WhitewalkerInPhilly

Honestly last night I saw a lot of things Rex Ryan would want, things Roman has worked with to great success in the past, and scenarios that likely would have played out very differently with our full lineup of starters. 15 play, 7 minute drives? 4/6 on 3rd down conversion percentages? The ability to run to escape a blitz and make them pay downfield? The ability to make the throw to the open man when the blitz is faked and defenders drop into coverage? A 70% accuracy percentage. These things I worried about Taylor being capable of. Tonight, he was more Matt Cassel than Matt Cassel passing, only with some upside while running. 50-70% for me.

1) I dont read too much into Cassel sitting the entire game. We all know what Cassel is, and isnt. He is not someone who makes his skill players look better than they actually are. He is someone who lets his skill plays make him look better. That can work for you, but when theyre all out, it would have looked even uglier than what we would have seen. The lack of skill players made it tough to get an honest evaluation of TT and EJ, I dont want to imagine how Cassel would have looked. 2) It wasnt always pretty, but I think Taylors performance should put to bed some of the more outlandish and over-exaggerated claims as to flaws in his game. He did not take off running at every possible chance, though he did when a planned bubble screen was blown up, and on a designed read option play. While his numbers did not blow you out of the water, he was able at times to sit back in the pocket and deliver the ball. I believe that he was something like 4/5 on third down conversions when throwing the ball. 3) That said, we shouldnt ignore an honest critique of Taylors flaws. He got too cute trying to make a play on his first drive and that sack made it that much harder on Carpenter. (Ill touch on that later). His lone pass to the EZ from the red zone was a bit late, and while his accuracy was 70%, his YPA was 6.5, barely better than what EJ did last year before getting benched. He has yet to show he can make deep throws over the middle. Still, I think he looked alright. 4) Speaking of that End Zone throw, man I think the refs were brutally inconsistent on how their called penalties on the respective secondaries. If Darbys call for PI, and Aaron Williams personal foul are going to get called, I dont see how when Deonte had an arm wrapped around his waist in the EZ, and when he got his clock cleaned on a Manuel overthrow how that doesnt get called. 5) Jesus our running backs looked bad. I know that our top 5 players our depth chart were gone, and that we were running with guys who wont find stable work in three weeks, but man that was ugly. Get well soon Shady, Fred, Boobie, Karlos and Bryce 6) EJ does look improved. He was able to feel the pocket a bit better, and at times was able to take the first and second guy miss. It was a pity that the second strong OL is so bad that the 3rd and 4th guys were right behind. 7) I was worried about Darby with the PI early, but he definitely cleaned up his game. It seems that Rexs strategy of throwing him into the deep end of the pool is working, and those two interceptions seem good indicators that those ball skills that we were worried about were coming along. 8) Im sorry, but Im a little worried about the defense. I know its still early, but Im getting Pettine flashbacks: constant pressure, flashy turnovers, but a lot of broken tackles and conversion on third and long. Rex had better be pissed. 9) Carpenters miss didnt make me happy, but Id rather he get the rust off now rather than week 1.

I don't think some of those, like the Thompson throw and the one to Goodwin on 3rd when the Browns faked the blitz are what I would call "short" And if EJ had a worse O-line, he had the same WRs against a worse secondary. I'm not trying to rag on EJ, who I like, I'm just annoyed at the fact that you twist the narrative on TT.

If the first string looked bad to you, I don't even want to get started on the second string... The guy who had a 70% accuracy throwing to guys who are scraping to make the team against Cleveland's first string defense is a one trick pony? That isn't to say that Tyrod doesn't have his flaws. We saw them: A little too willing to run, not perfect ball placement, and for the love of crap he has to stop leading with his body when he has the first down. But with a depleted roster and a grand total of zero of his explosive skill players, he still moved them up and down the field.

But for serious, that O-line looks godawful when you go to the second teams.

Holy Schmidt!

Oh wow, the second string o line looks terrible.

Oh jeez! How do they call fouls on Darby and AW but not when the CB takes the head off one of ours?

Yes. Are the Browns blitzing every down or does our O line suck?

I take back my worries about Darby. Hes bouncing back in a big way.

Ok, I'm getting worried about darby

And just like that an extended drive for nothing...

I have no idea. But as this is going to likely be the only preseason game I get to watch live, I'm not complaining.

Any relation to Lou Potty?

I hear that if the reduced suspension happened it would be one game. I can hardly imagine a more Billsy outcome.

Hey, do you know how much effort it will be to get Shady back to Philly and turn him into a monstrosity that can only be killed by dragon glass and valyrian steel! I get results dammit! I could just turn him into a wight, but nooooo, I'll just hear that he has "slow eyes" and is an "undead shambling corpse". Some fans...

Wow, this got really off topic. But I have to hammer this home. From what I can tell, the scheme is a LOT like what Pettine was doing when he was here. Marcel is the 1-technique nose tackle. Kyle is the 3-technique tackle. Hughes, a little surprisingly, seems to be holding up well at the 5-technique end, and Mario just dominates whatever he does. Of course we'll adjust our LBs as necessary, but this is usually what we are doing. Nose Tackle only becomes a need if we let Dareus walk this offseason.

My favorite line from the Browns board:

It does have varying intensity. I felt ugly day one, was in agony day 2 and by day three it seemed that it had cleared up. Then the feverish hallucinations started...

I don't know about Hernias, but it seemed as if he was good Sunday. I *can* say from experience that appendicitis can come out of nowhere and make you debilitatingly ill and in pain.

OS...while I can appreciate the rhetorical argument of "appeal to authority" usually you look for someone better than Paul Hamilton when it comes to the Bills.

That was my first thought.

Crap. Can we get some more info on Karlos? He was looking so good!

Umm no. Maybe if Hogan shows a flash of something even resembling Goodwin's YAC the other night, I might reconsider. I'm just glad it's heat fatigue.

I am still shocked at the level of Tyrod dislike. I've been as much of an EJ homer as anyone, but I'm thrilled to see someone, anyone, showing consistency and solid chain moving. One of the points Cian brought up is that Tyrod not so much opened up massive passing attack. He points out where he missed an open Woods. But what he says is that Tyrod did enough to spread out the defense so that Brown could run. And that's it for me: He did just enough that we were able to run the ball effectively. That, as far as I understood, was the primary feature we were looking for at QB.