that resulted in bad plays.  Here are my notes:



1st Half


2nd Possession

• Trevor rolled right into a corner blitz by St. Juste.  Good defensive play call.  No one's fault in particular.
  

• Shortly after, Allen sacks Trevor making Bartch look foolish.
  

4th Possession

• Pass rush gets home for the sack but is negated by defensive penalty
  
• Pressure gets there on next play forcing a weird throw, play is negated by defensive penalty.  This is the one where Marvin Jones tried to come back but the defender ran through him.
  

5th Possession

• Blitz gets a defender in Trevor's face quickly, he sidesteps resets his feet and makes a clean throw but misses.
  

2nd Half

6th Possession

• Quick pressure on the 2 point conversion try led to an incompletion
  

7th Possession

• 5 man rush gets to Trevor early forcing an overthrow.  Fortner is the one who got beat here.
  

8th Possession

• Pressure brought by blitz, but JRob does a nice job stepping in and buying Trevor time but forcing him to scramble a bit.  Cam inexplicably disengages his guy I'm presuming because he thought the pass had been thrown.  His man runs straight to Trevor hitting him as he throws leading to an intentional grounding call.
  

9th Possession

• 4 man rush collapses the pocket and gets home for a sack on 3rd down forcing us to punt.  Scherff's man was first to get there.  I will say that I counted to 3 before a hand got on Trevor and his eyes were locked down field seemingly oblivious to the pressure.  He's normally got great pocket awareness, but not on this play.  The O-line should have been able to hold up better against a 4 man rush, but I partially blame Trevor here for not sensing things and checking down or taking off and trying to pick up the 1st down with his legs.
  

10th (final) Possession

• Cam gets beat and his man hits Trevor causing an incompletion.  The pass rusher's hand and forearm got under Trevor's chin and forced his head back.  I would have thought this should have been called a penalty, but not here.
  
• Final play, Cam gets beat again and his man forces Trevor to roll out to his left for an ill advised and difficult throw which resulted in an INT ending the game.
  

So first, I take back what I said about Trevor holding the ball too long.  I think there was one instance which led me to believe that this was happening more than it was and even that play wasn't egregious.  For most of the rest of the game the line either held up well or he was getting the ball out in under 3 seconds anyway.  Secondly, I still think the line was not the primary cause for the loss which seems to be the prevailing narrative at the moment.  I think the miscues of the 1st half were the biggest contributors (the doink fg attempt, Etienne drop and Trevor bad overthrow to Etienne in the endzone).  The line could be better sure, but they were serviceable for most of the game.  Cam fell apart toward the end of the game.  I have to wonder if he was gassed or something.  This is the first full game and I would imagine most players conditioning isn't where it will be in a few weeks.  Regardless, his play on the final drive is not acceptable.  If you want to blame the line for the loss, I think Cam's play at the end of the game was the most egregiously bad which significantly contributed to that drive coming to an end.

We will be fine.  Trevor is fine aside from the overthrow in the endzone and the ill advised pass at the end of the game.  He'll learn from those.  He looked very good otherwise.  Anyone comparing his play to Gabbert or Bortles is ill-informed.

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I went back and rewatched our offensive possessions looking for pressures in under 3 seconds that resulted in bad plays.  Here are my notes:



1st Half


2nd Possession

• Trevor rolled right into a corner blitz by St. Juste.  Good defensive play call.  No one's fault in particular.
  

• Shortly after, Allen sacks Trevor making Bartch looked foolish.
  

4th Possession

• Pass rush gets home for the sack but is negated by defensive penalty
  
• Pressure gets there on next play forcing a weird throw, play is negated by defensive penalty.  This is the one where Marvin Jones tried to come back but the defender ran through him.
  

5th Possession

• Blitz gets a defender in Trevor's face quickly, he sidesteps resets his feet and makes a clean throw but misses.
  

2nd Half

6th Possession

• Quick pressure on the 2 point conversion try led to an incompletion
  

7th Possession

• 5 man rush gets to Trevor early forcing an overthrow.  Fortner is the one who got beat here.
  

