HarveysWBs

This offense is so irritating. There’s always somebody not doing their job and it ruins critical play after critical play. Love misses open guys, linemen blow assignments, wideouts drop dimes. It’s disgusting.

After the Bears get Minny next week, they go: vs Pit @ Philly @ GB vs CLE vs GB @ SF vs DET Their floor for the rest of the season is extremely low. It irritates me that I have to even think about Chicago, but I’m guessing they’ll be irrelevant again in a month.

The best case scenario is that the Kraft injury forces LaFleur to realize what his offensive personnel can actually do, as opposed to what he wants them to do. He no longer has the bodies to run 12 personnel, and being run-heavy, especially in a power scheme, is not likely to be a successful strategy going forward. His offense can excel, I think, if it relies on more of a passing approach, and Love has demonstrated a great sense of touch on intermediate throws, along with a willingness to take deep shots (although I wish he would be a bit more judicious with these attempts). That should be the identity of the offense, while still using the running game to keep play action passing viable. Your confidence in LaFleur’s likelihood of shifting the approach to Love and the wideouts over Jacobs (who is clearly still limited) and the TE group (which is nothing special without Kraft) will vary. If the Kraft plays are replaced with more bubble screens, I may have to take a break from football until the playoffs, if we even get there. But I really think going more up-tempo and using the passing attack will pay dividends across the board. It will provide the offense with more drives per game and more scoring opportunities, hopefully put the defense in more game situations with leads and therefore invigorate the pass rush and cover the secondary’s weaknesses, and hopefully help us not rely on field goals as often, since that phase remains Russian roulette. This game will reveal much. If we come out with some fresh thinking on offense, there’s some hope. If LaFleur goes “damn the torpedoes” and keeps running the same old approach, I think we’re doomed.

I usually feel better the day after a loss, but not today. I’m somehow more frustrated by it than I was previously, and this is even before I saw the Kraft ACL tear confirmation just now. LaFleur said at half time that the Panthers were doing exactly what they were expected to do: slow the game down and try to win this at the end. The Carolina D created a shell that allowed for solid movement through the air between the 20s, but we had no answer in red zone situations until we just pounded Jacobs late for a TD—too late, as it turned out. The fact that we could not run them out of that shell is a five alarm fire, considering what the team thinks its identity should be. Meanwhile, everyone knew exactly what the Panthers would try to do on offense, and it was the only thing they really could do on offense, considering the health of their line and their QB: let Dowdle run all day. And while giving up 16 is not as disastrous as scoring 13 points at home, what was the one thing the Packers D needed to do late? Make Young beat them—and they couldn’t do that. Add it all up and you get a wounded and thoroughly average Carolina Panthers team that came to Lambeau and dictated terms to a supposed title contender. This is the kind of game that gets people fired. Not now, because in-season changes are panicky and dumb. But there should be some accountability for this at some point. I’d imagine Policy has some interesting thoughts.

No disagreement. I think Love is good and he is getting better as you say. But I should have clarified my point about the team being what they looked like today. Love is good, but because he’s not HoF the rest of the foundation, from the lines up to play calling has to be even more solid than it has been in many years. We aren’t there, and I don’t see any reason to expect it will get there by the time it matters most. It isn’t showing up on game day.

I think a lot of things right now. #1 The spread for this game was ludicrous. There is a lot of flat out stupid money in sports gambling. #2 Calling this a “trap game” is a bs, tired narrative. I will do the organization the credit of believing they know that every team in the league can win any given Sunday. They knew it against Cleveland, too, despite Walker being a knucklehead talking about going undefeated. I believe the team worked all week with diligence to put in a plan they thought would win this game and were not looking ahead. Which is worse because… #3 This is who they are. Love is a guy who will throw into traffic or across the field enough times to give up a horrific interception at least every other game. LaFleur is a guy who will stick with the run way too long. For those two, it is in their DNA and it isn’t changing. and #4 If Gute thought that he had an offensive line, he’s laughably wrong. This team cannot control the trenches (on either side of the ball, come to think of it) against even a middling opponent, and I don’t care how much you want to talk tough about “urgency” or “it starts with me” it actually starts with the lines. Ours aren’t good enough, and that’s going to be fatal. #5 This team will still make the playoffs, because Love is good and Parsons is great and it’s really hard not to make it these days with that as your baseline. But they won’t win a conference as currently constructed and coached. Or, to be more accurate, the odds are crazy long. This team doesn’t have the juice.

I think that’s fair. It is easy for me to imagine a couple things changing our way in game one and game three, but trying to get two more wins even after coming up with a 2-2 record going into game five in that series is difficult to fathom. Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. But it just seems like a shame that we’ve got a pipeline of talent set to keep flowing for years to come, with one of the league’s most exciting arms developing right before our eyes (a kid who also happens to have elbow ligaments that you have to think is a game of jack-in-the-box at this point) and now is when these league issues are about to come to a head. It is a frustrating thought.

Not sure what to suggest, unless you think there’s a formula out there to identify “choke” vs. “clutch,” at which point I’m all ears. We have tried this thing with bats that go for power, and we’ve tried this thing with bats that (in theory) scratch and claw and try to get on base. I’ve seen some really great teams fail using either method. I’ve seen some clutch at bats get absolutely thrown away by bullpen or defensive meltdowns. I feel like the android at the end of Blade Runner at this point. The constant? The Dodgers are always there, and they always go further, and now they have multiple titles. That’s the bigger story to me, and I don’t want to feel anymore like my team is just a fig leaf for a league that is patently, absurdly imbalanced.

The game should be changed, but it is some serious monkey paw garbage that we may have to lose a whole season or more of the strongest position the franchise has been in, maybe ever, in order to get needed structural changes to the league.

The game is broken. Time for reform.

What an absolutely brutal turn of events.

Heck of a second half. Let that be the turning point. They need to round into form now, as the big boys still loom.

Easily his best play as a pro

Had to get in the car and drive home, we scored 14 unanswered. Maybe I should stay in the car… Either way, finish them!

How is that not grounding? He’s in the pocket, on the grasp and not trying to complete a pass. Am I missing something?

We should have the lead at this point. Nice drive when we had to have it, though.

That DPI no call is absolute clown stuff

We’re even for their false start no call

It’s late October and it’s starting to feel like this is becoming who they are: shambolic, error prone, underperforming. I have always hesitated to lay things on the HC when it is a big job and often largely invisible from the public. But a team with those characteristics is, to me, indicative of a coach’s performance. If they play like this the rest of the year, I think we’re interviewing new head coaches in the offseason. I’ve resisted that conclusion until now, but LaFleur needs to bring out the best in this roster very quickly.

I know that it’s really hard to plug all the holes in a roster, but if Gute is going to come out and say he expects this team to play with a higher “sense of urgency” as he did after last season, and then go out there and leave the cornerback room like this when everyone and their mom could see it is a huge liability, that’s largely on him.

Nixon blows

I would happily accept this outcome as well.

MLF doesn’t throw the balls. The reads go TD to check down every play. I bet there was a shorter option on that.

Our pass catchers have been pretty darn disappointing apart from our lone scoring drive. This isn’t going to cut it.