PBF81

Can't the same argument be extrapolated to McD as well? Seems as if the obvious answer to that is yes. If McD didn't have Allen he'd be mimicking Belichick in NE sans Brady.

Last season we lost White, Hyde, and Miller, and Poyer was injured and still went 13-3 and won the division. Our OL was not what it is now, we didn't have Kincaid or Harris. Dorsey's in his second season. Patience.

Yes, I realize that you didn't think it was overrated. I said that I suggested the likely possibility that it was. I don't expect you or anyone to agree. The rest sounds like a Beane problem. When your team is all but entirely reliant upon two or three players, in this case Jones, Milano, White, and a nickel back, for a drop from near 1st in D ranking to as you suggest above, "bottom or very close to bottom," then it's gotta be a GM issue. Especially when you consider that we were without White for most of last season, Hyde for all of it, Poyer limited, and otherwise hardly without any key injuries despite the one overlapping one of White.

You raised an interesting proposition. I have no immediate thoughts on this, but here are our 1st-Down plays from today. FWIW ... 1: Cook right guard for 5 2: Cook right guard for -1 3: Allen incomplete short right 4: Allen complete to Knox for 1 on 1st-and-10 -------- 5: Allen short right to Diggs for 15 on 1st-and-10 6: Allen short left to Davis for 9 on 1st-and-10 7: Allen incomplete short right to Diggs 8: Allen short middle to Cook for 18 on 1st-and-10 9: Allen 7-yard scramble on 1st-and-10 10: Allen short right to Diggs for 6 on 1st-and-10 11: Allen short right to Diggs for 15/TD on 1st-and-10 -------- 12: Allen short right to Diggs for 14 yards on 1st-and-10 13: Cook RT for no gain 14: Allen deep to Diggs for 48 yards on 1st-and-10 15: Allen short right to Cook for no gain on 1st-and-10 -------- 16: Allen short middle to Kincaid on 1st-and-10 17: Harris RG for 5 yards on 1st-and-10 18: Allen deep right to Davis for 24 on 1st-and-20 19: Allen short left to Knox for 11 on 1st-and-20 20: Allen short left to Sherfield for 3 on 1st-and-10 21: Cook UTM for -2 on 1st-and-10 22: Allen incomplete short right to Diggs on 1st-and-Goal at the 9 23: Allen deep left to Harty for 43 on 1st-and-10 24: Allen deep left to Davis for 29 on 1st-and-10 25: Allen incomplete on a throwaway 26: Allen deep right to Diggs for 16 on 1st-and-10, Diggs fumbled

It's not as if we got blown out, it's quite feasible that that little advantage for the Jags was more than enough to account for our performance vs. theirs.

Drive 1 ended on a short incompletion to Cook. Drive 2 ended on a 5-yard pass to Kincaid on 3rd-and-6. Drive 3 ended on a short incompletion to Knox. Drive 4 ended on 1-yard pass to Murray on 3rd-and-7. Drive 5 resulted in a TD to Diggs. Drive 6 ended on an Allen throwaway incompletion. Drive 7 ended on a deep incompletion to Knox. Drive 8 ended on an INT intended for Diggs. Drive 9 resulted in a TD to Davis. Drive 10 resulted in an Allen TD run. Drive 11 ended on a Diggs' fumble. On our scoring drives, here is the total breakdown by player: Murray: 2 carries for 6 yards Harty: 2 catches for 62 yards Cook: 2 catches for 25 yards, 1 run for -2 yards Allen: 3 runs for 15 yards and 1 TD Diggs: 3 catches for 29 yards and 1 TD Davis: 4 catches for 82 yards and 1 TD Knox: 1 catch for 11 yards Sherfield: 1 catch for 3 yards Shakir: 1 catch for 11 yards FWIW

LOL It's funny because it's true. ... come on be happy! I'd like to know what page they are on.

Yeah, saw that. But my point is that other teams suffer significant injuries and still play well because they're well-coached. I have no idea what's going to happen going forward, but if it does completely fall apart, many will excuse McD completely, but IMO that's not reasonable. We also shouldn't need a top-5 D to win it all. None of the recent SB winners have.