8th Possession

• Pressure brought by blitz, but JRob does a nice job stepping in and buying Trevor time but forcing him to scramble a bit.  Cam inexplicably disengages his guy I'm presuming because he thought the pass had been thrown.  His man runs straight to Trevor hitting him as he throws leading to an intentional grounding call.
  

9th Possession

• 4 man rush collapses the pocket and gets home for a sack on 3rd down forcing us to punt.  Scherff's man was first to get there.  I will say that I counted to 3 before a hand got on Trevor and his eyes were locked down field seemingly oblivious to the pressure.  He's normally got great pocket awareness, but not on this play.  The O-line should have been able to hold up better against a 4 man rush, but I partially blame Trevor here for not sensing things and checking down or taking off and trying to pick up the 1st down with his legs.
  

10th (final) Possession

• Cam gets beat and his man hits Trevor causing an incompletion.  The pass rusher's hand and forearm got under Trevor's chin and forced his head back.  I would have thought this should have been called a penalty, but not here.
  
• Final play, Cam gets beat again and his man forces Trevor to roll out to his left for an ill advised and difficult throw which resulted in an INT ending the game.
  

So first, I take back what I said about Trevor holding the ball too long.  I think there was one instance which led me to believe that this was happening more than it was and even that play wasn't egregious.  For most of the rest of the game the line either held up well or he was getting the ball out in under 3 seconds anyway.  Secondly, I still think the line was not the primary cause for the loss which seems to be the prevailing narrative at the moment.  I think the miscues of the 1st half were the biggest contributors (the doink fg attempt, Etienne drop and Trevor bad overthrow to Etienne in the endzone).  The line could be better sure, but they were serviceable for most of the game.  Cam fell apart toward the end of the game.  I have to wonder if he was gassed or something.  This is the first full game and I would imagine most players conditioning isn't where it will be in a few weeks.  Regardless, his play on the final drive is not acceptable.  If you want to blame the line for the loss, I think Cam's play at the end of the game was the most egregiously bad which significantly contributed to that drive coming to an end.

We will be fine.  Trevor is fine aside from the overthrow in the endzone and the ill advised pass at the end of the game.  He'll learn from those.  He looked very good otherwise.  Anyone comparing his play to Gabbert or Bortles is ill-informed.

Nice write up. I agree with them getting gassed late. Taylor was cramping late in that game on a series or two and that's why Little ended up seeing the field. So there's probably something to that with Cam Robinson getting sloppy late down the stretch.

Again, I agree. Pass protection was bad. The play calling was imbalanced. The penalties hurt us. However, the game ultimately came down to a handful of missed opportunities in the very early start of the game and towards the end of the first half. 

It's fun to be this nit picky and break things down on a molecular level after a season opener that was competitive late after an ugly first half. 

I can do this all week and every weekend. Much better than last year's "LaWrEnCe Is DaH sUcKs! & UrBaN mIlLeR cAn'T iDeNtIfY bIg NaMe PlAyErS!".

I think the Bortles comparison came up for me though when I saw multiple batted passes or passes altered. I think he had at least two or three in this game. One in particular really, really sucked in the 2nd half. He had Kirk breaking WIDE OPEN on a slant on a 3rd down situation and it was Payne's forearm I think that caught it and that's why it appeared the ball went behind Kirk instead of on the money.

That was a BIG play waiting to happen. You knew it too. As soon as they panned to Lawrence he had the big [BLEEP] eating grin on his face looking at Kirk coming back to the sideline. It's those little things man that add up. This is why I said earlier, he needs to still learn when and how to step up into the pocket or at least slide into a cleaner throwing lane.

Get the ball UP and then out and high point it with your release. He's 6'6. It shouldn't be a long term issue this year but it goes back to what others are saying. Not every pass has to be a frozen rope. Lay it up there sometimes and high point it. He'll figure it out. He took an [BLEEP] beating in the pocket much of the game and didn't turn it over until the last drive.

Again, I can live with that and it's forgivable.

