I'm not going to do an extensive write up breaking down plays in excruciating detail. Not worth it.
I am going to do the following for the 1st half (because that is all that mattered):
* % of Plays Lost (both Offense and Defense...this is going to be astronomically high).
* Just take brief notes on who contributed to each individual play loss and colate that data for the first half (eg - Player x Run Fit)
My general thoughts on this game after rewatching:
COACHING AND GAMEPLANNING
I've lamented this many times before, but it was massive last night. Bowles has increasingly been playing Off Bail and Zone Coverage this year. We've played so much variation of Cover 2 Zone and so much Match Quarters. Suffice to say, this is our identity now. We are not a Press Man Team. We are absolutely a Cover 2 Zone and Match Quarters team. We play a ton of combo of these two (MQ over 3 side in 3x1 w/ 2 on the other side) or them by themselves (with tons of 2 Zone variations). And yes, all teams play a ton of Zone...but ours has gone up progressively in the last 16 games or so.
Bowles has increased the complexity and variation of the assignments on the backend in order to disguise coverage and to get his overload/DB blitz Pressures home. Sometimes this has been wildly successful...other times...not. Here are the bad knock-on effects:
1) More back-end processing and cohesion/communication means more busts. We've seen an absolutely ridiculous amount of processing/concept busts this year through 9 games. Just an absolutely ridiculous amount.
2) The Quick Passing Game (see last night!) UTTERLY feasts on Off Zone. Utterly feasts on it.
3) Through 9 games, Shaq and JPP are dropping in Coverage at more than double the rate they did last year. Both of them are barely adequate coverage players (and if they're playing Flat in Cover 3 Zone and the RB or inside receiver runs a Wheel, their responsibility, we're absolutely toast). Worse still, it takes them out of what they do best. Get after the QB. With Shaq its even more of an abomination because he's an Elite Pressure player (while JPP is only a barely adequate Pressure player).
4) Our top 3 draft picks last year are profoundly unsuited for this. The number of Coverage losses by White last night was just UNBELIEVABLE. Unreal. He's not an adequate coverage player in Zone. He's not a below adequate Coverage player in Zone. He is the mother effing Caleb Benenoch of Zone Coverage. The % of Zone plays where he isn't where he should be or where he is manipulated by eyes or something in front of him is just not acceptable. Its not acceptable. Dean's processing in Off Zone is just staggeringly bad and his propensity to want to gamble in Off Zone makes it even worse (and given how good of a Press Man player he is, it just makes this all the worse). SMB does nothing well in Coverage. I'm at the point where I have no hope for him and I think that whatever confidence he has was completely lost when he gave up that Vert in Man Coverage in the Chargers game. Jordan Whitehead struggles as a Deep Half Safety (he's better as a Quarters defender).
So we have 3 players on the backend who are good in Off/Zone; CD3, LVD, Winfield. Everyone else is borderline incapable. THIS is what happens when you put bad Off/Zone players in Off/Zone against a team that masterfully runs the Quick Game. They get embarrassed and give up just an absurd % of play wins in the Passing Game.
PERSONNEL
The delusion that this is a hyper-talented team is so frustrating and some of that should of that delusion should have been shattered last night. Forget the QB position. Right now, we're hyper-talented (and "hyper-talented" here means the actual output of football play; elite processing/instincts and sufficient football movement skills and want-to creating an ESTABLISHED RESUME of high floor of play, play-in and play-out) in only one position group; WR.
The idea that our OL is even remotely talented was absolutely exposed last night w/ Marpet out. Guard has become so profoundly important in the modern NFL because (a) you can get away with average to below average players to the left and right of them so long as your Guard play is elite, (b) the modern NFL quick game demands you get Pressure/up the middle/collapse the apex of the pocket, and (c) the athletes at the iDL position and the schemes that attack A gaps and the diversity of the running game demands fantastic Guard play.
What happened last night on the OL?
The ENTIRE LEFT SIDE (from C > LG > LT) was absolutely destroyed.
WEEK 1 VS Saints. Our entire Left side gave up 5 Pressures (with Smith having 4).
IN THE LAST 3 GAMES, the left side gave up 9 Pressures TOTAL.
LAST NIGHT? 16 PRESSURES BY THE LEFT SIDE. 16 by Smith, Haeg, Jensen. Closing in on double the Pressures given up in 3 games...in one night.
Bottom line:
Marpet covers up for Smith and Jensen's deficiencies dramatically. He turns average to below average OL players adjacent to him to absolutely serviceable. Without him, its a complete train-wreck.
We aren't talented on the offensive line. We have 1 great player, 1 aspiring great player and 3 players whose play is absolutely contingent upon the play of those 2 guys.
Defensive Line?
Same thing. We're starting to see the profound knock-on effects of losing Vea. My biggest concern was going to be the Passing Game and that has shown up like crazy. But we're now starting to see huge Run Fit issues as we now have two weeks in a row where White is misfitting the run at an absolutely horrific rate, gambling, processing late and losing to climbs, over-pursuing and getting washed.
Vea collapsed the apex of the pocket constantly (unnerving QBs and preventing climbs and allowing Edge rush to get home or flushing people right/left into defenders), enabled A gap blitzes, made protections slides more difficult, and he absolutely dominated in the run game allowing White and Whitehead to play above their heads in the run game.
Now that he's gone (like Marpet), we're starting to see how much force-multiplication and talent-deficiency-hiding was happening there.
There is no way, no way no how, a hypertalented team loses at the rate that we lost last night...EVER. Its not possible. You accident yourself into a fair amount of play wins if you're that talented (despite coaching). We aren't. We have 5 extremely talented players...2 of them were missing last night in key places...and the illusion of all the talent around them was pulled back so we could see the freakin Wizard.
