1 minute ago, UK Eagle said:

My football team over here changed head coaches over the summer and with a new playing style, it's been a bit choppy at times. Early on, some players looked like they were overthinking things and not read/reacting; as time is going on, things are better, but they still have periods in games where you think, WTF are you doing. I suspect what we see in 2 or 3 weeks time on O will be a lot better than we saw last night.

To give some respect to Dickerson, perhaps he's adjusting to a different style of OL play and needs time to get confident in his body and what he's technically doing.

We will see...

There have been a lot of reports over the summer that Landon just hasn't looked right. Jon Ritchie mentioned this morning that even in warmups yesterday he looked old and broken down (paraphrasing).

I'd love nothing more than for Dickerson to get back to his old self. I'm losing hope that he can.

4 minutes ago, UK Eagle said:

My football team over here changed head coaches over the summer and with a new playing style, it's been a bit choppy at times. Early on, some players looked like they were overthinking things and not read/reacting; as time is going on, things are better, but they still have periods in games where you think, WTF are you doing. I suspect what we see in 2 or 3 weeks time on O will be a lot better than we saw last night.

To give some respect to Dickerson, perhaps he's adjusting to a different style of OL play and needs time to get confident in his body and what he's technically doing.

Dickerson looks like he is playing in cement shoes. Can't even shuffle his feet to pick up stunts. Not sure any type of offense can help him. Having said that he deserves the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer. But that's it.

I

The thing with Lemon....the WR version of Derrick Barnett comes to mind. Barnett was immensely productive in college, led the SEC in sacks, broke Reggie White's record, etc, etc. But it was plain to see that he wasn't prototypically talented. Not explosive. He was a "finished product" because he was low on that explosive upside, high on refinement.

The interesting thing about those types...sometimes they struggle more with the speed and physicality of the game as rookies and it takes years for them to catch up and allow their skill level to take hold. Barnett made a career for himself in the NFL. But he never lived up to his draft status and was never a truly disruptive player. The penalties were also a thing, but I'm just talking about positive productive impact here.

Lemon is similar. When you've got a small, not fast, not explosive WR who won the Biletnikoff award and goes in round 1....you're not drafting him for upside. He's supposed to be a (relatively) max'd out, plug and play, finished product.

But sometimes, those are the guys that take longer to adapt their game to the NFL. I think he'll have a career in the NFL. But it may be a couple years before he's productive and it may only be as an underneath gadget slot.

JMO on the player and prospect...from the time he was drafted. Not really a reaction to what we've seen (or haven't seen) so far.

5 minutes ago, Parrot Head said:

We will see...

There have been a lot of reports over the summer that Landon just hasn't looked right. Jon Ritchie mentioned this morning that even in warmups yesterday he looked old and broken down (paraphrasing).

I'd love nothing more than for Dickerson to get back to his old self. I'm losing hope that he can.

1 minute ago, Eagles1960 said:

Dickerson looks like he is playing in cement shoes. Can't even shuffle his feet to pick up stunts. Not sure any type of offense can help him. Having said that he deserves the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer. But that's it.

I

He looked like it last year and I felt a lot of sympathy for him. To his credit, he looked a lot trimmer yesterday and we can only observe to what extent he's done or just working to get into game shape after a managed TC. I wouldn't be massively shocked if he retired at the Bye Week, just because its not fun anymore. The level of practice he does will show how he's really doing

Next week, things that would be nice to see that we might actually see:

1. Rhythm on offense.

2. Coop proving that yesterday was a one-game aberration.

3. Hurts maintaining the big plays and sprinkling in consecutive smaller chunk plays (see #1).

Things I'm not sure what to expect:

1. Continued WR2 production from Wicks.

2. Defense not falling off in the second half

Things that would be nice to see that I worry we won't see:

1. Better OL play.

2. Receiving production from anyone outside of Smith, Goedert, Wicks.

That said, they are playing a very bad team.

On the two-point conversion, Carter blew up the blocking. Ojomo was blocked, did a 360 degree spin, and made the tackle, but it was Carter who wrecked the play.

4 minutes ago, just relax said:

On the two-point conversion, Carter blew up the blocking. Ojomo was blocked, did a 360 degree spin, and made the tackle, but it was Carter who wrecked the play.

Yup...I felt the D showed up when it needed to...my favorite DL play goes to Nolan Smith inside the red zone on the final drive. The Commies ran a naked boot with Daniels and Smith didn't bite and held the edge. He then held his ground and pushed Daniels back toward the other defenders. I thought the entire DL played much better than the stats.

9 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Next week, things that would be nice to see that we might actually see:

1. Rhythm on offense.

2. Coop proving that yesterday was a one-game aberration.

3. Hurts maintaining the big plays and sprinkling in consecutive smaller chunk plays (see #1).

Things I'm not sure what to expect:

1. Continued WR2 production from Wicks.

2. Defense not falling off in the second half

Things that would be nice to see that I worry we won't see:

1. Better OL play.

2. Receiving production from anyone outside of Smith, Goedert, Wicks.

That said, they are playing a very bad team.

Im confident that Wicks will continue the WR2 production- actually I expect WR1 production from him. Provided, he is thrown to for more than 1.5 quarters each game. This goes in to your #1 and #3. How the hell did Wicks have 77 yards and a TD in less than 2 quarters and then never receive another target all game? Thats not an OC thing, and its not a Wicks thing....

11 minutes ago, just relax said:

On the two-point conversion, Carter blew up the blocking. Ojomo was blocked, did a 360 degree spin, and made the tackle, but it was Carter who wrecked the play.

yes, and Hunt did an awesome job containing the opposite edge. It looked like a potential read option on the left side (Hunt's right) He jumped out there so quickly he cut off Daniels' running room, but was also perfectly in the passing lane to the guy in the flat that people say we forgot to cover. At the time Daniels had him as an option, he was covered. hunt forced him to progress to the shovel pass option which obviously was stopped by great plays from Carter and Ojomo.

