2006 Point & Laugh at the taterskins thread

[General_Failure]

He's a sick, sick savior.

[bobbyinlondon]

Go read the Washington Post today--among the problems:

1)Brunell has yet to feel comfortable with "The Genius'" (I called him the "The Savior" in another post--but I forgot, that's Gibbs' title) offense and has a 45.8 QB rating.

2)They have no quality depth on either side of the ball on the lines--it really shows on the defense with Daniels, Griffin and now Wynn out.

3)Thy have questionable depth in the secondary. Springs is out for a while.

4)The depth behind Brunell is truly more than questionable--Jason Campbell and Todd Collins have yet to show anything.

5)Betts and Cartwirght (no matter what Gibbs says) are not happy at all with the acquisition of Duckett.

I know it's only preseason, however, there seem to be a whole lot of questions and not too many answers.

[mpmcgraw]

Sean Taylor is the answer to everything.

[PhillyPhreak54]

A quote from Joe Gibbs press conference:

"How do we get out of it?"

0-36, 13-16, OT and LT breaks one. 5-6. Doom and Gloom.

Then, all of the sudden, 6 straight wins, one interception away from the conference championship. How you ask? h

Another quote from Gibbs.

"Its a tough time, I like being in a tough time with these guys".

Gibbs, the master motivator, with less time on his hands concerned with X's and O's, has he developed the ultimate motivational plan?

That plan, of course, is to take the lumps, the pains of losing now, when it doesn't count. Let all those high expectations of the off-season die at the waist side. Make the team understand that they have to take this one game at a time, one week at a time, one practice at a time. Get into the minds of the players that this is the NFL, where EVERYONE is good. He was able to turn his team around last year, he's always been known for his strong finishes.

Is the preseason the beginning of the end? Is it time to finish? Yes, yes it is. I for one feel very sorry for the Minnesota Vikings. Anyone that follows this team KNOWS mentally and with their heart that this team is not this bad and simply CANNOT be this outclassed.

In short, this is a facade, a masterful one at that. One that even allowed for a blocked field goal. Gibbs is weeding out the quitters from the champions, and those that remain will taste the spoils of victory!

I'm embarassed for them. 

Jesus Christ.

And "die at the waist side"?!?!?!? What the farg?

[PhillyPhreak54]

I remember reading in (Friday's?) Post that Al Saunders said that in the Preseason he likes to stretch his team force all his players to do what they can't do well to see what their limits are. Well, we saw what they can't do well. Now in the regular season all we have to do is not do that. Much of the problems will be negated when the blocking schemes are geared to the specific defenses we're facing. I still have confidence.

Saunders is putting our offense in the worst positions possible to see how and where players will shine. Yesterday just happened to be a piece of coal.

Oh, man. This just continues from what BM posted earlier. These dopes actually believe that the staff is doing this on purpose!

[Geowhizzer]

I remember reading in (Friday's?) Post that Al Saunders said that in the Preseason he likes to stretch his team force all his players to do what they can't do well to see what their limits are. Well, we saw what they can't do well. Now in the regular season all we have to do is not do that. Much of the problems will be negated when the blocking schemes are geared to the specific defenses we're facing. I still have confidence.

Saunders is putting our offense in the worst positions possible to see how and where players will shine. Yesterday just happened to be a piece of coal.

Oh, man. This just continues from what BM posted earlier. These dopes actually believe that the staff is doing this on purpose!

Come on, Phreak, don't you believe that Reid is whacking Pinkston in the ankle with a tire iron before each pre-season game so that they don't show the rest of the NFL that not only is Pinkston back, he is faster and better than before.

I believe. 

[Catapult]

We know have arguably, the best trio of WRs on any NFCE team , the best running backs( ), the best offensive line( ), one of the best qbs( ), and proven TEs that are the envy of the league( ).

I don't know what's worse: 

- The fact that Skins fans can say this with a straight face and actually mean it?  Or,

- That many of them actually actually believe the above statement?

[General_Failure]

Well, at least they've got the finest collection of H-Backs that man has ever seen.

[mpmcgraw]

Yea that Clinton Portis has a nice ass.

[DonovanTheMessiah]

Apparently thumb injuries prevent you from running and staying in shape:

I don't think Jansen is back in game shape yet from his 3 offseason thumb surgeries. He better put some work in quick over the next 2 weeks because we have no depth there.

Kearse and Co. are going to kill them this season.

[DonovanTheMessiah]

I'm going to post my specific observations from the Pats' game. I encourage you to do the same.

What this thread is NOT for is "taterskins suck" "2% of the playbook" "OL was awful". You have the rest of the board for that stuff.

I want to keep this thread as a safe haven for calm, rational observations and discussion. Again, if you just want to let off steam do it somewhere else; we'll be busy talking about last night's game in this thread.


Defense
- The first team defense was less than vanilla. The first few drives were very basic concepts with little, if any, disguise. Most plays by the first team defense had 4 rushers and either a simple zone or man-zone behind it. I'd guess about 75% of the defensive calls were like this. If you watched the Baltimore scrimmage it looked a lot, and I mean a lot, like 7-on-7 passing skeleton drills.

