1 - Game plan - I know some think AG is moron. I don’t him or DC are. I think based on film and losing Eliott with lack of depth I think they were hoping our 4 man front could hold up while they protected the secondary. Sucky plan and in reality they should have opened with 8 men in the box and kept it that way. My opinion of course.
2 - Talent - We already lack a complete secondary. Losing Eliott put us in a position we simply don’t have the depth to cover. If Eliott is not back this year I think we will continue to struggle with who we have left depth wise.
3 - Rookie wall - Our rookies are playing A LOT of snaps and have never played this many games in a year. Add in a short week to get the body ready plus the fact that a few of them were dealiing with the flu over the last few weeks and I am not sure they were physically as ready as needed and not all of that was their fault.
4 - Rookie Prep Time - We lost the most important practice day of the week. We normally walk through on Wednesday and on Thursday go full practice (frequently in pads). For veterans missing that day may not hurt so much but for rookies it is critical to getting timing and communications down.
5 - Success - Dan warned the team that the Panthers would play bully ball. These guys are young and have had success against teams like the Bills (even though we lost), Jets, etc. Even with Dans warning I don’t think they took it serious. Then they got smashed in the mouth unlike other games. Cold weather, tired bodies, bad game plan, early turn over and they lost their will to fight. First time I have seen that. Big learning point for them. If they listen to Dan and learn from it we will be a better team for the beat down.
We will need a few depth guys to really step up and the starters are going to need to dig deep if they want to win the last two. We have zero margin left on defense. Even if they sneak into the playoffs it will be hard for them to win. They have performed well this year and made great strides. 3-4 key pieces in the offseason and they should be better positioned for next year. Really disappointing loss but overall I am very optimistic about this team.
It was in everyone’s mind that we have passed the super difficult part and now we have two slightly easier games in which we are favorites.
They hoped it would be easier than they expected.
Even if you have an experienced team, there is bound to be a drop in form sometime in the season, our team is too young to withstand the pressure to win all the games to the end after entering the race for the play offs.
They simply fell apart under the pressure, along with all the other reasons.
Yea, while watching the game I was thinking about that quote. Our head coach knew exactly what the Panthers planned to do and then we played 2 linebackers and 5 DB’s the majority of the game in the freezing cold against an awful QB. I really can’t explain that.
Good call brother…… I have mentioned this as well.
I just can’t comprehend what AG was thinking.
They should have had Alim, Buggs, Benito, and Cominsky rotating through the 3 interior D line spots… with Hutch, Okwara, Houston, and even Barnes playing OLB in the 3-4 base looks.
I would have rather seen Darnold throw for 400+ yards than to give up the run game like they did.
It was the cold weather and game plan combined. They were playing a team that just lost an embarrassing game, that was still trying to win their division and was planning to play a run first smash mouth cold weather game. The lions were overconfident and cold and played a throwing game. The lions run game has disappeared and swift is not a ground and pound rb. Williams must be hurt because he should have flourished in this game.
Exactly, if Darnold has 400 yards passing in the cold so be it… then they earned it. any defensive coach with half a functioning brain will try to take away what they other team does best. We let them do what they do best after MC/DC predicted it.
I agree with Rookie Wall that could have messed with them but the messed up routine practice I think played a lot in them just coming out way they did.
This was team dude game all teams have them during season. You think Dallas played a great game week before in there loss or other fav teams when they lose ?
I agree with a couple points an the fact the team just was flat an that also happens .
We gave up 240 rushing yards in the first half. The 3rd highest total since 1992. The defense is a joke. That’s why we lost. Because the defense is a joke.
And how many yards did we give up to probably the worst qb in the league? We got damn lucky in the jets game. Id bet if frerotte starts we lose pretty big.
Is it our defense or how the defense is deployed. I would say it is how our defense is deployed, our scheme, and the inability to adjust.
The results we got in this game is not all talent related. We did have 13 missed tackles, but like someone else said we should have adjusted to a bigger stack, ( additional linebacker), Barnes was coming off an injury, I wonder if that factored into our adjustments in the second half.
