Game Thread: WEEKS 16-18... @BAL, vKC, vCIN

[FaCe-LeE-uS]

Well... this team finished the last moth of the season about as poorly as anybody could.

Offense is a dumpster fire.

• Russ Wilson has been bad. Real bad. Timid to pull the trigger, and prone to turnovers.
• OL has regressed badly. Blocking schemes in general have been awful. Pat Meyer should have been gone long time ago. They do a lot of 2-3 TE sets with 2 of them blocking, but the communication &/or coaching
• WRs have become non-existent, and Pickens can't get out of his own way.
• TEs have been dropping a lot of crucial balls.
• "Arthur Smith's offense" doesn't seem to understand how to mix things up, or play to their own strengths. This has Tomlin's fingerprints all over it. For all the prior talk of "not coaching in their fears", Coach T has been on record numerous times of "assessing risk" when defending their choice to run the ball a lot even when they are abysmal at it. For all of Matt Canada's warts, his offense was more successful according to the numbers. Let that sink in.
• Personnel has been grossly mismanaged.
  • They have a power back, Harris, that should be running between the tackles but instead they utilize him to do toss plays outside. They have a great change of pace back, Warren, that is best suited for stretch runs & passing downs but instead they utilize him to do power runs inside.
  • Mike Williams has been making plays yet they give him less than 10 snaps per game, in favor of Van Jefferson whom rarely gets open.

Defense has been struggling badly.

• Minkah continues to be a non-factor most weeks. When Elliot was out he got more involved in the box which led to him making some splash plays. But as a center-fielder he has been having a very quiet season. Which makes his mistakes a lot more noticeable.
• Tackling has been an issue. Getting pretty tired of Queen's inconsistencies in that department. Some weeks he's all over the field making every play, and other weeks he's WHIFFING tackles and taking disgustingly bad angles.
• Bad communication between the ILB's & DBs. This has led to a lot of wide open & easy plays for opposing offenses.
• CB remains a glaring problem. JPJ & Jackson started off the season pretty strong, but as the season wore on they have regressed. JPJ is the best they have, but he's prone to flags & doesn't shadow anybody so opposing teams don't throw his way very often. Beanie is likely dealing with the rookie wall, because we've been forced to watch Toast Sutton get scorched for weeks on end. Trice has shown some ability, but he still remains a raw product.
• Schemes have always been poor under Tomlin. And nothing has changed in that department. They have been running a lot of soft coverages against elite QBs, which of course gets absolutely shredded. And things don't get better until after about 2 quarters worth before they finally decide that things aren't working. Again, coaching scared. But that usually ends up taking all the wind out of the pass rush sails because they waste all their energy trying to get to a QB that is throwing in under 2 seconds.
• Watt is having a down year. But the blueprint is out on how to stop him. Chip him roughly 40-50% of the time, mostly in pure pass-rush situations. Give him 2-3 hurdles to get through, and get the ball out under 2-3 seconds. For whatever reason they refuse to move Watt around making it easier to gameplan for him.

Tomlin feels confident this team can win its first playoff game in several years. But the entire world knows thats a lie. Kinda nice to see the narratives are turning on him.