Alphadawg7

I mean do you really expect me to have a log of game film time stamps of when they occurred? There have been several, including ones that cost us a touchdown, not to mention several other mistakes like dropped passes in traffic, bobbled pass for an INT, etc. Then there is the he goes down if the wind blows too hard. This makes it sound like I dont like him...but I actually do really like McKenzie...in the right role...I just don't like having to depend on him doing things he does not excel at, especially in gritty moments. This isn't new news either...There have been multiople discussions or threads this season and how the slot position has been an issue and McKenzie isn't getting it done. I didn't say there was evidence, I am talking about getting Shakir more reps to try and develop him more. I already said in another post that thus far McKenzie has unfortunately been the better slot player this season, but at the same time, that doesn't mean he has been good either. With Shakir, I would rather see him getting experience to see if he can bring more to the position come playoff time. Allen needs more help...surprisingly Davis is struggling with catching consistently, and we have inconsistent production out of the slot. I would like to see someone out there who can make that tough catch in traffic, fight for more yards, etc. That is not really a fair picture of what is going on IMO...this staff is notorious for preferring to bring rookies along slowly when they can. Even Davis as a rookie didn't get any real relevant play until John Brown got hurt. With handoffs...I would much rather see Devin taking more handoffs than any of them. He is the better runner. Cook is faster, but he is slow to the hole, and does not have good vision yet. If he gets a hole right in front of him he can pop a nice gain, but man he misses so many opportunities for yards every game. Im fine with them as one two punch...but Devin should be the lead dog IMHO and Cook as a change of pace. I would like to see Devin get 15-18 touches and Cook like 10-12 touches (running and receiving) per game type balance.

Well we agree he is not a good slot option moving forward. We also agree he’s unfortunately still been the best option thus far this year. We just disagree there are ways to improve upon him this season. Fair enough. Truthfully, I don’t expect us to make any moves (don’t see us signing Cole and I think OBJ goes to Dallas). Only hope is Shakir starts to get more involvement and rises to the occasion. With how slow they prefer to bring rookies along, I don’t think we will get a chance to find out if he can over take McKenzie this year without injuries factoring in. So we probably stuck with McKenzie regardless anyway. Again, love him as a role player type guy, but he is not a good full time slot player. He’s let Josh down a number of times this year already.

I meant to reply to Gunner but mistakenly hit the wrong reply button on my own post. I deleted it.

He’s been an all pro this year. Our defense is significantly worse when he is out and cost us games. That being said, the cap issues persist. I do not know if he will be a Bill next year or not, that will be up to Beane to figure out if he can make that work and something Edmunds would accept. But make no mistake about it, Edmunds has been a BEAST all year. Anyone disagreeing with that simply has an agenda or doesn’t understand football.

I don’t disagree McKenzie has been best slot currently on team…but that doesn’t make him a good slot option. That means the slot position has been an issue all year. Sure, periods during a game he can make some plays, not consistently though I will add because he isn’t a good route runner, but he makes some plays. I like him in that role. But, I hate having to rely on him in tough situations. He just is atrocious catching in traffic, he goes down the second he is touched, and can’t pick up tough yards when we need them. For me, I would rather see Shakir…Crowder if he comes back…or someone like Cole or OBJ (in terms of who is available) out there in a key moment where we need a tough third/4th down conversion. I know Cole is not the same, and I know he is not an every down slot guy at this point either. But I’d take Cole at 75% of what he was over McKenzie on a critical third down. The main reason is how substantially more cerebral Cole is than McKenzie to adjust and get open for Allen. McKenzie is terrible at that and it’s cost us points and drives this year multiple times already where McKenzie went somewhere were wrong on Josh. I think with Shakir, he needs more reps. They need to get him more plays to adjust to the speed of the NFL. I’d love to see him involved more to get him more seasoned for the playoffs

McKenzie is not the answer in the slot. He is a gadget player, he isn’t a guy who can make a tough catch in traffic or get tough yards. He also is not a refined route runner and has made mistakes many times on his routes that hurt us this year. I would rather see Shakir out there than McKenzie on a key third down. And Cole last year was still better McKenzie this year IMHO.

