PBF81

He's only been sacked 9 times though, Zappe once more for 10 total. They tank 7th in Sack%, 2 behind us at 5th, and they tank 8th in attempts. Nothing's impossible, but incredibly unlikely, no? The worst Sack% teams on our schedule are the Raiders (22nd), Jets (23rd), the Broncos (26th), the Skins (31st), and the Giants (32nd).

Of course, but here's the point, say we got 51, and I suspect we'll do a little better, but say it's 51, that's 30 for the remaining dozen games, or an average of 2.5 here on out. ... and if half or so of those are against Zach Wilson, Russell Wilson, and Jones for example ... Or five sacks against Jax, they still put up 500 yards and 25 points. The point is, don't extrapolate season, AKA playoff success, by limited superficial stats. Some stats depicting trends and patterns without requiring the shattering of records are more relevant at the moment. Exactly!! Injuries are quite often a reason as too why records are not shattered. From where I sit, it injuries are not isolated from our style of play on D, namely fast and furious.

BTW, a great example of law-of-averages stuff is the sacks we've been discussing. Presently, Howell's been sacked 29 times and Jones 28. That could lead someone to conclude that played out all season at that rate, they'd finish with 98 and 95 sacks respectively. That's incredibly unlikley to occur however. The QB with the most ever sacks in a season had 76. Only one other had in the 70s, 72. The next 7 QBs in the 60s. After that, in the 50s on downward. But think about it, let's suppose one of the two sets a new record, it likely wouldn't be by much. Say 75. That'd be just under 4 sacks/game sustained on average from here on out, about 2 fewer per game than they've allowed to date now.

Both have 19 targets. Package deal then. Curious how many think I'm serious. LOL

We can trade him for Kincaid. We don't use him.

LOL, you're not supposed to leave it hanging out of your pocket. I have tac fatigues that I wear and there's no way I can get pickpocketed in those. Also, a waist belt for under one's shirt, or a lanyard for under one's shirt. There are a bunch of safeguards. We've always kept ours with us except with friends or relatives. To each his own I suppose. If you leave it with the front desk hotel safe, then be sure to get a receipt for exactly what you left with them and when.

All valid points. I just threw the sack metric in as a comp. Looking at all the games, 9 of our 21 sacks were against Howell and the Skins. 12 otherwise in the other four games. 3 per. FWIW We'll see how they do going forward. I expect a blowout on Sunday. The two most sacked QBs in the game today are Jones and Howell, 28 and 29 respectively. 3rd is Fields with 20. LOL It's looking like Taylor will get the start, but he has a 9.3 career Sack%, so with the Giants OL it doesn't appear as if he'll be much better than Jones, who's also mobile. We'll see. We need a couple of games to retrack, let injuries heal, and let the next-men-up acquaint themselves with starting. The Giants and @ NE should be just what the doctor ordered. I suspect that Kyle Allen will get some 4th Q mop-up action in both.

And while traveling abroad, one's passport should always be on their person as well. Is it the team's choice? Why would any team volunteer one of their home games to play anywhere but ... well, home? Even a road game should be refused.

This week will be a good game to pull ourselves together and retrack. Along with Howell, Jones was the most sacked QB in the league. It's my understanding that he's not playing, but there's a reason for the sacks besides simply Jones, so even with Taylor, or whomever they're starting if not him, and given our offense against their low-end passing defense we should be fine.

Agree with your entire post for the most part. Particularly that we've covered just about everything. LOL On this point however, also keep in mind, and you know this so simply preaching to the choir presumably, but it typically takes 5 or 6 games, and often until a capable opposing coordinator faces a team with a new HC or coordinator, to figure out and possible "solve" their offensive or defensive schemes. It's happened time and time again over the years. I pointed out in another thread just now how that's likely why Daboll's Giants started 6-1 and 7-2 last season but have gone 4-10 since. IMO that's what happened on Sunday. Press Taylor (and Pederson) figured out our D and as you say, took advantage of its weaknesses. The problem is that the teams that generally will do that, are the ones that we need to be able to beat to win a championship. Teams with good offenses and competent OCs will now use Sunday's video and info to gameplan against us. We'll see how it shakes out. Speaking of Daboll's Giants, LOL, the nice thing for us is that we should be able to beat them even if Josh didn't suit up an Kyle took his place. Home game for us, hopefully Kyle ends up playing the second half, or most of it.