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I think the Bortles comparison came up for me though when I saw multiple batted passes or passes altered. I think he had at least two or three in this game. One in particular really, really sucked in the 2nd half. He had Kirk breaking WIDE OPEN on a slant on a 3rd down situation and it was Payne's forearm I think that caught it and that's why it appeared the ball went behind Kirk instead of on the money.

That was a BIG play waiting to happen. You knew it too. As soon as they panned to Lawrence he had the big [BLEEP] eating grin on his face looking at Kirk coming back to the sideline. It's those little things man that add up. This is why I said earlier, he needs to still learn when and how to step up into the pocket or at least slide into a cleaner throwing lane.

Get the ball UP and then out and high point it with your release. He's 6'6. It shouldn't be a long term issue this year but it goes back to what others are saying. Not every pass has to be a frozen rope. Lay it up there sometimes and high point it. He'll figure it out. He took an [BLEEP] beating in the pocket much of the game and didn't turn it over until the last drive.

Again, I can live with that and it's forgivable.

Yeah wasn’t aimed at you and I did see that play with the ball batted down on my rewatch.  I think there’s a certain degree of that sort of thing just happening from time to time.  If you start seeing it frequently then maybe there’s a problem that needs to be addressed but our guys are going up against other professionals here.  They’re going to make good plays from time to time too.

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I hate the way preseason is used now. We complained last year about the fake QB Competition. This year they didn't run QB with the WRs enough so Week 1 becomes the real time first test. If all the work is happening in practice, why do we have preseason games anymore? Shifting 1 to the regular season shows how the games are viewed.

This game was really like the old preseason 3 game where starters play and you finalize your status for the season.  When you look at the 2021 stats, this team is already miles ahead of that team. Now they still lack talent especially on the oline but..  the season is long and I feel like we will see improvements. Just might not get rewarded with winning.

I only remember one (maybe two) plays that appeared the QB and WR were clearly not on the same page. 
Others looked like disrupted timing from pressure or errant throws ( I counted 4 errant throws that weren't caused by pressure, but I'll need to review the game to be sure) 

The aspects that still looked like preseason to me were the back seven on defense and the OL. 
ILB, Nickel, Safety, and 4/5's of the OL all looked like they were in need of more work to play together effectively. 

Notably, those units had 3 players involved that either missed tons of preseason play or were not playing with the ones. 

I'm not sure how the new preseason is affecting game prep, but too many of our guys were not quite ready in week one. That's for sure.

You are correct on the WR work it seems practice helps enough with timing and they worked hard all off season. I am just down on NFL preseason and voiced a bit of off base things. Week 1 really has become an odd week in the NFL season. For a long time, statistics showed you didn't make the post season with early season losses. It is a bit more up in the air with all the changes and the added team to the post season.

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Birth of the Franchise - November 30, 1993
Death of the Franchise - November 29, 2011

Fans deserve better. Thanks for all the good times too many are in the past.

I only remember one (maybe two) plays that appeared the QB and WR were clearly not on the same page. 
Others looked like disrupted timing from pressure or errant throws ( I counted 4 errant throws that weren't caused by pressure, but I'll need to review the game to be sure) 

The aspects that still looked like preseason to me were the back seven on defense and the OL. 
ILB, Nickel, Safety, and 4/5's of the OL all looked like they were in need of more work to play together effectively. 

Notably, those units had 3 players involved that either missed tons of preseason play or were not playing with the ones. 

I'm not sure how the new preseason is affecting game prep, but too many of our guys were not quite ready in week one. That's for sure.

You are correct on the WR work it seems practice helps enough with timing and they worked hard all off season. I am just down on NFL preseason and voiced a bit of off base things. Week 1 really has become an odd week in the NFL season. For a long time, statistics showed you didn't make the post season with early season losses. It is a bit more up in the air with all the changes and the added team to the post season.

Definitely more up in the air/ unsettled in wk one nowadays

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This grade matches the eye test. Their backup safety killed us and almost killed Etienne on one play

https://www.pff.com/nfl/players/darrick-forrest/55087

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