Forgetful Friday: Remembering to do the TNF Recap, and 4 Topics Stuck in my Head

 

I've felt like I've been forgetting something all day.

Oh. Right.

I haven't broken down TNF yet. Whoops.

Thursday Night Football Recap:

Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Philadelphia Eagles

I am so glad I didn't predict the Eagles to win this game. I said it could be 24-0 going into the half. 21-7 isn't all that far off. I still think the Eagles brass need to be feeling good about Jalen Hurts. This season is going to be the most uphill of climbs for this team.

We all know what the Bucs did. They repeatedly broke a defense that wanted to bend and not break to the tune of 28 points. It should have been worse, but the defense showed up in the fourth quarter. One time too few, for sure. But they at least showed up eventually.

I wish I could say the same for the offense. Watching Jalen Hurts last night was painful.

Stats don't always tell the story of a game, but Hurts went 12/26 for 115, a TD and an INT. Of those 14 missed passes, I saw only two throwaways and no drops. What I saw was Jalen hurts missing dudes. And missing them badly.

Hurts was obviously in his head. I don't know what his college days were like, but I'm done talking about the game now and going to divert to something I learned recently and how it applies to young quarterbacks like Hurts – and specifically how it relates to what I'm watching for as Tua develops.

Does Hero Ball Work in the NFL?

Before I can even start to answer that question, I have to ask another: What is Hero Ball?

Specifically I'm talking about quarterbacks taking their team on their shoulders and doing too much to eek out a win.

We all love Lamar Jackson for his style of football – like accounting for 95% of his team's yardage output the last time we saw him play. Not all of us, I guess. The world is polarized even over nice things. But does it actually work?

Last night we watched Jalen Hurts playing Hero Ball for four quarters. If you follow Brian Baldinger, you no doubt have already heard him breaking this game down. You likely saw I retweeted his critique of Hurts.

We've been watching Patrick Mahomes play Hero Ball all season – and maybe his entire career. I wish I could remember to whom I was listening last night before the game, but he was talking about Mahomes. He was talking about how the mistakes we're seeing this year are Mahomes trying to go out there and do everything himself. What he said that really struck me was something to the effect of, “But if he really needs to win, the heroic thing to do would be to hand the ball off. And then to hand it off again. And again....”

And as I'm watching the game last night, and this is fresh in my mind and I'm enjoying it like a Werther's Original, I'm also watching Eagles fans losing their minds on Twitter about the way their team utilizes their runners – specifically Miles Sanders. Some of them were quite funny.

And then today I'm hearing Baldinger say that the Eagles coaches are saying that they are calling running plays. They're just not actually handing the ball to Sanders because Hurts is either to trying to throw it to receivers who aren't running routes – yikes – or he takes it himself. I think Hurts feels the pressure to carry this team on his back. He shouldn't. He has a good team. But when he's found wins, it's when he's played Hero Ball in the fourth quarter.

So what I'm asking is Does Hero Ball Work for Four Quarters Every Week? Is it sustainable? Can you build an offense, can you make a Playoff bid around the Hero Ball of your quarterback?

I don't think you can. The Chiefs are one thing, but we saw what happened when they met up with a real team. The Bucs spanked them like Foghorn Leghorn with Barnyard Dawg. Painted their tongues green and everything.

Pressing is what some people call it.

I'm not really talking about Mahomes. I'm not ready to second-guess my belief that he and his team are going to turn things around, yet. I'm thinking about how Jalen Hurts is a limited quarterback still, and he's trying to do too much. And it doesn't work. If the coach is giving him too many decisions to make, the coach needs to trim back the number of decisions he is making.

Like they say: Let the players play. If they're thinking, they aren't playing. And you could see that Jalen was thinking last night.

You could also see that his receivers couldn't get open against a desperately depleted secondary, and that's a problem.

What does this have to do with Tua?

I was just about to segue to that.

There seem to me to be two things happening when receivers aren't getting open. And you've figured them out, too: Either the playcall didn't work, or the receiver didn't get open.

The Chiefs' and 49ers' and Rams' and Packers' wide receivers aren't running wide open for easy throws from their quarterbacks because the scheme won alone. It can win. McVay and Shanahan have proved that for us. You can have a moderate to poor quarterback and you can scheme up wins with creative and well-timed playcalls. But no matter what play is called, the players still have to execute.

If you're going whole games and your offense is getting swallowed up – at some point it's on the players.

But really, what does this have to do with Tua?

I have a sick feeling Miami is going to get embarrassed in London.

There are reports out that Preston Williams is struggling to learn the offense. DeVante Parker and Xavien Howard are already out for the game. I haven't gotten to watch enough of Miami's film. Maybe I need to just scam free months of Game Pass. So I can't get into the Xes and Os to the degree that I want. But the film I have seen and gotten to really watch, Miami's receivers aren't helping their quarterback at all.