While I get where you are coming from, this is not really close to a fair analysis really though in regards to his 2 games in TB. And he wasn't let go because he was useless, he was Cole was coming off sitting on his couch, played immediately in 2 games out of desperation due to TB injuries to WR's. He was NOT anywhere close to game ready shape. So to judge him this harsh fresh off his couch after not playing any football or practices in 9 months is a bit extreme. Not to mention, he had only 5 targets (caught 4 of them). He didn't even know the playbook or have any rapport yet with Brady, yet still caught 4 of 5 passes and converted a 4th down. Cole's value here is substantially higher than in TB for a number of reasons: He knows the offense, he knows Allen. He can get into better game shape prior to the playoffs if he came in soon. A big part, and its a really big part, of Allens game is off improvising and extending plays. Cole already has that chemistry with Allen and is a VERY cerebral player and can find those soft spots coming back to help Allen when he is extending plays to convert important 3rd downs. There is NO DOUBT that Cole is NOT the same player he once was. BUT...he can still be a contributor here, especially once he gets more of his game ready legs under him. It's not like we cant win the SB this year without him, but he definitely could contribute some, especially on key plays we need to extend drives. I would trust him 100 times more than I would trust McKenzie on say 3rd and 6 on a key drive. McKenzie is an absolute liability catching in traffic, he can not pick up tough yards consistently. So for me...100% I would be open to Cole coming back. Do I think its a must do move? No, of course not, but I do think he can still have some value to this team this year, and the locker room loves him and his toughness. And this team could use some toughness outside Diggs and Allen in the passing game.

Huh? Manning and Luck had weapons, they were both just choke artists.

Were they proven right? Our biggest issue has been Crowder got hurt and injuries on the OL. How many quarters has the starting OL even played together? Meanwhile, we have been decimated by injuries in our secondary and still field one of the top secondaries in the NFL. So I think the investment has worked out in drafting Elam and Benford. I mean its puzzling to me how you keep grossly over looking that our defense being able to hold itself together and limit the opponents enough for us to keep winning games while our offense has had some struggles. And you still on here trolling that the investment into the defense was a mistake despite it being a big reason we have even won 8 games.

Defense has been the weaker unit. Defense has sent us home 2 years in a row in the playoffs.

I would have LOVED to land Elijah Moore

This is definitely what happened. He ran out on the field thinking the play was dead and didn't realize it was still going. It looked like he was down by contact from the bench on the INT, but it wasn't. Once he was on the field you can tell he didn't know what to do.

Bingo. What’s crazy to me is how obvious this is and yet people unrealistically arguing against it.

Is there anything about this team you like? Asking for a friend...

Oh yes, sorry thanks for the correction on that

Thanks, figured it went down some as I don’t think he had but one drop in last 2 games. It was at 17% heading into the Browns game.

I don’t know what his drop rate is today, but a week or two ago he was dropping 17% of his catchable balls on the season and was third in league in total drops, with a catch rate of 54% for his career. I don’t think he was getting a bum rap, his drops cost us drives in games we lost. He also dropped a critical pass on the late drive in the Vikes game the refs missed and Josh quickly snapped the ball to cover up. I was very high on Gabe all off season, I’m still optimistic about him. But I don’t think it’s a “bum rap” when you’re a professional starting WE and dropping 17% of your passes with a career history of low catch rate. He has also made plenty of good plays, he’s not a lost cause or a disaster. But the concerns have been warranted. He also has struggled to win his routes and most often makes catches after breaking off routes to bail Josh out because no one was initially open. As usual, season total stats don’t begin to paint the whole picture

I get that, but the offensive woes in the second half pre date Allens injury by 3 full games. GB, Jets, Vikings (he got hurt on 3rd to last play of game against Vikings). I think it’s more Dorsey than Allen. Yes Allen has made some poor decisions, he’s also been pressing because we aren’t consistently scheming WRs open enough. Dorsey has relied WAY too much on the receivers winning their individual battles rather than scheming plays to get them open the way Daboll did, KC does, etc. I’m not worried about Allen at all, I am worried about Dorsey until I see it on the field though.

