AZ54

Much is made of leg strength but I wonder if it's not core strength that really matters. Core strength keeps your body from twisting on impact and allows you to transfer force from the lower body.

I understand the whole synergy thing but no matter what job we’re talking about there is a basic level of competency needed from the individuals in that team to reap those benefits.

Play calling does not help improve 1v1 blocking. It can be used to mask deficiencies but doing that hinders offensive production. Caleb getting the ball out on time will reduce sacks but I also don’t want him thinking the ball has to be out within 2 sec on every play.

On Wed Ben said the lack of TE usage is on him. He said he’ll work on changing that. I still think our play sheet is limited as the players are getting comfortable with the offense. It’s easier to add more for a home game because they don’t have to deal with crowd noise. We’ll see how it goes this week.

Stephon Gilmore

It’s worth noting that Ben was part of the turnaround in Detroit. He saw how Dan Campbell handled all the early losses. IMO that’s why you saw him tell the team he still has confidence in them.

I agree overall. For all the vitriol regarding our crappy offense we still put up 21pts on the road against a playoff team. I’m so old I remember when our kicker was the leading scorer. There were lots of stupid mistakes but seeing this offense put up 28pts or more isn’t hard to see in the future. I like the detailed answers Ben gave yesterday in his press conference. Even regarding the defense he was clear that he understands the calls and assignments. I remain optimistic. One thing this teams need is leadership and attitude on the field. Both on offense and defense there were too many heads hanging low in the second half.

Caleb continues to progress. That’s job 1. As things slow down for him the playbook starts to expand.

Changing a culture is the hardest thing to do. That has shown up in both games this season. I believe with this stress it will happen just don’t know when.

I’m old enough to remember Jimmy Johnson doing this kind of stuff with his roster in Dallas. This is nothing like last year and the message was sent to the entire team.

Gotcha

No good reason? His career dream job as NFL HC and $13M per year guaranteed. Turn around a bad Bears franchise and NFL legend status awaits him.

There is plenty of blame to go around but nothing bothered me more than a very expensive IOL missing blocks.

That is correct.

Well that felt…. The same minus a few hundred million.

Hutchinson is simply not the same player. He has no lateral quickness. It will come back to him but it’s going to take time. Detroits IOL was not on par with last year overall. Lots of new parts there so it might just take some time but I do wonder if Ben Johnson’s obsession with details is the real missing piece. I’ll find out tomorrow.

I've been critical of the need to keep Case Keenum on the 53 as I don't really see the need for that. In light of all this chatter about Caleb's need to learn how to be a professional QB maybe that is the need. Poles obviously saw what was going on last year and there's no doubt he consulted with Ben Johnson about that. They knew what they wanted and recruited Keenum out of retirement so it wasn't just finding another QB to compete for the backup role. I know everyone talks about how having a vet presence can help Caleb but I'm saying that was the sole reason he was hired and put on the 53.

Saquon was the only player who stood out to me on both sides of the field. I can say now I regret passing on him in FA because this offense with him and Ben Johnson would be elite. He's one of those rare players that is just fun to watch. Prescott looked lost after his first read on most plays. Hurts looked the same, constantly pulling the ball back down and staggering around the pocket before deciding to run. It is just week 1 so a lot of that is normal but after the game Jerry Jones said he was very encouraged by the Cowboys performance and thought it was one of the best games he'd seen from Prescott. He is clearly in damage control mode after the Parsons trade. They have a lot of good players but I'm not overly concerned about playing them in Wk 3.

I’m watching the Cowboys Eagles game and I just realized that Eberflus took the Dallas DC job expecting to have Micah Parsons but instead has to replace him with Jack Sanborn.

I feel like the key will be taking away the easy early read and making McCarthy hesitate. Even if Nailor plays he hasn’t had much practice with him. Not being on same page on offense is how big mistakes are made.

I think this was just JJ joking around after he saw the insane big money deals and media types, as they like to do for clicks, took it seriously. Whenever you hear JJ talk his top priority is winning.

I assure you Ryan Poles is 100% planning for the future. It was abundantly clear in draft picks like Trapilo Burden Newman. His job is to restock the roster with good young talent that is cheap. No reason we can’t speculate how that might play out over the next year or two. To put it another way: I want to see Burden become so good this year that DJ Moore is WR3 next year.

I was laughing as he was talking about Gibbs breaking tackles because he goes down easily. Getting your hands on him in open space isn't easy but most of those plays were just really poor tackling.

Yes

We all know Ben Johnson was thinking that having two good TEs gives him Lots of flexibility on offense. He was very clear about that after the draft and spoke about it further during the off-season. With Olamide looking like a good WR3 we could extend him relatively cheaply. Jahdae Walker also looks promising as a WR4 next year. With that if you need to free up cap space next year WR makes more sense than TE. I’d think Moore could net a 3rd Rd pick