Postmortem: Sea v TB - Throwback Edition

[auroraave]

Tampa Plunders! Seattle D flounders!

Well they entered the league together in 1976, and nearly 50 years later they throw down and absolute classic. Unfortunately the good guys came up short. All the disappointment and handwringing aside, because a loss like this really stings, but it was an instant classic. My God that was a classic.

Can we just make the throwbacks permanent already? Both teams rocked the best look in the league - only New England is in the same league.

First off we gotta talk about the crushing penalties that were so so so so costly. Most were well earned, most seemed to give Tampa new life and extend drives or completely kill a big Seattle play. That felt like Pete Carroll ball - which I DO NOT miss. Really disappointing.

Let's start with the ugly. This was ugly like my girlfriend's dog. So ugly I shave it's ass and make it walk backwards. Or was that the girlfriend? Hey now!

Enough talk about this elite defense. No, they don't suck, but TB exposed them big time - but to be fair - I don't know that they had any starters playing in the secondary. Hard to beat a team like Tampa and Mayfield with scrubs. Tackling was flat out lackadaisical at times, some of those replacement scrubs looks timid and scared to tackle. This looked like a complete lack of fundamentals happening. Give credit to Mayfield - he exploited everything all the time like a season pro... which he is.

I like Mayfield, he's a good story, a survivor, tough and gritty, he's the type of player I root for, just not on Sunday against the hawks, but losing to him takes a little of the sting out, very little, but he absolutely fucking balled out for 4 quarters - give credit.

It's not the endo of the world. This unit will bounce back - they really need to get healthy but that may never happen so hear we are. Macdonald will get it right, I am confident. Let's not forget, Tampa is no joke. They executed all game long and it was pretty (for them).

Now the pretty! This was prime Monica Bellucci pretty. This was '65 427 split-window Corvette pretty. This was taco Tuesday pretty.

Oh boy, Seattle's got themselves an offense!

Darnold is absolutely balling out. That pinpoint throw to Jaxon in the endzone was jaw dropping. He was throwing darts all over the field, spreading it around, and Jaxon always seemed to be open. Darnold to Jaxon may be the best combo in the league right now. Yeah, I said that! I really hope Schneider is looking for another playmaker on the market to take some pressure of JSN. A Percy Harvin type, minus the crazy. It's a long season and if JSN goes down, which is highly likely, who's next? We need another playmaker there.

Kubiak's commitment to the run paid huge dividends - the oline pushed the TB front around all day - Darnold was never sacked and rarely pressured. Seattle hung 463 yards and 35 points on a very good defense. Did I mention the oline? Yeah, THAT oline. It's almost like, getting reps together and scheming correctly and - voila - they look good.

After falling behind 13-0 they stormed right back - this offense kept punching and punching and punching. I thought, at least temporarily, the play of the game was Kupp catching that batted ball and converting a first down, extending the drive and NOT giving it right back to Mayfield. That ended in the highlight of the game - Seattle going for it on 4th and 2 - fucking ballsy call - and Darnold eluding a sack and hitting Horton for the go-ahead. Darnold pulled a total Wilson, minus the branding and product shilling. My God that was spectacular.

It's hard to get too bummed about the int at the end - I think the pass was tipped - because Darnold really carried the team on his back on Sunday.
Fun facts: Darnold is 6th in passing, Walker 10th in rushing, JSN 2nd in receiving. Meanwhile, as I was pouring milk in my coffee earlier, I noticed a picture of Seattle's defense on the carton. Hopefully they are found soon, this team's ceiling could be high.

On to Florida's unwashed armpit, Jacksonville, to take on the Jags who are 3-1 and no joke. Don't go penciling in a dub because they've sucked for the last ten years. You gotta earn every win in this league.

Side musing: That awful stench in the air? Coming from Vegas. Maybe Geno shoulda wrote back - Raiders stink , Geno is awful, PC is in way over his head. Gee, NO on saw that coming.

Go hawks...

[Sibelius Hindemith]

Kubiak's commitment to the run paid huge dividends - the oline pushed the TB front around all day - Darnold was never sacked and rarely pressured. Seattle hung 463 yards and 35 points on a very good defense. Did I mention the oline? Yeah, THAT oline. It's almost like, getting reps together and scheming correctly and - voila - they look good.