When Kyler Murray scrambles, his receivers all still continue running routes – just back toward him. So when he needs to make a Hero Throw on the sidelines or while he's being chased by the defense, he has receivers looking at him and beating their defenders to get open. They teach you to sit down in the zone, right? Because we all know that when you escape the pocket, you've just limited yourself to being able to reach only half the field with the ball.

Jalen Hurts almost ended any hope they had of a comeback with a throw across his body back into the field with a dropped interception. You cannot throw across your body back into the field – especially not across the middle of the field. No one is good enough to do it consistently and not get picked off. It's kind of like the lateral – it's such a high risk, high-variance reward proposition it's really not worth trying pretty much ever.

Tua's receivers aren't getting open because they don't know the playbook well enough is what I'm seeing. When the playcalls don't look completely broken from the snap. I've asked before, but how can we evaluate Tua when the offensive scheme is dead on arrival? If the players don't know where they're supposed to be and why, how can we know how good Tua is?

The Horizontal Passing Game Doesn't Work

I understand why teams keep trying it. It's a low-risk playcall with potential for a very high reward. You time and block a screen or a rub play exactly right, and Antonio Brown is off to the fucking races.

But here's why it doesn't work: defense can key on it. Especially in the early part of the game, especially if they know you aren't running it well on first down – and especially when they know you want to break your own tendency of running it on first down.

The horizontal passing game is an extension, as they say, of the running game. It's like a very wide pitch. Only instead of to a running back, they're usually to wide receivers and tight ends.

Don't get me wrong. It can work. We've seen screens go big this season. We saw the Bengals hit a tight end screen on a game-winning drive, and we saw Brady use the horizontal passing game early to push the Eagles around when Philly was still content to give Tampa as many first downs as they felt like taking. You know the idiom give them an inch and they'll take a mile? Yeah, Tom Brady doesn't take inches. He takes scores.

The problem comes when teams know that's your strength. By the fourth, the Eagles had had enough of the horizontal passing game and took it away. Teams can and will stack the line of scrimmage if they know you want to play horizontal. This is bad because it allows them to play press-man. And if you know anything about press coverage, you know it ruins the timing of the route, so the quarterback has to hold the ball for an extra split-second, has to wait another split-second to judge whether the receiver is going to get open, and that means it takes another split-second for him to look off to his next read... which is where sacks come from.

The Legion of Boom went to two Super Bowls playing defense like this.

And it's how teams have to be lining up against Mimai. It's how I would line up against them. Until they can prove they're even going to attempt a downfield shot to Jaylen Waddle, I would jam him at the line and be as physical as the rules allow within five yards.

Teams know Gesicki can't shake press-man. Parker has never been a press-beater. And Miami have a rookie quarterback who is still reading the field at the speed of a rookie quarterback. At least they don't have a young Center.

I feel like I have left so much meat on this bone, but I'll be back to this topic as I learn more.

Second Downs Matter

There is a style of football where the offense's strategy is to use all three downs to move the chains. These offenses are looking for third and short. Run-Run-Pass. Run-Horizontal-pass. Horizontal-RPO-QB Keeper. You know what I'm talking about. You'll hear coaches talk about how they have to execute on first and third downs better.

As I'm watching the League this season, I'm noticing – and I haven't tracked the math yet, but maybe I start – that teams that are expecting to move the chains on first and second downs are the teams that are scoring consistently. I don't know whether I would say this style of play is more aggressive, or whether the traditional style of play is more conservative – because even aggressive coaches will call offense expecting and wanting to use all three downs.

I think it really comes down to clock management. It's about how tightly are you playing to the vest and how much fun are you having. It's about are you coaching to win or coaching not to lose. See, you can be an aggressive coach and call a game not to lose. I think Zimmer is an aggressive defensive coach. Flores is an aggressive defensive coach. But they call an offensive game not to lose – you follow me?

I think there are only a handful of coaches in the League who are willing to throw defense out the window and get in a shootout with you. The Browns and Chargers, obviously – we just watched them do it. But the Rams have done it before. Where do you think Staley learned it? And I know Arians would do it. No risk it, no biscuit, baby.

The game last night, it felt like every time the Buccaneers were in third down it was a big play. Because it felt like they'd gone first down, second down, first down, second down, first down, second down, all the way down the field until eventually it was first down, second down, touchdown – or whatever it actually was. Who has the time or the focus to track the play by play for free?

And on the other side of the ball, you've got the Eagles in 3^rd and 12 every drive, leaving Jalen Hurts forced to play Hero Ball.

And that's all, folks.

Thanks for visiting with me again, today. It was nice to talk at you. I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow – but I'm not sure about what, right now. Until next time.