- When first team did blitz, it was a telegraphed bring the house blitz that left defenders on islands. Brady made some pretty good throws to beat it about half the time

- Even in basic schemes, the first team Run D looked fine even without Griffin and Daniels

- Holdman might know his assignments and even be in the right place, but he doesn't seem to have a good feel for the game. He seems to put his head on the wrong side of blockers allowing some runs and gets blocked out of the play

- What Holdman lacks in feel, Rocky sure has in spades. Rocky also made a nice hustle play to stop a long gain.

- Jeff Posey looks like an outstanding pickup; he's certain to make the roster. If the taterskins were looking to play their top 3 LBs I think it would be Washington, Marshall, and Posey.

- Cedric Killings made a nice penetrating play on the goal-line. He was getting some snaps with the starters, so it's pretty clear he's being looked at hard

- Reed Doughty made a very nice play on the forced fumble by poking at the ball while tackling; that's the sort of thing Williams loves. Of course, later on in the game he takes a bad angle on a run/comes up out of control and allows a big run. =\



Offense
- I don't know how anyone that was watching the game last night didn't pick this up. It was pretty obvious that the taterskins were working on something in the passing game. First, the taterskins ran a lot, and I mean a lot, of minimum protection. Of 18 first half passing plays, they had only 3 plays where more than 5 players were kept in to block.

Second, they weren't changing protection schemes to audible for blitz protections. You could see Brunell recognizing blitz but he never audibled to keep a back in to block instead of running a meaningless flat route. It's pretty clear this was by design.

Third, Brunell wasn't getting rid of the ball fast enough for this plan. I would say that of the sacks he took, he had an opportunity to throw the ball but didn't. Note Brunell lovers, that's not to say he's terrible, but this was a pretty extreme circumstance and he didn't adjust as well as he could have. But it's not the performance that matters, but the experience of Brunell having gone through it.

- I only caught one instance of motion tonight; on the ARE reverse, Moss motioned back across the formation to the reverse side

- Todd Collins doesn't seem to have a very good sense for pressure; Tyson Walter pushed the DE 10 yards behind the LOS and Collins couldn't step up into the pocket; When Collins did sense the pass rush he took his eyes off the receivers

- Campbell made a nice checkdown on his first pass

- The taterskins were making sure Campbell had some time to throw by keeping some TE's and RB's in. It's pretty clear the taterskins had different plans for Brunell and Campbell

- Campbell seemed to make the right reads by not throwing into double coverage, but still seems slow on his reads and not quite as fluid as he was as a senior at Auburn; It looks like he's destined to be the #3 based on how much emphasis Saunders places on how fast a QB can read a defense and how fast a QB can get rid of the ball.



My takeaway from the game from these observations
- Al Saunders wanted to see Brunell make some really quick reads and throws. I think that's the most logical explanation for the overwhelming majority of 3 step drops with only 5 blockers.

Since Saunders places such a great emphasis on getting rid of the ball quickly, perhaps it was to give Brunell a better feel for getting rid of the ball during normal situations. For example, a baseball batter will often swing a heavier bat in the on-deck circle when he's warming up in order for his regular bat to feel much lighter when in the batter's box.

I have a feeling that's what was going on here. Saunders wanted Brunell to really get a sense of pressure so when it comes 9/11 and the Skins keep a back into block or make a protection audible, Brunell will feel like he has all day to throw. This makes sense to me since Brunell got a little jumpy last year with pressure.

- Gregg Williams clearly had some things he wanted to see. I would guess he wanted to see how well his DL could pressure the QB by itself (answer: not very well) and how some of his DBs could cover in a zone or on an island against one of the best QBs in a league. Missing were all the exotic zone-blitzes and disguises we've come to love from Williams or even the taterskins best pass rusher, Marcus Washington, blitzing much at all. He knows what his players' strengths are (e.g. Washington not blitzing that much), but he wanted to see the extent of his players' weaknesses without the help of scheme (e.g. Archuleta playing a lot of cover 2 zone).

He's mentioned this earlier this pre-season when he talked about strengths and weaknesses of players. Every player has weaknesses he said, and I guess that he wanted to see them and try to expose them as much as he could tonight.

- Here's my wild, conspiracy-theory speculation. Gibbs, Saunders, and Williams all wanted to evaluate personnel tonight more than anything and saw a golden opportunity while doing so to have New England knock this team down a notch or two in order to make them insanely hungry for Minnesota.

After a playoff season last year and some big acquisitions this year, I think Gibbs wanted to guard against overconfidence. Especially when overconfidence when it isn't warratned is one of the taterskins' biggest enemies historically (call it Norvitis if you wish). This is the kind of beating that Gibbs knows will drive this team to work harder than it has at any point this off-season and be as prepared as possible for Minnesota.

[Geowhizzer]

Get your team's collective hindquarters kicked while intentionally leaving your QB to get killed.

So... angelic?

[NGM]

That shtein is unreal.  I don't know how it is even possible to be that deluded.  Its one thing to be a homer it is another thing entirely to be intentionally retarded.

[DonovanTheMessiah]

We need some still pics of the 'skins doing pre-snap motion, the randle-el reverse, and pulling offensive linemen. Even Bubba can't dispute that.

[Drunkmasterflex]

That shtein is unreal.  I don't know how it is even possible to be that deluded.  Its one thing to be a homer it is another thing entirely to be intentionally retarded.

Yeah it does not get much worse than that.  We can be pretty stupid as Eagles fans, but it is never that bad.