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The Random Thought Thread

redrum52 said:
When Brady got hurt they missed playoffs but won 11 games with Matt. Since 19 that roster has been awful. Reids worst season was 9-7 since going to KC. The only year he missed playoffs there with Alex Smith at QB. Tomlin made playoffs with Kenny pickett as his starter.

Reid and BB are also terrible comparisons because they bring something tangible scheme wise to a team.
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One thing that is really understated about Matt Cassel is he hadn't STARTED a game of football since 1999 and had fewer than 75 college and NFL passes. In college, most of his time came from being a wingback or tight end so that he could get on the field.

Winning 11 games at the NFL level when he had started zero quarterback games this millennium is insane.

People love to act like it's totally normal and wasn't a product of the Patriots coaching staff because the roster was largely a carryover from the 18-1 season, but come on... the man was a 7th round pick who was in contention to be cut several times because he wasn't very good in camp or preseason.

Also worth noting that Cassel has the best ever record to NOT make the playoffs, which was largely off the back of flukey tiebreakers (not complaining because the Ravens were one of the beneficiaries.)

I just laugh because people are like, "Of course Trey Lance failed. He only had 17 college starts and less than 500 attempts in college." Meanwhile, Cassel...

Just a hill I will die on- the Patriots coaching staff was absolutely instrumental in creating Brady.
 
29BmoreBird22 said:
One thing that is really understated about Matt Cassel is he hadn't STARTED a game of football since 1999 and had fewer than 75 college and NFL passes. In college, most of his time came from being a wingback or tight end so that he could get on the field.

Winning 11 games at the NFL level when he had started zero quarterback games this millennium is insane.

People love to act like it's totally normal and wasn't a product of the Patriots coaching staff because the roster was largely a carryover from the 18-1 season, but come on... the man was a 7th round pick who was in contention to be cut several times because he wasn't very good in camp or preseason.

Also worth noting that Cassel has the best ever record to NOT make the playoffs, which was largely off the back of flukey tiebreakers (not complaining because the Ravens were one of the beneficiaries.)

I just laugh because people are like, "Of course Trey Lance failed. He only had 17 college starts and less than 500 attempts in college." Meanwhile, Cassel...

Just a hill I will die on- the Patriots coaching staff was absolutely instrumental in creating Brady.
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Congratulations to you Raven fans on your win last night! What a awesome game! I hope Flowers is ok and Humphries. Loved watching Lamar dominate.
 
redrum52 said:
If the defense improves and offense can maintain then cool. The goal isn't regular season wins.

At least made it out relatively healthy
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I hear you but I aint gonna be like what this meme below shows after every win my team gets this year in the regular season. Football is just entertainment at the end of the day. I love to see my team win and i'm happy we won on Sunday
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Sandtown said:
I hear you but I aint gonna be like what this meme below shows after every win my team gets this year in the regular season. Football is just entertainment at the end of the day. I love to see my team win and i'm happy we won on Sunday View attachment 6524
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I still ask why you think that anyone is pouting? Talking about the reality of things in a matter of fact way doesn't make you depressed.

This was another very ugly win. If our defense doesn't get it together, we probably can't win a SB. If we can't win a SB, that means choking to someone in the playoffs. That means we wasted another one of Lamar's prime years where he is legitimately the best player and QB in football. And then people will continue to call Lamar James Harden or Russell Westbrook for the rest of time.

No one isn't happy about the win. It's a luxury to have Lamar. He's more entertaining than any player in the league. I think it's ok to want the team to show up for him. He deserves it.
 
UPennChem said:
I still ask why you think that anyone is pouting? Talking about the reality of things in a matter of fact way doesn't make you depressed.

This was another very ugly win. If our defense doesn't get it together, we probably can't win a SB. If we can't win a SB, that means choking to someone in the playoffs. That means we wasted another one of Lamar's prime years where he is legitimately the best player and QB in football. And then people will continue to call Lamar James Harden or Russell Westbrook for the rest of time.

No one isn't happy about the win. It's a luxury to have Lamar. He's more entertaining than any player in the league. I think it's ok to want the team to show up for him. He deserves it.
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Not even just Lamars prime but the team as constructed. You never know when the fall off or injuries will catch up to you. A coach leaves. GM leaves. Another team gets generational talent. You have to take advantage of your windows. Coaching and the offense failed this team last year.
 
redrum52 said:
Not even just Lamars prime but the team as constructed. You never know when the fall off or injuries will catch up to you. A coach leaves. GM leaves. Another team gets generational talent. You have to take advantage of your windows. Coaching and the offense failed this team last year.
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A reasonable and nuanced take.
 
Wow, lots of negativity around here this morning. We are 5-2 now and our offense is smoking’ hot. Yes the D has had its moments but they will get better. ZO is a young coach who is learning a new craft. He and his players don’t seem to be on the same page sometimes, but barring serious injuries I think they will get past this funk.
 
SaltyDog said:
Wow, lots of negativity around here this morning. We are 5-2 now and our offense is smoking’ hot. Yes the D has had its moments but they will get better. ZO is a young coach who is learning a new craft. He and his players don’t seem to be on the same page sometimes, but barring serious injuries I think they will get past this funk.
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Definitely much more negativity than needed. We were winning 34 - 10 with 12 minutes left and Humphrey not playing in the second half. We can still get better.

We definitely played better and TB is a high octane offense, but the miscommunication issues are really bad.
 
