Focusing on these guys play in the 2nd half this week as their play was all central to the win. Will also be focusing on the adjustments in the 2nd half (and why the hell are they adjustments?...why aren't we just doing this from the get-go?).
A few quick thoughts:
1) Apparently Larry Foote has said that he and Bowles have allowed Barrett and JPP to decide amongst themselves where they are playing? What in the hell? I actually hypothesized earlier in the season that JPP lobbied to play Right Edge (because this is where he played his whole career) vs the predominant Left Edge he was playing when he came back. Apparently, he didn't have to lobby Foote/Bowles. Its bloody obvious what has happened here. If they've left it to JPP/Barrett to "decide among themselves" who plays blind-side/right vs left, its almost surely the case that Barrett deferred to JPP (who is a big personality and extremely assertive while Barrett is not), who invariably pushed to play on the right side...to, ultimately, the detriment of our team. This makes no damn sense at all. Shaq has been incredible Pressuring the QB this year overwhelmingly from his worst side (the left side), but he did by far his best work on the other side (the right side) last year (including a huge number of Sack Fumbles, where the bulk of them come from).
This is madness.
2) I don't understand why it takes a half of the bulk of snaps being Zone and losing Snap-in, Snap-out in the passing game to make the adjustment and go a lot of 2 Deep in the second half and Man Under. I don't understand it. This also lets White do what he does best; play Green Dog and attack the line of Scrimmage or straight up blitz and gets him out of Zone coverage. If Bowles needed a data point on how irrelevant the running game is and that we don't need to worry about rolling up a Safety and playing Zone, he got it last week where Cook went for a jillion yards and we didn't give up much in the way of points and won.
Play 2 Deep Man Under or play Cover 1 Man Free and let White play Green Dog rules and blitz.
And have Barrett play on the Right side...don't leave it up to them (and by them I mean JPP).
3) We get 17 and that is when (a) the run on 1st down goes bye bye and suddenly (b) we start using quick play-action and attacking the intermediate. And then we score a bunch of points. I'm sure there is no correlation whatsoever!
4) Upon review, we got a lot luckier in that 2nd half than the excitement of the comeback warrants. They missed several pitch-and-catch plays in the Passing Game that were there which allowed us to get off the field. Several crucial moments in that comeback were Atlanta just pulling a Falcons Chock-job TM. This is what happens with bad teams. Those plays likely won't be missed by good teams in the playoffs. It needs to be about "what we do", about "what we impose upon them", and not about "them failing to make the plays that are trivially there to be made."
5) Josh Wells was absolutely more than serviceable. Very solid game by him. Yes, they're terrible up front, but he did more than an ample job. You can absolutely win with that kind of LT play. It was north of median OT play in the NFL. That doesn't mean he can reproduce it, but this one game was very solid.
6) On the other end of the spectrum is SMB. He just can't cover in any assignment at this point. He loses in Press Man, he loses in Off Man, he lets Wheels run free (inexplicably handing them off when matching a Slot Wheel is 100 % the Flat defender's responsibility in Zone) in Flat Coverage and he's in no man's land in Hook/Seam. The only coverage I see him play that is NFL serviceable is boundary Cover 3 Zone and boundary Match Quarters. Outside of that, his play right now is borderline NFL roster-worthy let alone starting material.
Cockrell was, once again, very, very solid in Coverage. I don't know CD3's situation, but Cockrell needs to be on the field regardless. If I had my wishes, it would be that SMB doesn't see the field and we go Big Nickel with 3 Safeties (Edwards replacing SMB).
7) PFF gave him a terrible Pass Blocking grade, but I do not agree. Fournette was very solid in Pass Protection yesterday and that was key to the win. I think he left yards on the field in the running game, but he had that one Forced Missed Tackle in the Passing Game. Overall, a solid enough game by Fournette (better than I was expecting).
