Game Thread: W3 Vs Bolts

[Judge Fudge]

 

[flyerhawk]

did Taylor just get a sack

Yup! Nice outside bend to get around the LT.

 

[Anointed One]

Geno Smith has zero touch on his passes

 

[flyerhawk]

That illegal block on Penny was ridiculous. No way is that a blind side block.

 

[Judge Fudge]

That illegal block on Penny was ridiculous. No way is that a blind side block.

Ya it was

 

[Screamin12th]

Glad this game is the first game I got to watched live this preseason. Like what I see, everything but the 3rd down % on offense.

 

[Screamin12th]

Would like to see all these guys playing right now make a stop on defense. This might be for some of them, the last football they play.

 

[HaroldSeattle]

Now this was fun to watch. Bring on the regular season.

 

[Podunkparte]

Watched in the background, but even with way fewer starters than expected, it at least looked like organized football this week.

I don't worry much about the established starters not playing. The way they practice they really don't need practice game reps.

I'll be looking for the offense to come out clicking though week 1. Pick up some 3rd downs and move the ball forward without dumb penalties and we'll be fine.

 

[flyerhawk]

We obviously haven't seen the full offense unveiled yet but I really liked a lot of the underneath stuff that they did last night. Little screens and bubble passes that were designed to go over the pass rush. I have never understood why our offense didn't utilize more of them in the past. Get an RB into space and let him face a one on one and you can get some big numbers. Which will then slow down the pass rush just a bit.

 

[Screamin12th]

We obviously haven't seen the full offense unveiled yet but I really liked a lot of the underneath stuff that they did last night. Little screens and bubble passes that were designed to go over the pass rush. I have never understood why our offense didn't utilize more of them in the past. Get an RB into space and let him face a one on one and you can get some big numbers. Which will then slow down the pass rush just a bit.

Yeah with a QB like Wilson those little dink and dunks can turn into 80 yard shots. I never understood why they hardly utilized that part of the passing game with Wilsons ability to throw on the move. Not to mention when Wilson starts doing those roll outs and quick passes he starts eating up teams and it seems to get Wilson just cooking! When they allow Wilson to use his athletic ability more in designed plays the team catches fire. The Day I noticed this was a cold day in Chicago many years ago and it has not changed.

 

[JMR]

Interesting final pre-season game. Cody Barton and Alex Collins clearly stood out, and that is sort of the obvious takeaway. The other stuff after seeing 3 fake games:

• Is Penny in danger of getting cut? It's not that he's looked bad or anything, but DeeJay Dallas was the story on offense through the first 2 fake games, and then the other night it was the Alex Collins show. Maybe the plan is to carry Bellore as a LB and sort of save a roster spot at RB to keep all of Carson, Penny, Collins, and Dallas? Maybe the 5th guy would be Travis Homer. I dunno, it's a $1.4M cap savings to cut Penny, and that might help sign Geno Atkins if we think that's what we need to do. It's probably more likely that he stays for the final year of his deal, but him not making the team has crossed my mind a lot this pre-season.
• Are we too confident that "you can play without pre-season" as PC more or less intimated earlier in camp? Sure, we did that last year and got off to a hot start (offensively, anyway), but the entire league was on the same footing. You didn't have some teams getting starters reps and others not. We were also not implementing a new offense with a new OC last year like we are this time. We probably have the talent and experience on O to deal with it, but I still would have liked to have seen the front liners out there for a couple series.
• D Eskridge looks a little different than other players with the ball in his hands, and his burst, wiggle & toughness make him much more suited to run the jet sweeps and YAC type plays than maybe any other WR we have. He probably won't get the ball more than 2-4 times a game on most days, but that's probably enough for him to make at least 1 play where your eyebrows raise up thinking about what this guy might be capable of doing in 2 or 3 years. The word is he's the WR3 beginning week 1, and that makes the top guys all offering something the others don't have.
• As with most teams with an elite QB, the season is lost if RW goes down. However, it's pretty clear that Geno Smith is a capable backup and has QB2 locked down for the time being. He wasn't great or anything, but that was unquestionably the best the offense has looked.
• CB could be a challenge this season. It was great to see Blair out there again and making an impact, but I don't know who the cover guys are that can match up with the better WRs in the league. If I had to guess, I would say we will see spotty play at that position and might have to depend on guys to play way over their contract, and maybe DJ Reed can play as well as a starter as we've seen him in part time duty?
• Without looking it up, the list of starters that didn't take 1 snap in pre-season: Russell Wilson, Chris Carson, Duane Brown, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, Carlos Dunlap, Benson Mayowa, Bobby Wagner, Quandre Diggs, and Jamal Adams. That is a TON of talent that never saw the field. The goodness in that is it completely nullifies any reasonable worry or concern about what the team looked like this pre-season (the first 2 games were mostly tough to watch, as we all know). The downside is we run the risk of needing a few regular season games to get in the swing of things, particularly on offense.

Feeling mostly good and optimistic about this season. Our roster could be getting undersold a little bit due to the huge turd we laid we the playoffs to end last season, but I think this is probably the most talent we have had on offense since 2014...and that team didn't have a guy as dangerous or physically dominant as DK Metcalf. And as mobile as RW was back then, he's a better player these days. If PC allows it, this team has the makings for an historically productive offense. I guess we will get our first taste in a couple weeks when the scores count.