There will be a lot of people box score watching with Barkley and expressing concern about him being cooked, even though he didn’t have a bad game yesterday. But it’s out of control still how there is a defender in his face immediately every time he gets the handoff. I can only think of a few times yesterday where he was able to take it from Hurts, navigate the lanes, and go forward for 5-6 yards. I believe he had something like -2 yards before contact yesterday. That’s 100% on the line.

1 minute ago, ManuManu said:

Curious the success rate of under center runs. Seemed to me like they werent working. So that may have taken away a bunch of under center play action then.

I think 2 more global and less specific things will really determine their success or failure this year. The offense and defense were sort of the perfect inverse of each other yesterday.

On offense...they were disjointed and ineffective at baseline. Almost every player lost the majority of their head to head matchups. This failure was punctuated by huge explosive plays (something we saw very little of last year). Discouraging: this may be the worst defense they'll face all year and the breakdowns that led to huge plays may disappear, just leaving that rough looking offense. Encouraging: this was week 1 with a new offense and common sense dictates that a rhythm will follow. Sustained rhythm plus the big plays they already found would be an immeasurable improvement from last year.

On defense...they were disruptive and suffocating at baseline. And then they got sloppy, tired, and ineffective late in the game. Discouraging: if they were sucking wind in week 1, it may not get better. Encouraging: they might have been facing a sneaky good offense and the D mostly looked like what we have come to expect from them.

5 minutes ago, aptosbird said:

Yup...I felt the D showed up when it needed to...my favorite DL play goes to Nolan Smith inside the red zone on the final drive. The Commies ran a naked boot with Daniels and Smith didn't bite and held the edge. He then held his ground and pushed Daniels back toward the other defenders. I thought the entire DL played much better than the stats.

Agree. I thought the safeties and DeJean were often late to fill the gaps on running plays. Conversely, I thought Fangio called a very conservative game and these late fills might have been a function of those calls.

Just now, BDawk_ASamuel said:

There will be a lot of people box score watching with Barkley and expressing concern about him being cooked, even though he didn’t have a bad game yesterday. But it’s out of control still how there is a defender in his face immediately every time he gets the handoff. I can only think of a few times yesterday where he was able to take it from Hurts, navigate the lanes, and go forward for 5-6 yards. I believe he had something like -2 yards before contact yesterday. That’s 100% on the line.

Last year Barkley danced too much. Yesterday, he was totally fine and the OL held him back. Still, there were a few plays he was barely tripped up that also could have been gigantic gains. He nearly had a huge game. Last year, there were rarely plays that actually had potential to be big.

2 minutes ago, BDawk_ASamuel said:

There will be a lot of people box score watching with Barkley and expressing concern about him being cooked, even though he didn’t have a bad game yesterday. But it’s out of control still how there is a defender in his face immediately every time he gets the handoff. I can only think of a few times yesterday where he was able to take it from Hurts, navigate the lanes, and go forward for 5-6 yards. I believe he had something like -2 yards before contact yesterday. That’s 100% on the line.

If anyone cares...my take on Barkley...

With mileage and 2 years of age, he's not the player he was in 2024. Even if we had that OL now, he wouldn't be an offensive player of the year anymore. But he's still an excellent RB, far from cooked. But it's not going to matter. This OL doesn't run block well. And a good to excellent RB plus an OL that doesn't run block well still nets a disappointing running game.

They are going to have to pass to set up the run this year.

11 hours ago, TEW said:

The "system” got short circuited on early downs. We just couldn’t stay on schedule. Between Barkley getting hit in the backfield, WR screens getting stuffed behind the LOS, and penalties the offense was constantly in third and long.

I think the WR screens need to get scrapped. We just don’t have the personnel for it. We don’t have some freak RAC guy and we don’t have good blocking WRs. The interior OL needs to improve is the main thing.

The other issue is we have 3 precision route running WRs who are sort of a finesse ball control style paired with a running/deep ball/big play type of QB, so there is a stylistic mismatch in skill sets.

If Hurts can evolve his game to be more of a timing/precision passer it would help. With the receivers we have, we should be able to complete a lot of 5-7 passes on early downs. Get us in a position for easy third down conversions and unpredictable deep balls on 2nd down when we are ahead of schedule.

Isn't that what the offseason was for?

My hot take of the day: when the season is over, Nolan Smith and Hunt will have had more production than Greenard.

10 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

The article said he doesn't like under center because he doesn't like to turn his back to the defense. Wonder if he just said no

Just now, eagle45 said:

My hot take of the day: when the season is over, Nolan Smith and Hunt will have had more production than Greenard.

Maybe Hunt because he is poised for a breakout year.

Smith probably not. Hes just not that good. Hes a rotation player.

Hard to judge the RBs or QB when parts of the OL were more ole than brick wall and the play calling at times was a little vanilla. Saquon did seem to have his burst, but using it to get a 1 yard run doesn't really warm the cockles of your heart like a 60 yard TD run does

1 minute ago, HazletonEagle said:

Baun was good last year, but far less disruptive than 2024. I even saw people talking about a future at LB of Campbell and Trott Jr. with them moving on from Baun in the not-too-distant future.

Baun pulled a page straight out of 2024 yesterday. And Campbell had coverage mishaps, but was outstanding around the LOS. He actually looked like a bit of an edge out there.

Just now, Mike030270 said:

The article said he doesn't like under center because he doesn't like to turn his back to the defense. Wonder if he just said no

That seems most likely, but Im willing to give it more time. May just have been the way the game script played out today.