Yeah, and seasoned Daboll figured it out. We have a rookie OC who’s not proven he can yet. Dorsey is a concern until he shows he can adjust, which he hasn’t yet. I hold out hope he does, but I’ve yet to see it and the film shows he’s not adjusting to what the defense is showing him. So until I see him do it, I’m going to remain concerned. If Daboll was here, I’d be less concerned.

Im not saying they won’t figure it out. I’m saying stop trying to mask they are struggling because they clearly are. 5 weeks ago during the bye week, Allen was a runaway MVP candidate, would have been unanimous. 4 weeks ago he was tied with Mahomes. 3 weeks ago, he was second to Mahomes. 2 weeks ago he was 4th behind Mahomes, Tua, and Hill. Now he isn’t even mentioned. Why is that? Because Allen and the offense have been struggling. Allen is a stud, easily my favorite player of all time. But remaining unbiased, it’s fair to say he’s been struggling with consistency and so has the offense, even before Allens injury. And going back to last year, we had a very successful and seasoned OC who was here to “figure it out”. Now we have a rookie OC who has not been able to adapt to opposing defense getting film on his offense and figuring out how to disrupt it. He has been terrible in both scheme and play calling in the second half of games as well. There is a lot of professional analysis out there showing the issues with Dorsey’s offense. His inability to find consistency is concerning, especially in his inability to scheme guys open. In fact, that is the absolute biggest issue with this offense right now is getting our receivers open consistently. And that starts with his offense design and scheme. More puzzling is the fast start Devin and the run game get off too frequently, just to see him go away from it in the 2nd half.

You say things “even while struggling” while arguing with anyone suggesting the offense is struggling in multiple threads. The offense is very much struggling, and your cherry picking of stats to mask that won’t change that. I mean it’s not even up for debate. You again are using general stats with no context to make an incorrect conclusion, just like your injury thread you created. Feels like your new favorite thing to do is to use totals without context. For example, while you want to say what we average over a full game, you fail to realize a lot of those points and production have come in the first half the past 5 games with the one exception of the Browns game. We ONLY have 2 TDs in the second half of the past 5 games. We were first in the league in point differential in the second half up through the bye week. We have been one of the worst since then. You dont win football games in the first half or staring at game totals to make the picture look more rosey. You win football games getting the job done to close out games. And we have 1 million percent been struggling in the second half and there is literally no stat you can type to change that. Our offense has not put up a good complete game since Pitt and KC. They either start strong and struggle second half, or they start terrible and move then move the ball second half and get a lot of FGs. So sorry, no disrespect, but just like in your completely off base “injuries are not an excuse thread”, you are again poorly using stat totals with no context to make an incorrect point.

Injuries.

This. This too.

Well said. However, I think Dorsey criticism is warranted. We had a lot of early offensive success under him, and once teams got tape, defenses have found ways to disrupt the offense, especially in the 2nd half after first half adjustments. His tendency to use Devin early with great success then go away from him as the game goes on is also frustrating. I get Dorsey is learning on the job, but that doesn’t change the fact he needs to be better if we are going to beat KC when it matters…in the post season. Not to mention, we still have several tough games on our schedule ahead of us, including 4 challenging divisional games we need to win. If Dorsey can’t find a way to scheme guys open more, our offense isn’t going to return to its efficiency we saw the first part of the season. And he desperately needs to figure out how to be better in the 2nd half of games.

Guess you haven’t watched the past 5 games.