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SaltyDog said:
Wow, lots of negativity around here this morning. We are 5-2 now and our offense is smoking’ hot. Yes the D has had its moments but they will get better. ZO is a young coach who is learning a new craft. He and his players don’t seem to be on the same page sometimes, but barring serious injuries I think they will get past this funk.
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I believe its gonna be a little tough to get around this funk. We have dean helping and we all know his defense is a bend but not break type of style but that maybe tough because none of our pass rushers can win with just natural pass rushing moves… i saw one play yesterday where we did dline stunt and it was instantly impactful..are we saving more stunts for playoffs or something lmao? or maybe orr wants to go his on route?
 
redrum52 said:
When Brady got hurt they missed playoffs but won 11 games with Matt. Since 19 that roster has been awful. Reids worst season was 9-7 since going to KC. The only year he missed playoffs there with Alex Smith at QB. Tomlin made playoffs with Kenny pickett as his starter.

Reid and BB are also terrible comparisons because they bring something tangible scheme wise to a team.
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You missed my point entirely. By the way that team that won 11 games with Matt was 16-0 the year before so we know they had a lot of talent. Also, that "since going to KC" is doing a LOT of heavy lifting as Reid has 6 seasons worse than that with Eagles including a 4-12 year which brings us around to the point I was making: coaches need talented players to win. The Eagles the last few years were just simply not a talented football team and Reid could not duct tape over the cracks any longer.

The last few years of Reid with the Eagles looked ugly because the roster was not very good. The last few years of BB with Patriots looked ugly because the roster was not very good. Even the best coaches ever cannot make bad rosters successful. Note I am not just saying QB but roster which is a key distinction. The Bills are not going to be a true contender because they do not have a roster so not matter what you think of the Bills coach (I don't think much) that team does not have the talent to be more than what Brady's last year in NE was and that is a team that makes the playoffs but is not a true contender.

Simply put coaching matters but it only matters if the roster is good enough for coaching to make a difference. You could merge Reid and BB together and that Patriots team would not be able to look good.
 
Just find it funny Lamar gets a weapon defenses have to key on and media try to discredit him. How does it seem in sports in general every major outlet they run with the same narratives?
 
Deebo813 said:
I believe it’s gonna be a little tough to get around this funk. We have dean helping and we all know his defense is a bend but not break type of style but that maybe tough because none of our pass rushers can win with just natural pass rushing moves… i saw one play yesterday where we did dline stunt and it was instantly impactful..are we saving more stunts for playoffs or something lmao? or maybe orr wants to go his on route?
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well I’m definitely not a pees fan. I hated that bbdb D of his. Too many times it was a “bend but don’t win” D. He does have a lot of experience and knowledge he can share though, and hopefully it will be a positive experiment for Orr.
 
SaltyDog said:
well I’m definitely not a pees fan. I hated that bbdb D of his. Too many times it was a “bend but don’t win” D. He does have a lot of experience and knowledge he can share though, and hopefully it will be a positive experiment for Orr.
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I just don’t believe in Orr at this point. Seems like he lacks a fundamental understanding of how this defense is supposed to be called. If his pressure packages didn’t look so absolutely horrible then I would put the blame on the DBs, but there’s definitely more blame to go around. Some of the blitzes I’ve seen called are downright laughable, and when protecting a lead there seems to be no effort in the playcalling, just line up and go to your zones.
 
JoeyFlex5 said:
I just don’t believe in Orr at this point. Seems like he lacks a fundamental understanding of how this defense is supposed to be called. If his pressure packages didn’t look so absolutely horrible then I would put the blame on the DBs, but there’s definitely more blame to go around. Some of the blitzes I’ve seen called are downright laughable, and when protecting a lead there seems to be no effort in the playcalling, just line up and go to your zones.
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so many of our problems are execution based
i dont like the number of high leverage cover zero calls, he's clearly influenced by his tenure under wink in that way which is fine, he doesnt have to be exactly like mike mac

the concern i have is why are we having so many communication breakdowns on the backend when that was a strength of our DB room last year

i think id prefer us to run more cover 2, more sim pressures with stunts upfront and less dime but there's nothing fundamentally "wrong" with the plays he's calling and designing, just how they're being run

and again, mike mac's defence didnt really start to sing until much later in that 1st year after they brought in roquan too, there's time and patience for Orr to get better and fix this - while im not happy with how it's going right now, i do think it's rash to not even let him get to the bye before making concrete judgements
 
I saw a video the other day that was posted about Jesse Minter and how Minter is employing what will likely be the next wave of how to call a defense.

Traditionally, defenses are called in a way that the responsibilities are the same for the play. And what I mean is- if the DC calls Under Strike Cloud Zero, you're going to know the responsibilities of every single player.

Contrast this to a Sean Payton play call of:

Green right nasty, Z peel fake 37 slash plus your bluff, naked right ex post white mite.

That single play call is telling each individual skill player their route, telling the QB to run a naked boot, and telling the offensive line to block. But here's the kicker- it's fluid in how it can be called. Sean Payton can call several variations of that call with small and subtle wrinkles because he's telling each individual group what to do on each play.

What Jesse Minter is doing is calling each defensive unit like this. He's not calling a set play; on every play, he is giving the defensive line, the linebackers, the corners and safeties responsibilities as a positional group. This means that Minter can have ambiguous appearing play calls with unique wrinkles. It makes the defense very hard to predict and digest.

The thing is... Mike MacDonald was doing that in Baltimore before Minter in LA. Couple that with MacDonald having a feel for when to blitz (the Ravens ranked like 20th in blitz%) and the Ravens had an absurdly potent defense.

I don't know if Orr is continuing this trend or has gone to more traditional defensive play calls, but there was always going to be a sizable drop off and it was always going to be a very tall ask for Orr to step in for MacDonald given MacDonald seems to be a defensive prodigy in the way McVay is for offense.

With all that said- if Zach Orr costs the Ravens a Super Bowl this year, I will be beyond shattered for very personal reasons. The Ravens need to get their defense figured out before wasting Lamar's phenomenal season.
 
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