PBF81

I don't disagree, but it is a message board where opinions and fluid talk rule the day. At the same time I'm not so sure that it's worth getting all defensive about. 🙂 Life's too short, eh.

Let's see what actually happens. That may turn out to have been prescient.

That is undeniable, that the "defensive floor is lower with their current lineup." But what is not undeniable is that this defense still has plenty of talent to put out at least a halfway decent defense, which in this era of NFL football is all that's required, per the last two SB winners, providing that a team has a top offense. Which we should, but right now do not, have. To the extent that that "defensive floor is lower with their current lineup," again, that's a Beane issue. The only player that the D should have major issues working around is Milano, but if you've read what I've written, I've warned about this for at least the past two drafts. Now, if I can envision this, the "expert(s)" should easily be able to as well. It's not complicated, but it is a difference of philosophy. I realize I'm merely adding to what you said, but just sayin'. Everyone throwing the towel in on our D is getting old. Make it work to an average D level. If we cannot do that with Oliver, AJE, Groot, Floyd in the front-7, then find someone that can. Bernard's even playing much much better than anticipated. Williams or Dodson may not be, but hey, again, anyone upset over that needs to check with Beane, first, for even drafting Williams, but secondly, for drafting the same exact type of player that Bernard is more relevantly. Perhaps a bigger LB acquired by free-agency as well would have been better insurance. They obviously didn't want that and believed that smaller "faster" LBs that could cover the pass were better. Well, now their theory is being put to the test. If they don't like it, they need to go stand in front of a mirror. OK, great. Then McD needs to work around that. If we don't have what we need and our D goes from top two or three to bottom five, that's a Beane & coaching issue. And if "speed is the difference," then we should be fine. Williams is fast enough.

Doesn't matter what I would have done. Beane's the one in charge. Put the tantrum on hold and send an e-mail to him asking why he preferred the players he's drafted. As a PS in your e-mail to him/them, feel free to ask why the offense is only playing to a fraction of it's potential, and relatedly, if it weren't, does he think that our overall play would be much better. BTW, of anyone on here, I've been vocal now for the past two days to draft a bigger starting LB. So your question to me isn't even a fair one.

The bawling over our situation on D, besides besides lacking serious context, falls on deaf ears when our offense plays to half of its potential.

A lot of people now see McD's issues, which are multiple. The national media is now involved which means that it's going to be difficult for him to hide or use scapegoats. He also can't possibly have more control over this team, reasonably anyway, than he does now. He's got more game-day control over it than most coaches throughout history. All we do is talk about it, nothing we can do one way or the other. Pegula's ultimately going to have to get involved, and as the concern was for giving both McD & Beane extensions beyond this season without first waiting, wisely, for say at least this half season to have passed before making that decision, that risk side of this high-risk decision-making team has also played out. They haven't even entered year one of that extension. If things don't improve, Pegula's going to have a tough decision that risks him looking incompetent. And on that side of the tracks he probably is, judging by some of his past decisions. But here's the thing, he's got PSLs to sell now on top of roughly twice the cost for Tix. Those prices are going to make the current ticket costs look like Dollar General discounts. If he had to sell those with teams from the drought years, ... LOL. If this team starts sliding and becomes more dysfunctional and disarrayed than it already is, good luck to him. Many long-time STHs have already said adios here, and that was assuming that we didn't have the issues we now have. Let's see how the season plays out. I have stated mo several times that I'd rather see us struggle to get a wild-card, get hot then, and win the SB, than to get the #1 seed and pull a typical playoffs McD, losing because our D didn't show up anyway. This crying in our soup about our injuries on D when our offense is running on 5 of 8 cylinders is ridiculous. We can do it with the D that's on the field right now if the offense is properly run, which is presently far from the case. If w keep playing as we are however, we may not even finish with a winning record. It will be interesting from several vantage points as the season goes on as well as afterwards. All we can do now is hope for the best. All that most of us want is one Lombardi! Just one!