Scent of a Woman Either that or you're thinking of Elaine Benes.

Well, there are other commonalities in our 3 wins. The one that sticks out most to me is that we've had TO margins of +2, +3, and +4 in our three wins. I forget which season it was, maybe 2004, where everyone thought that we were better than we were, but where the reality was that we won most of our games due to significant TO margin advantages. TOs are great obviously, but they cannot be relied upon as a construct or strategy for winning. Just sayin'.

Couldn't we say the same thing in reverse about our defensive play? I mean I'm in the process of going through sack by sack for every player in every game and circumstance, and the first game that I looked at stood out, our four sacks against Tua were all against him when the game was well in hand, all with us leading by 17, 21, 28, and 28, in three of the four cases in desperation situations. Do we discount those too then? You ask a good question, but doesn't the answer to it apply across the board on both sides for all teams, despite perhaps not equally but plus or minus, it's hardly anything that's unique to us. Here's the thing, if we're going to scrutinize that there, then how about our two biggest rushing fail games, 172 v. the Jets and 196 v. the Jags? We didn't have our backups in for those games, other than for injury, and in the Jags game. It's a good question the answer to which isn't unique to us in the rankings. About our D generally though, we apply a lot of pressure on D. That's McD's MO. The problem with that is that once teams start identifying your methodology, as Jax just did, then they start adjusting and taking advantage of those things, which is why new coaches or coordinators have an advantage in their first season, which for example might explain why Daboll came out of the gates strong last season starting 6-1 and 7-2, but then correspondingly why he's gone 4-10 since. Another problem with it is that you rely on big plays defensively, but then you also risk big plays going the other way, which is what we've seen with no shortage this season.

Bledsoe was awful in the playoffs, the Pats made the SB despite him. Have you looked at his playoff performances? His highest rated playoff game, of 6 starts, was 72.3. His totals in the three playoff games in the season that you mention were 59 of 105, for 595 Yards, 3 TDs, 7 INTs for an overall passer rating in those playoffs of 54.3. Here's the link to his playoff performances; https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BledDr00/gamelog/post/ He had 4 INTs in that Super Bowl, I think three drives ended on sacks and what, five more drives ending on incompletions? I made a ton of money in that game wagering all of my Pats fan sucker friends. LOL

And 393 Yards of offense, and 142 rushing? I think we were talking about the rushing D as well, which isn't good nor has been this season. We typically start strong and get up for a couple of early home games. We'll see how things shake out as the season wears on.

It's only going to get worse. McD seems to have thrown his hands up re: any impact on the offense or helping Dorsey out. I'm not even sure he's capable. Defensively, the Jags seemed to have been the first team to have figured McD's D schemes out. It typically takes about that, 5 or 6 games before the better HCs and coordinators figure new Ds & Os out. That appears to be the case here. Should be interesting going forward.

It is true. Don't forget that Bledsoe is one of the absolute worst playoff QBs of all time. Brady was the anti-Bledsoe in that way. Also, BB's defenses were much better back then. His defenses were pretty solid until around 2010 when they started getting very inconsistent and somewhat dicey. Also, imagine what it's like to play 6 games every season with the likes of the QBs that we, the Jets, and Fins had for 20 years. Honestly, not a ringer in the bunch.

Yeah, maybe. Mayfield's only played us once but he had a great game and won. I just looked, Tampa seems to be struggling to put up points, but their "no name" D seems to be playing well.

Etienne ripped us a new one all game. Here's the thing, those big plays happen because we're trying to make big-plays on D but guess incorrectly.