I realize that. My point is that our D clearly wasn't as good with Milano out. I wasn't paying attention to who was playing the LB positions, and I do note that I saw some numbers that I wasn't familiar with, aka depth players. My point is entirely that it was risky entering the season with only Milano as a standout LB. Yeah, Bernard had a good game, I thought that Williams played admirably from what I caught as well. Again, I don't know why, but allowin nearly 200 rushing yards is a problem. I haven't looked at why yet, not sure I'm going to. Time consuming and it is what it is. I'm focused on the offense this season. I don't care how good our D is, or conversely isn't, IMO that's not what's going to determine our record or our chances in the playoffs. I obviously don't speak for everyone, you know that my take is that our defense has failed us in the playoffs and that IMO we'll have a record-setting offense this season. I still stand by that. I know your take, if I suggested otherwise it wasn't deliberate. Well, last week we had everyone and still allowed nearly 400 net yards. Again, w/o the key TOs last week,that game is much tighter. But let's not leap-frog what IMO is the point to all of this, IMO we overrated our defense based upon our play vs. Wilson/Jets' O, Garropalo/Raider's O, and Howell/Skins' O. Everyone pointed out about our Point Differential, while I pointed out that we've allowed over 100 yards per game more than last season through four games, which IMO was significant given the sentence prior to this one. As it now stands, last season we allowed an average of 240 YPG while this season we're allowing 325 YPG, last season through 5 games, 61 points, this season, 80 points. A little of that may have to do with today's game, but hardly all of it. My point is not necessarily that this D is worse than last season's D, but that last week everyone was arguing that hands down "McD's D was better than Frazier's." I didn't necessarily see that either. But by the same standard, what, in one week it went from better to worse? ... just playing devil's advocate here for the forum.

LOL, you'd make a great politician.

Chiefs losing Kelce is worse for them than us losing Milano. Our season is going to only be as good as our offense is this season. The offense will be fine.

He seemed off today. He had only 2 passing TDs. Playing the way he did last week, IMO we score 38+. He wasn't bad, not at all, just seemed off. I mean 116 1st half passing yards and 7 1st-Downs? You gonna try and tell us all that was good now too? ... BTW, go through the gameday thread, others saying it as well. My wife, who covers sports for a living, said the same as did two fellow fans that I was texting with during the game.

Agree for the most part. As to the first part, not having the horses, we had AJE who played a career game, Oliver, and Floyd, our LBs after the undersized Williams and Dodson as you mention are not meant to anchor an entire LB unit. I'm sure you'll recall my statements over the past few months as to if Milano got hurt we'd be screwed entirely at LB. Well, that day has arrived. Milano covered some weaknesses in the unit to be sure. But here's the thing, if we're not happy, this has to be on Beane. IMO there's enough there to piece together an average D if one knows what they're doing. Miller will be back full in a week or two, ... presumably. But also, we're hardly the only team to have injuries, and like other teams that sustain significant ones, we'll simply have to deal with it. We can't cry in our soup over ours but neglect the fact that other teams deal with them expectedly too. While I was watching the game I kept thinking to myself, please please please no OL-men injured. Our offense is intact. Allen had a pocket today that I don't recall having seen in the past several seasons. You know my belief, that it's the offense that's going to carry this team. And while Jax has a decent D, it's not so good that it should have held us to 20 points. It seems that the biggest issue was that Allen seemed tired and out of it. If he's on as he typically is, then we probably win that game. As to the sports science, I have no idea what transpired over the week re: "sports science," all I know is what I read today, so I have no idea what's going on re: SS and the team, but common sense would dictate what you said as well, not sure why science is needed. And it would have been prudent to have erred on the side of more days than not enough. Agree on the penalties, in fact those are the ones that I'd have pointed out as well. A few less egregious but going both ways otherwise. But in the example of RTP on Jags' Allen, I mean what's he supposed to do, or any D player in those situations, remove his head. LOL Ahhh, it is what it is. I'm most concerned about allowing nearly 500 net yards to a team led by the likes of Ridley, Kirk, and Engram on the receiving end. They're all very good players but none are superlative or even close. Engram's a good but far from great TE. The LB unit's going to be a problem, but for exactly the reasons I'd warned about as you realize. We play a very unconventional form of defense, regularly, that I don't see any other teams employing. Not saying that there isn't one, just saying I haven't see one. But it was also predicated heavily upon Milano. The flip side, as I've pointed out, is that defense typically fails us come playoff time, so as long as the offense can optimize itself, and we did not do that today, then we should be fine. At present though we're leaning more and towards perhaps a 10-7 finish, a WC seed, and having to get hot offensively, on the road, in the playoffs. We'll see what happens, but we're 2-2 Conference now and in a four-way tie for 1-1 division. We should beat the Jets at home and I'd be stunned if we don't take two from NE, so it may very well come down to whether or not we can beat @ Miami for the division. Given the injury developments I'm guessing that they're a better bet to win the division at this point

Love it!