Floyd has backed up Von almost identically. Last season we didn't have him. Last season AJE wasn't playing like this. Oliver's playing better this season. Jones wasn't playing anything close to the way he was playing the first few games this season either, ever, in 9 prior seasons. Doubtful he would have kept up that pace. He didn't in 9 seasons otherwise where he was pretty average. White for all intents and purposes hasn't been around since the 2021 season. Milano's a huge loss. Beane doesn't take nearly enough heat for that obvious potential situation. They have exactly what they wanted, a bunch of diminutive LBs that specialize in pass coverage. If they didn't want that, why did they put it together like that. The fact that they (apparently) gave little if any thought to what happens should Milano get hurt is entirely on them. And McD, were keep being told, is some kind of defensive guru, despite fielding an average 17th ranked scoring D over 6 seasons in Carolina. Yes for some reason poor Clappy will be hard pressed to put it all together. 🙂

And in fairness, if he can at least take us to a Super Bowl and win it, or if he loses it, not losing it as a result of a "13 Seconds" or other type of coaching blunder, then great. If not however, then most people are going to appropriately be asking whether he's reached his ceiling as a HC. If we can't make the playoffs, then the question will have answered itself.

Interesting that you say that. It would be foolish to think that McD didn't have a heavy hand in that D. He was a very average DC in Carolina, making it an odds on proposition that it was going to get worse this season. He's bitten off way more than he can chew. Sometimes egos, ambition, and desire for control work against the person behind it.

Have faith. Mention Gabe Davis in a positive light or how some player won't come here because we don't have a dome and see what happens.

Not a good issue to have given the forthcoming schedule. Other than Miami, the highest ranked rushing team we've played is the Giants, who rank 15th in Rushing YPG. It's part of fundamentals, which we don't seem to be particularly good at.

Nearly 29-year old RB whose averaged 4.0 YPA in his career, ... meh. He's got size, might be a Goal Line asset. I'm not quite sure what McBeane have against true 3-down RBs. Having one would certainly add some options on offense.

The Baltimore game is fair, but we wouldn't have made it there w/o going through Indy first, and Baltimore's O was essentially a one-man show. Tennessee and their 24th ranked D held 'em to 20 points the week prior. The Ravens haven't scored more than 20 PPG in the playoffs in any of their 5 playoff games dating back to 2018. So while good, consider the O there. The NE game was another solid D effort, but consider their offense with Mac Jones as a rookie. The overall argument was that we're focusing too much on our defensive injury woes right now. Groot and AJE have come on, Floyd was signed to backup Miller and has done about what Miller did last year through the same number of games. Our LB issues are because of McBeane and that's the way they wanted it. This team should be focused around it's Allen-led offense first and foremost. We've put so many expensive resources into the D, because that's what McD knows, but nowhere near the same level into the offense. The point was also that it's our offense that has determined how far we advance, or in the case of "13 Seconds," simply revealing a cataclysmic failure in the D preventing it. We have the offensive talent to be doing much much better than we are. We obviously, as many of us see it, don't have the right person at the helm of this rig. Otherwise we'd be realizing that offensive powerhouse aspect. I mean seriously, not even 21 PPG over the past four games, ... and we're talking about against the currently 6th, 10th, 23rd, and 26th defenses, not the Ravens, Cowboys, and Niners.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Skylar Thompson, plain and simple, in one of his first few starts, in Buffalo, snow, etc. 412 Yards and 30 1st-Downs in a perfectly balanced offense (240 passing, 172 rushing) vs. Cincy which was also Cincy's best offensive playoff performance under Burrow. 552 & 30 1st-Downs to KC. Two of their biggest three offensive playoff games were against us, and once vs. our vaunted #1 Defense which was the Chiefs best playoff game offensively under Mahomes. So yeah, it was the D. 472 Yards and 27 1st-Downs to a 9th ranked Indy offense led by Rivers and worse WRs than we have after Diggs and Davis, in Indy's only playoff game over the past 4 seasons. "13 Seconds" But if you think that's good, that's fine. I don't. Again, agree to disagree.

Yeah, the schedule is a concern for sure, and things seem to have tightened up behind us this past weekend. Maybe I'm still in a state of thinking that we cannot possibly continue to play this poorly over our last nine and that given the talent we have on O that we'll shake this funk. The AFC North is worth keeping an eye on in that regard.

Maybe McD will give Peterman another shot at it. He probably still believes that Peterman can give a team the best chance to win. This was a great idea Joel! Where else can you get a cup of hot chocolate for $4.

All that "Vegas" is, is the trending opinion. Until the heavy money gets lopsided anyway.