The run game didn't have much impact in the 1st half though. 7 carries for 22 yards. I think the reason it was productive in the 2nd half was that TB became more focused on stopping the pass game. If Darnold hadn't been so sharp it would have made running the ball much more difficult. Credit to Kubiak for capitalizing on that.

[Michael K.]

Don't disagree with much of what you said. I hate the call for the speed option, and I think sometimes the "commitment to the run" is overly forced. That said, Charbo had a good per carry average, and Walker's was exceptional. Maybe more attempts for Walker, but that is splitting hairs. Those per carry averages are also after the run game short of Walker was terrible in the first half.

The INT was bad luck, but they did get pressure on him on that play. The ball bounced of a helmet...shit happens. I was a little annoyed at the lack of a pass rush, and the fact that we seemed to simply not care about being disruptive, but your point about the secondary being so banged up is probably why. You expose your back end when you blitz. Tampa controlled our pass rush, and we most likely get shredded by Baker if we blitz. So? The key is to be better up front. No shocker there right? The Eagles have seemingly created the blue print for that.

I wasn't too bummed. I don't like the fact that this seems like a real good offense, FAR better than I gave it credit for being early in the season. So why play so timid at times. I HATED the draw call on second and long when a penalty backed us up. So incredibly similar to the Arizona game when a penalty backed us up and we settled for a FG that we then missed. I think it's fair to say the offense has shown an ability to generate big plays. Please rip out the page that has the second and long draw play on it!

I am also incredibly curious why we actually seem to have the opposite of a home field advantage now. So strange. We are going to be lamenting the SF loss all year, because this one wouldn't sting nearly as much. But we easily could have lost the AZ game, and without a real bad kick off late by them? We might have. I guess my point is, I'll take 3 and 2 at this point.

Fingers crossed the defense gets healthy, but we could be Baltimore. They are missing four All Pro's, I swear I heard that yesterday.

Baltimore has multiple key defensive starters out due to injuries, with Roquan Smith, Marlon Humphrey, and Chidobe Awuzie specifically ruled out for the recent Week 5 game. Other important defensive players, including safety Kyle Hamilton and defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike, are also sidelined or dealing with significant injuries, making the team severely shorthanded.

That is nuts. The more this league does to make the game safer, the worse it seems to get. It's almost as if these guys never practice or prepare and then are forced to go out and go full speed on Sunday...and we wonder why they aren't ready to do so? I just find it ridiculous that the NFL thinks it's safer to have them play a game on Sunday, Monday and Thursday...at full speed, without any practice or pre-season reps. But? Why should they care....it's a huge money maker and what they are doing has the appearance of trying to make the game safer, right?

[Donn Beach]

Don't disagree with much of what you said. I hate the call for the speed option, and I think sometimes the "commitment to the run" is overly forced. That said, Charbo had a good per carry average, and Walker's was exceptional. Maybe more attempts for Walker, but that is splitting hairs. Those per carry averages are also after the run game short of Walker was terrible in the first half.

The INT was bad luck, but they did get pressure on him on that play. The ball bounced of a helmet...shit happens. I was a little annoyed at the lack of a pass rush, and the fact that we seemed to simply not care about being disruptive, but your point about the secondary being so banged up is probably why. You expose your back end when you blitz. Tampa controlled our pass rush, and we most likely get shredded by Baker if we blitz. So? The key is to be better up front. No shocker there right? The Eagles have seemingly created the blue print for that.

I wasn't too bummed. I don't like the fact that this seems like a real good offense, FAR better than I gave it credit for being early in the season. So why play so timid at times. I HATED the draw call on second and long when a penalty backed us up. So incredibly similar to the Arizona game when a penalty backed us up and we settled for a FG that we then missed. I think it's fair to say the offense has shown an ability to generate big plays. Please rip out the page that has the second and long draw play on it!

I am also incredibly curious why we actually seem to have the opposite of a home field advantage now. So strange. We are going to be lamenting the SF loss all year, because this one wouldn't sting nearly as much. But we easily could have lost the AZ game, and without a real bad kick off late by them? We might have. I guess my point is, I'll take 3 and 2 at this point.

Fingers crossed the defense gets healthy, but we could be Baltimore. They are missing four All Pro's, I swear I heard that yesterday.

Baltimore has multiple key defensive starters out due to injuries, with Roquan Smith, Marlon Humphrey, and Chidobe Awuzie specifically ruled out for the recent Week 5 game. Other important defensive players, including safety Kyle Hamilton and defensive lineman Nnamdi Madubuike, are also sidelined or dealing with significant injuries, making the team severely shorthanded.