White's been out most of last season, most of last week and today. We were fine w/o him. Yes, he's elite, but he hasn't been around for a year. Milano was the best defensive player on the team, no doubt. But if there's one thing that we don't lack, it's depth.

Agree, but common sense too. ... except for someone that's never traveled outside of a few time zones I suppose. But we don't lack that cognizance at OBD.

This season was going to go as the offense went anyway. Our D has been entirely unreliable under McD once playoffs arrive.

The D players didn't look like zombies, neither did Diggs or Davis. Allen definitely did. Not sure you caught the video clip of them doing a presser shortlyl after arriving where he says that he's tired. I didn't know that was on Friday, I figured that they got there on Wed, Thurs at the latest. I really would like to know who's decison that was. I have difficulty believing that McD didn't have a major hand in it. It's his team.

No, it didn't, but that also wasn't the primary reason for it. Here's some game data; Us: 40 passing plays, 14 rushing plays Jags: 42 passing plays, 40 rushing plays And, Allen wasn't sacked once whereas Lawrence was sacked 5 times, all but once on drives that went scoreless. And we were never so far behind so as not to be able to run. It is what it is. IMO the last two games, and the only two games we've played to date against playoff caliber opponents, were anything but defensive masterpieces, contrary to the predominant narrative here. I'm guessing that the ranking of our yardage defense is going to drop out of the top-10 this week and won't ever get back much into the top-10. Could be a problem going forward.

Yeah, getting there less than 48 hours prior to game time, ... who made that decision. SMH

Well, then McD had better figure something out then. He's far from the only one with injuries in the league. I'm pretty sure that lesser talented teams won't give up 500 yards and 25 points and 29 1st-Downs today.

I posted what you said, exactly what you said, who you included, did not include, and then your subsequent remarks about the 2nd half performances of both. Either way, you're right then. Davis didn't play with fire then. Eyes of the beholder.

Yes, that's correct. I followed somewhat along in the GDT. Most of the penalties were good calls, granted, voluminous. The refs missed a few going both ways, arguably worse for us. A handful could have gone either way. But still, more problematic was allowing 511 total yards and 474 net yards, apart from penalty yardage, is problematic. So far in our only games against two very balanced offenses with good QBs we've allowed an average of 462 total yards and 433 net yards. That seems problematic. As others have mentioned, I'm not sure that flying out two days ahead of time was wise. Seems to me that the latest you'd want to fly out for that would be Thursday. It seems that coaching hasn't been discussed much.

Here's what I'm talking about. 2nd Half: (which you just cliamed) Diggs: 4 catches for 82 yards with 0 TDs 62 of those yards on non-scoring drives having nothing to do with Davis. One 1st-Down otherwise. Davis: 3 catches for 72 yards and 1 TD Davis had 43 of the 75 net yards on our scoring drive while catching the TD to pull us within 5. AFTER THAT, Diggs fumbled the ball on his only catch, and Davis added 29 yards on 1st-and-10 to set up Allen's TD run, ... after our marvelous D gave up 75 yards, featuring 43 yards by Etienne up-the-middle, to put the Jags up by 12. Davis 29-yard catch on the next drive set up Allen's TD run. So again, spin away, but there's no way on earth that Diggs outplayed Davis in the 2nd half. In fact, had Diggs done what Davis did in the 2nd half, we'd have won. I'm far from trying to implicate Diggs here, but your original point was exactly this; ... which is nonsense without Davis in there. But then arguing as you have, ... SMH And for the love of football, why all the outright hate for Davis, a player that has 4 TDs on the season and numerous 1st-Downs contributing to other scores and keeping drives alive, typically on deep throws on "... and long's." SMH Honestly, time for another whipping boy. Meanwhile, in allowing nearly 500 yards, actual yards, not penalty yards, McD gets a pass and everyone considers his D better than Frazier's despite his giving up well over 100 more YPG than Frazier ever did through five games in either of his last two seasons here. It's mystefying.

You excluded Davis from having "played with fire" or however you defined it, then argued with me when I pointed out that he had a great game and actually contributed more to scoring than anyone else on the team today, and frankly, all season. Besides Allen that is. "Played with fire," not showing up, ... semantics. Davis posted a very solid game without contributing to any TOs. That's more than can be said for any other player on offense today. Let's call this.