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flyerhawk
Well-Known Member
Well the season is over. And we will find out whether there will be big changes or not soon enough. But I figured I would just list my observations from the season, what went right and what went wrong. We'll start off with the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good
The Bad
The Ugly
Sadly, I don't see any realistic way that this team changes in any meaningful way while Pete is the HC. And I don't see Pete leaving. So we can expect to see much the same next year.
The Good
- We look to have had another good draft class. Spoon, JSN, Charbs and Bradford were all starters in their first year. Olu showed some promise. Derrick Hall showed signs of life at the end of the season and could hopefully take a step up next year.
- Julian Love was a great addition. He really helped offset the mostly absent Adams.
- The Walker/Charbs backfield looks like it could be one of the best in football for the next couple of years.
- Colby Parkinson showed that he is a legit NFL tight end. Hopefully we can re-sign him on a reasonable deal
- Geno when he had good protection was actually quite good
The Bad
- The injuries to Cross and Lucas in the 1st game really haunted the offense for the entire season. Cross came back but was very inconsistent and Lucas never really recovered. The rest of the OL was wildly inconsistent, in part because of injuries but also because it's just not that good.
- Despite having 2 quality backs, our running game too often sputtered. IMO, this was as much about poor blocking assignments as it was about the talent on the OL.
- Because of our inconsistent OL play, we too often had to keep in 2 players for pass pro. It's one thing if you keep 6 or 7 on the line to block because the other team is blitzing a lot. It's another if you need 6 or 7 to block 4. That means that the receivers are expected to do way way too much.
- It is baffling to me why this team simply cannot execute an effective blitz beater screen. I feel like we are the only team in the NFL that just stinks at this. We can blame Geno, I guess, but we were just as bad with Russ.
- Geno when he was pressured really struggled
The Ugly
- Run defense. In the last 3 games the defense has given up 570 rushing yards. I don't care if we have the 99 Rams offense, no team can win doing that. The Cards were deploying a lot of 13 formations and just bullying us off the ball. A whole bunch of us were lamenting how this team didn't get enough bulk in the offseason and Pete assured us he had a plan. He clearly did not, or it was a bad one.
- The only thing more baffling than our inability to execute a screen is our inability to defend a screen. It is infuriating to see this team give up 9 yards on a 3rd and 8 screen. Really unacceptable
- Pete is simply incapable of adapting his gameplan to fit the situation. If you have a defense that is struggling, you can't play safe football the entire game. You have to be more aggressive earlier in the game. This team has the offensive firepower to take early leads but we are simply too focused on a safety first approach which is fine when you have a strong D but terrible when your D is giving up 150+ yards a game on the ground.
Sadly, I don't see any realistic way that this team changes in any meaningful way while Pete is the HC. And I don't see Pete leaving. So we can expect to see much the same next year.