That is nuts. The more this league does to make the game safer, the worse it seems to get. It's almost as if these guys never practice or prepare and then are forced to go out and go full speed on Sunday...and we wonder why they aren't ready to do so? I just find it ridiculous that the NFL thinks it's safer to have them play a game on Sunday, Monday and Thursday...at full speed, without any practice or pre-season reps. But? Why should they care....it's a huge money maker and what they are doing has the appearance of trying to make the game safer, right?

Terms of the second and long...Just pulling this out of my ass, I mean every team does it. I'm thinking you are obligated to at least show it occasionally to keep defenses honest.

Terms of the injuries and the rules. I was thinking about that with Witherspoon. Imagine Witherspoon 20-40 years ago. They really have legislated the really hard hitting Dback out of the spotlight. Now it sacks, back then it was hard hits in the secondary, Witherspoon would have been notorious

[Michael K.]

Terms of the second and long...Just pulling this out of my ass, I mean every team does it. I'm thinking you are obligated to at least show it occasionally to keep defenses honest.

Two weeks in a row it has resulted in a missed FG. I assume the rest of the league hopes we continue to show it.

[trharder]

Terms of the second and long...Just pulling this out of my ass, I mean every team does it. I'm thinking you are obligated to at least show it occasionally to keep defenses honest.

Two weeks in a row it has resulted in a missed FG. I assume the rest of the league hopes we continue to show it.

Meyers has been through "spells' of shittiness before. He usually rights his own ship and then is money again.
Hopefully he gets his shit together.

[DavidGee24]

The two losses have ended with a blocker's butt knocking the ball out of Darnold's hand and into a defender's hands and a pass from Darnold banging off someone's helmet and into a defender's hands. We're just a little non-bad luck away from being 5-0. Ever since sleepwalking through the Niner game which they still had every chance to win the team has played very well, other than our backups yesterday not being able to cover anybody. It feels like we have a playoff team here.

Completely asinine play call with Milroe yesterday. Seriously, bring him in and have him run a play that doesn't work against NFL defenses? Even if he doesn't screw up the pitch Walker would have been smothered for a loss. That play call made no sense at all and flipped the game.

Imagine being the Cardinals yesterday though. Against the worst team in the league they had two of the flukier plays you'll ever see, especially the interception that the guy then fumbled for absolutely no reason and then his teammate kicked the ball into the end zone to Tyler Lockett. I mean, those two mind-boggling plays happened in the same game against the same team. When in NFL history has a team ever had two plays like THAT go against them in the same game? You can't even begin to make that shit up.

Thankfully we have a 10 a.m. game in Jerksonville next Sunday so we should roll on them.

[trharder]

Enough talk about this elite defense. No, they don't suck, but TB exposed them big time - but to be fair - I don't know that they had any starters playing in the secondary. Hard to beat a team like Tampa and Mayfield with scrubs. Tackling was flat out lackadaisical at times, some of those replacement scrubs looks timid and scared to tackle. This looked like a complete lack of fundamentals happening. Give credit to Mayfield - he exploited everything all the time like a season pro... which he is.

In the previous games, the opposing QB was harried and hurried and sacked and generally bullied like a dog by our defensive front.
A defense looks altogether different when all of a sudden this is no longer a thing.
Does TB have a much better O-line than the other teams we've played? (IDK the answer).
Demarcus Lawrence was out. Hall got hurt. Not a total explanation, but should be considered.

[Michael K.]

Meyers has been through "spells' of shittiness before. He usually rights his own ship and then is money again.
Hopefully he gets his shit together.

I still think settling for a long FG because you are scared to continue to do the things on offense that make you successful is a bad idea. Regardless of if the kick is good or not. I think the funniest play in football is the three yard out on third and goal from the 9. I guess your kicker needed those three extra yards? It is pathetic, to me, how scared football teams play once they get into FG range. It wasn't too long ago that the Chargers kicked six FGs on a Monday night, and lost on a play late in the game. ANY of those FGs turned into 7 instead and they win. But that is how guys like Harbaugh, Pete and MM play the game. I just don't care for it.

Obviously the game can dictate, but in both the situations were we got conservative, it didn't make sense, to me. Put the Cardinals away...and you needed to keep pace with Tampa. Just poor times to get ultra conservative, in my opinion.