I'm intrigued to know what Shanahan would do with Chase, Higgins, Boyd, Mixon, and Burrow. I'm certain it would be more interesting than what you see from Taylor.
Ever since Shanahan went into a shell and the 49ers lost a 10 point lead with 6 minutes left in the Super Bowl i knew he sucked. he has no confidence in his players and causes so many close losses with his ultra conservative play calling in the 4th quarter.
Probably a little less or similar to Mostert, Kittle, Deebo, Aiyuk and Garrapalo.
Don't really think much of Mixon and Boyd but I'll take the other three any day.
Do you mean All-Pro, Jessie Bates? Is this guy really anything more than average? He does his job a lot I guess..... But he's not much of a playmaker.
We now have Hendrickson hurt, who was in Jimmy's face the entire first half. Wilson is gone for the year probably. And Bates is a shell of his all-pro self after getting snubbed on his contract extension. All three levels of our defense is in disarray right now. It sucks, but we had been lucky up to this point with no serious injuries to our stars. It is starting to catch up to us like the rest of the league now. That is partly what kicked our ass last year. We were one of the most injured teams in the NFL. Hard to win with a bunch of new players when everyone is dropping like flys.
I thought the linebackers did a decent job against the run yesterday. I realize they were playing their third running back, but it's still a tough system to defend and they did well. Obviously Kittle beat them - But if your idea is that you're going to use the linebackers to cover Kittle, I don't think you're going to have much success no matter who you are.
Problem is, we didn't use the LB'ers to cover Kittle, especially the game winning drive, we played a zone coverage and Kittle just sat in the open zone that entire drive.
Chido said yesterday that they didn't do anything special to defend Kittle. Just played their normal stuff. Similar to not doing anything to defend DaVante Adams. I suppose the idea is that you let the big dog eat and stop everyone else, but at some point, you'd figure you might want to try something unique against a guy that is killing you.
I think against special playmakers you have to plan accordingly. Teams have done it to Chase and he hasn't been the one killing teams lately.
I agree with you. I was thinking the other day of what a Marvin Lewis team would look like with this roster. My assumption is that you would also see some chicken-shit, conservative stuff... But, on the other hand, if the team was coordinated by Jay Gruden or Hue Jackson, you can be guaranteed that Burrow would be passing like crazy.... Particularly if it were Gruden. He would have thrown 60 times on Sunday.
Isn't this the thing that got Taylor put under the microscope last year? Making Burrow throw so many times behind this oline? Everyone was praising this offense when it is balanced and Joe Mixon is running. If you don't keep defense honest, not all that passing game works. I would like to see a little more custom crafted game plans for certain teams instead of trying to use the same one for every team when it is only working against Pittsburgh. I do agree, we need to be more flexible with the play calling depending on situation and team, but overall, I really like Taylor's relationship with Burrow and how comfortable Burrow has gotten in his system and how much say so Burrow has in it. A new coach may not allow his young QB so much input like Taylor does.
