AZ54

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

Straight line athlete can’t bend. Not big enough to play with power. We already have Dom Rob in that role.

Prelude to what we should see on MNF

Luther Burden III approves this message. Time will tell but IMO the writing is on the wall for this future trade.

Just Caleb. If I've got the right QB on my team the weaknesses like edge pass rush can be minimized because we'll be scoring enough points. If QB is fixed the rest can be sorted out over the next offseason.

Essentially that is why we have 10 Oline on the roster. Let 'em grow and have the low cost replacements ready when Caleb is getting his extension. That could even include Trapilo taking over for Wright vs giving Wright an extension.

Impressive game by the 6th Rd pick.

Exactly. When you know with confidence the piece you to get to the top then you make the big splash. Green Bay IMO was not there with their roster which is why I think this was the wrong move for them. Jerry Jones controls the next 2 drafts.

No revisions here, I'm 100% ok with Rome. I liked Verse too but as things worked out I really like this receiving group in combination with Caleb and Ben Johnson. I'm not out on Trapillo at LT either but we'll see how it works out long term. Lots of veterans were struggling with the offensive installs so it's not a stretch to see a rookie struggling with that plus a position change. He looked good early on but as the installs increased the mental side weighed him down. His mind will catch up with the plays and assignments and then he'll be able to focus on technique again.

Clark was their best DT but he was also overpriced so they exchanged his cap hit for a bigger hit and a more productive player. It does leave questions on that defense because Parsons is not a good run defender, certainly not a $45mil/yr DE run defender. The strength of their defense is now their LB group. Conveniently we now have a run-first HC.

Valid point. One elite pass rusher doesn’t win the day. The best pass rushes come from all directions even if one is not elite. They still have Gary and they got better overall. Pass rush has to be paired with coverage and that is their weakness.

All the smoke and mirrors they use at the LOS pre-snap means defenders are out of position. We have the WR talent to exploit that. We need Caleb to figure it out quickly too. Fortunately Ben Johnson is no stranger to their tricks. Being at home where our players can hear each other helps a lot too.

I watched this game breakdown by Chase Daniels. First, apologies to Luke Newman who I said missed a block that caused an early pressure in the redzone. In fact it was a slide right protection call and our buddy Braxton slid left. How do you know Braxton messed up? Because his eyes and looking right the whole time and he's the one chasing his missed block. There are a few other misses, some on Caleb especially early. My main takeaway is that on every pass play Caleb had an answer, even the blown block above was a likely TD play if given 1 more second. After watching this I feel like Ben is setting us up for success and this offense is much closer to the promised land than I thought. There are still a lot of details to get ironed out and we're not consistent enough to recover from shooting ourselves in the foot. I can see something good headed our way later this season.