HappyDays

Yeah week 1 I almost want to just flush because every single player other than Oliver put out a career-worst type of performance. But I said at the time it is on Babich to have his guys prepared and he didn't. I criticized some of Leslie Frazier's predictable scheme and play calling against playoff opponents, but he had his guys playing like synchronized swimmers. The all-22 on some of those regular season performances was beautiful to watch back. Watching this defense back you frequently see a couple defenders frantically waving their arms or pointing all over the place as the ball is being snapped. Entire gaps are abandoned. After pass completions you see coverage defenders looking around like they were expecting help that never came. We went from Swan Lake to the Truffle Shuffle. It's very frustrating and I don't have any confidence that Babich can fix it.

Yeah and more specifically it is built to play with a lead. An underrated problem the past two games is that the offense has stalled out after early success. When we have an opportunity to force the opponent into chase mode, we aren't delivering. I don't mean that as an excuse for the defense but our offense is too good to have a sequence where 4 out of 5 consecutive drives end with no points, especially against a bottom tier defense like New Orleans. And when you let an inferior opponent hang around for too long they can continue to use their whole playbook and eventually cracks will start to show in the defense.

It's no coincidence that our run defense looked great against NJ, then Milano got injured and we suddenly became a league-worst run defense. The DTs getting washed out of the play is responsible for some of the short yardage conversions, and I can live with that, but the chunk yardage runs are primarily happening because the 2nd and 3rd levels are out of position IMO. Given the level of experience at those position groups that's the more disappointing problem.

Couldn't agree more. Against the Saints Williams got 84% of snaps and Thompson got 16%... That needs to be flipped. I thought I saw Thompson getting more run later in the game though so hopefully that means the coaching staff is going to make the switch permanently.

I don't really pin this on the DTs. Dorian Williams is totally lost on this play. And having watched much of the defense back on all-22 he was lost for the entire game. So many big plays can be directly attributed to his errors. It's his 3rd year and the light hasn't come on, I think we can safely say he is never going to live up to his athletic upside.

Really sucks for the Ravens because this was supposed to be their all in year. In 2026 the following players become FAs: Mark Andrews, DeAndre Hopkins, Tyler Linderbaum, Kyle Van Noy, Patrick Ricard, Odafe Oweh, Travis Jones, Daniel Faalele, Isaiah Likely... I mean these are all starters. They have $53M in cap space but they're going to have some tough choices to make.

I don't know, they really could fall out of the playoffs entirely at this point. Especially if Lamar is banged up they could easily lose their next 2 games to Houston and LA Rams, and 1-5 just feels too far behind to catch up.

Madubuike officially out for the year: The way Harbaugh talks about it in the 2nd video makes me wonder if it is a possible career ending injury. Shades of Micah Hyde.

Here's 3 plays where Kamara gets around Bosa on the edge. Doesn't look like any of them are his fault, at least the first 2: 1st one is zone read, Bosa is the conflict defender and is going to be wrong no matter what. Looks to me like Dorian Williams does his usual bit of biting on all of the eye candy and pulls himself way out of the play. 2nd play is identical. This time it is Bernard biting on the eye candy although at least he didn't wash himself totally out of the play like Williams did on the 1st play. 3rd play I'm not sure if Williams or Bosa are wrong. Bosa crashes inside but Williams takes the same gap (notice that he ends up practically stepping on Bosa's feet) which leaves nobody outside to string Kamara to the sideline. Gap responsibility again is what killed us in the run game. Babich needs to get it figured out. It's more excusable in week 1 but we're through the first quarter of the season now and still seeing the same issues. These are not plays where their blockers beat our defenders 1v1, we are just out of position and making it way too easy for them.

I've criticized Van Demark a few times, so I feel obligated to point out that his overall game apparently was much better than it seemed live. He lost a couple pass protection reps but apparently was excellent as a run defender: PFF reinforces this - they gave Van Demark the 2nd highest grade on offense for this game. Overall rating of 79.0, 68.6 in pass blocking and 82.0 in run blocking.

We didn't bring him here to play contain, we brought him here to rush the passer which he's done. Babich needs to be aware of his skill set and stop leaving him on an island. It was shocking the number of outside runs where Bosa was the only player in the way of Kamara picking up chunk yardage. That is just not putting him in any kind of position to succeed. Yeah Van Demark missed his block. But you don't call that play unless you know the RT can execute the pull. Again this comes down to coaching putting their players in a position to succeed. And even if it was Spencer Brown I still would have hated that play call. That series featured three straight plays where neither Allen or Cook touched the ball. That's a gift to the opponent. Sanders popped a bit today as well. Nothing that shows up on the stat sheet but he had a couple quick wins that impacted the play. He is definitely still figuring it out and is behind Walker in his development, but I'm glad they're letting him get the reps now and not pulling him for like Jordan Phillips. When Oliver comes back healthy I get pretty excited about what that group could look like. Hopefully Hoecht gives us some legit pass rush ability because that spot opposite of Bosa has been practically non-existent through 4 weeks.

Games like this kind of bore me. Just horrid defense on both sides.

Yeah it was the game for Dallas because it ensured their putrid defense would give up a TD quick enough for their offense to have a chance. But they may have left too much time themselves. We'll see.

Dallas made Russell Wilson look like an all-pro and this is the best Jordan Love can do?

In the first 3 games we gave up TDs on 71.43% of red zone trips which ranks 27th in the NFL... Then today we gave up 2 TDs on 4 RZ trips but one of those stops only happened because Rattler threw a horrible ball on 3rd down. That's not exactly "clamping it." Bend don't break doesn't work when they, you know, break. The defensive metrics look okay, like yards per play we are 15th, yards per game we are 10th. But situationally it has been a bad defense. All the metrics don't really matter when you are bad on 3rd downs and in the red zone. Because those plays are what decide drives and game scripts.

Probably true but that defense is going to continue to be a real problem. They were down 6 defensive starters by the end of this game, and key starters at that. They'll get a couple guys back I'm sure but that's a lot of holes to make up for.

Looks like the Rams will hold on and that puts us as the last undefeated team in the AFC.

Lmao He had Andrews wide open on the left. That is hilarious.

Andy Reid is the best in the business at putting defenders in conflict. It's been every pass on this drive.

I will say the KC run offense mostly stinks, but they get 2 yards whenever they need it. Not a lot of great plays but also no negative yardage.

Would be absolutely hilarious if at the end of the season the #1 seed comes down to Adonai Mitchell letting go of the ball 1 yard too early.

I understand Baltimore's pass rush being weak with the injuries they have, but the 2nd and 3rd levels are too talented to have so many breakdowns in coverage. This is turning into an embarrassing loss and it makes you wonder if their season will go completely off the rails.

??? Last year Tua, Russell Wilson, and Brock Purdy had a better passer rating than Mahomes so that means they threw the ball better than him? Nobody really pays attention to passer rating anymore.

Okay then we need 4 pro bowlers and 3 1st all-pros for his defense to be championship caliber... Do you see that anywhere in the near future? Or we can just score 40 PPG and steamroll our way to a championship. Personally I felt that that was within reach. I'm polluting this thread though so that will be my last on that particular subject.

Yeah for sure. Do we have enough on offense to win that way? I don't think we do against a Spags coached defense.