Well, what can I say? I, and probably most of you, thought we were going to beat the Chicago Bears on Thursday night. Unfortunately, that was not the case and to make it even worse, we got blown out.
The Bears scored 27 of their 40 points in the first half of the game thanks to the defense trying to jump routes and our linebackers not filling the gaps, they were responsible for, in the run game. I get that we have 4 first round picks on the defensive line, that should pressure the QB on a frequent basis, but in all honesty, they can only do but so much without any help from the linebackers and cornerbacks.
Cody Barton has been terrible this year earning a PFF grade of 37.8. That ranks 76th out of the 77 linebacker grades. He is constantly caught flat footed, and all his tackles come from 7 to 10 yards down the field. If you look at the film, Barton is a constant issue week in and week out. With that being said, I think Jamin Davis needs to be the starting linebacker for this defense. Although he hasn’t been great this year, he still has a better PFF grade of 65.3 which ranks 39th out of the 77 linebacker grades. Davis is a better coverage linebacker and is faster to get to the ball carrier on running plays. If I were Ron Rivera, I would also consider rotating Khaleke Hudson in at linebacker during games to see if he can make a difference for the team. I mean, it couldn’t hurt. Our linebacker play has been terrible this year. Now on to the corners.
Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio finally made a good choice in benching Forbes in the 3rd quarter of the Bears game and putting in Danny Johnson. I think Forbes will eventually be a good corner, but we cannot continue to put him in one-on-one situations against the opponents' biggest wide receivers. That’s bad coaching in my opinion. With that being said, I think St. Juste should have been the one to guard DJ Moore and AJ Brown seeing that he is 6 ft 2 and weighs 200 pounds. But I digress.
For the rest of the season, I would tell our players to stop trying to go for the pick on every play and just try to prevent the wide receivers from catching the ball. I get that we want turnovers, and that it has been a point of emphasis since the offseason, but when the opposing team says that they noticed we were jumpy during their film study and they were able to take advantage of it, that means we need to go back to the basics or at least do a better job choosing when to go for the ball. In practice this week, we should focus on playing good coverage and securing tackles. I never want to see a first-round cornerback miss two tackles on the same play again.
The only bright spot of this game was our QB1, Sam Howell. Now, I know some people in our fan base disagree with this take, due to a social media post I shared the other day, but Howell played his best NFL game yet. Now I know what the haters will say, “Sam padded his stats while being down multiple scores”. To that I say, every QB in the league gets stats while their team is losing. I mean that how the games played but it doesn’t mean they suck. Our QB has gotten better each week and this week he threw for a career high 388 yards on 72% completion percentage, 2 TDs, 1 interception and ran for 19 yards on 4 carries. All while running for his life because he has no help from the offensive line. This guy is a straight up baller and I have no problem saying that he is our franchise guy. Remember, he had us in this game at the end and if it wasn’t for a few dropped passes and a missed field goal he probably would have led us to a game-tying score. If you don’t believe me then you need to go rewatch the game.
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