It's interesing that you mention that. I meant to say it earlier, but yes, this defense is a big-play defense, but that's typically a double-edged sword, which people/fans don't often recognize. It's also why it's worked much better against Wilson/Jets, Howell/Skins, and Garropalo/Raiders and less so against Tua & Lawrence, with articles about the Jags/Lawrence talking about how they took advantage of our pass-rush. That's good coaching and Press Taylor's an OC that I have my eye on for becoming a HC. We'll see how his season develops. As to sacks and TOs, I've been saying for years, 20+ years, that they really need to track Sack-Success rates. By that I mean how many sacks end the drive. For example, suppose you log a sack on 1st-and-10, ... good for the team and a sack stat for the player. But if on 2nd-and-18 or subsequent to that the opponent gets a 1st-down, the sack was more or less for naught. It really didn't matter in the grand scheme. I've seen nowhere that keeps this. I'll start tracking it for us. Who knows, maybe 90% of ours end drives, I have no idea one way or the other, but the point is that sacks on their own merit, while they look good in the stats, for both player and team, unless it contributed to shutting down the offense they're all but irrelevant. Same for when they're logged on us. Two way street there too. Anyway, I'll go thru them and log them later tonight and see what's up, perhaps it'll give us a little bit more insight. BTW, I used to say that teams that live by the big play also die by the big play.

That YPA was notably worse prior to our injuries this week. We also rank 25th in rushing yards allowed. That's the problem with selective use of video to illustrate points. Bernard's been a pleasant surprise and the liability that he could have been. The issue is our D overall. It's very high-energy, and IMO contributing to the injury situation. It's built to stop the pass, which it's done nicely, but largely against Wilson, Garropalo, and Howard. Tua and Lawrence played alright, particularly considering that their OCs led them to a combined 338 rushing yards, or 169 rushing YPG against us. So it seems that some caution is advised. Meanwhile, Miami, seemingly a defense with less talent than us, is right there with us in the defensive rankings, yet with a somewhat better rushing defense, particularly the past four weeks.

Yeah, agree with that for the most part. I said prior to the season to expect our D to be middling this season, largely due to our rushing D, which hasn't been good all season really, not merely after the points in the game that Milano and Jones got hurt. I only see it getting worse now, but now the excuse to bail out coaching will be the injuries. In another thread I mentioned that it's quite likely, and per your comment above about players being winded, that this crazy high-energy scheme that we deploy could easily be factoring into our injuries as well. And no, it doesn't mean we suck, but offensively we are without question not getting the most from the configuration of talent that we do have, which befalls nothing other than coaching, which should be a simple concept. The fact that for the time being our pass defense is playing well is good, considering that it's a passing league more than running. But that's not to say that teams, like us, cannot be beat by our opponents running the ball effectively as they have now in at least three of our five games. We'll see what happens. But for me the most frustrating thing is watching our offense not effectively utilized Kincaid or even some of the other players, over-relying on Diggs, and generally getting less from more there. We should be able to beat the Giants with Kyle Allen starting if necessary though. The next three weeks should easily be wins, even with whatever woes anyone sees us as having, none of the teams that we face over the next three weeks are any better than we are right now.

Well there's an odds-on statement if there ever was one. Dallas isn't winning one either. So there. Just horsin' with ya. Our playoff performance will hinge upon our offense, which apparently hinges on coaching, which brings up questions. I was hopeful at the beginning of the season that our offense would be prolific, and it's still on pace to set a franchise record for Points Scored. We're on pace for 540, our prior team best is 501 in 2020. But I see coaching as holding us back, and the underutilization of our offensive talent, like Kincaid primarily, and last year Hines for example, tells me that Dorsey is the one holding this offense back, not particularly from ranking 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, but from being much better than it is and particularly in key situations, most of which have been discussed here frequently. It's also indicative that the other players aren't always being optimally used. McD appears to be neutered to do anything regarding the offense, which is also problematic. The defense, seemingly by design, still has great passing D potential and plenty of above-average coverage players and even pass-rushers, even at LB where Bernard and Williams both came into the league with high-end coverage skills. But ignoring our 31st YPC and 25 YPG defensive rushing rankings is a mistake. So far four teams have rushed for over 100 on us, last season only 6 did all season long besides Cincy in the playoffs. Last season only five ran against us for over 140, this season already three have. We also don't play the same set on D, I'm not sure what we play the most, but the players in in the varying spots gets confusing for that reason. It seems to have worked re: our passing game, but our rushing game is suspect. It'll be interesting to see how opposing offenses take on our McD's D now that video has become available for them to prepare by.

Teams are already averaging 5.8 YPC (31st) against us, and 134 YPG. (25th)