OK, forget it then. Focus on the other four wins which are even less impressive. (Shrug) You don't think we'll end up with a wild-card even?

I'm not expecting it. At the same time, the game hasn't been played yet. You know my take, it hasn't changed. In fact, it's playing out right on schedule. McD has enough rope to hang himself with and he seems to be doing just that. Whether he switches this season or not is on him. This is the season that the fence-sitters for McD are going to fall to one of the other side. It seems clear where that's headed, but who knows, maybe he'll have an epiphany or something. We should have been an offense-centric team the past four seasons. Our D, while impressive during the regular season, has absolutely sucked in the playoffs. I have no idea why everyone is harping on it as if without it our playoff success chances are limited. Our offense has had to overcome our defense in all but one playoff game under McD in the past three seasons. Or offense has no significant injuries. Play ball!

BTW, I'll put it another way. Also, I couldn't care less if I'm mocked or end up being wrong. That's not why I'm here. I do my best to think my takes out, and when I am wrong I don't mind owning up to it. Anyway, last season when we had a negative TO ratio, i.e., when we were on the short end of TOs, we were 9-4. This season to date, we're 2-3. Not sure there's a lot of optimism that we'll go 7-1 in games where we're on the short end this season so far should it come to that. Make more sense now?

Burrow seems to be healed. All eyes on McD to see what he has up his sleeve, if anything. The ball's in his court.

Not at all. I thought the point was clear. Maybe it wasn't. I'll restate. The only win against a decent team was against Miami. It was a two possession game until Mostert fumbled giving us a FG just before the half to put us up by 17. Say he doesn't fumble, and they go down and kick a FG before the half instead. Hardly unreasonable given the way we've played in pretty much every other game since that one. We're up by 11 rather than 17 at the half. Suppose Tua doesn't throw that pick in the mid-3rd that we converted to a TD already in FG range. Suppose they drive down and get a FG or perhaps even a TD. Instead of us being up by 21, we're up by 11 or even only 7 at that point and it's a completely different game. That's what those 2 TOs did for us. I don't think it was wrong, simply putting the perspective of those TOs in there. There's absolutely nothing in our play dossier since then that screams out once we're up by 7-10 the game's in hand. LOL If people have a different perspective, great. It's not mine. And given that that emotionally hyped game, common for us early in the season, was our only solid game over an opponent that's even going to sniff the playoffs much less making them, to me it's relevant. Not sure how else to put it. TOs, and there shouldn't be any disagreement, are not something that can be counted on for winning games. "Creating TOs" is obviously good. But if I were to tell you at the beginning of the season that we'd only win games when we have a + TO margin, how confident would you be in our record? Either way, great, so let's agree that it's wrong. It's still way way way out of the context of the original point. Let's see if McD can deliver anything even close to what came out of the tunnel for the Miami game. Many will be pleasantly surprised if that's the case. But we'll have to start winning games without the assistance of TOs at some point if we expect to do anything in the playoffs.

Their issues appear to be re: their offense though, they don't have a ton of injuries there. Aiyuk and Kittle are still great receiving options.

Burrow was 28-32. I suppose there's always hope that they spent some of themselves on today's win. Either way, McD will have had 10 days to have the team prepared. They'd better hit the field looking the part. How'd the Bengal OL look? Did you watch the game? Niners have a formidable Front 7.

Well great, then, I guess we can expect our last 9 games to reflect that one then. Looks like we're headed for 9-0 the last half. LOL Honestly, the things that get nitpicked. We beat four siht teams, and Miami, a huge rival that we've owned anyway, after getting up for the game as if it's the Super Bowl for us (HINT: could be part of our/McD's problem), lose to two other teams that are 3-3 and 2-5, while having played the second easiest schedule in the league up to now, and people take issue with a game in which we got 2 TOs giving us the ball at the MIami 31 and 25 yard lines for 10 points, the second of which only, put the game away late in the 3rd. Seems to me that without those it's an 11 point game with 20 minutes or so remaining. But hey, what do I know. Let's see if we can match that effort even once more this season. Counting on it appears to be foolish however given the fact that we seem to have hit steady-state performance and opponents have deciphered McD's genius Ds with Dorsey's Offenses putting up an average of fewer than 21 points per game the last four games.