What a terrible Sunday outing to sit through. I have been to some bad games at FedEx this year and Sunday was easily the worst. Some are calling it the worst defeat in the Ron Rivera era. It’s a game that is not being taken lightly. I was luckily out of town for the Bears. Even if I did attend the Chicago game, I still think this one would’ve been worse. Something in common from these two games? The all black uniforms. They should be burned and never worn again. What made this game so bad was how we shot ourselves in the foot 6 times. It was a one score game even after turning it over 5 times. I was out of my seat and on the way out before the 6th had become a pick 6. Just an all around disaster. I knew signing up to write about this team was going to get rough at some points. I’ve grown a newfound respect for the reporters who have been at it for years. It can be quite difficult to pull together positives when we have a team on our hands who doesn’t produce many of them.
The turnovers just didn’t stop. The first two drives set the tone for the game. Everytime single time we started doing something on offense. We would just turn it over. We were only down 5 coming out of the locker room after a terrible first half. I was hoping the boys were going to turn it around. Nope. They turned it over (Good pun? I liked it). We fumbled right out of the gate. It was an indicator that nothing was going to change. I was liking Rodriguez’s stuff till his fumble. I still don’t really understand why we drafted him, but I guess Rons trying to prove it wasn’t a wasted pick. BRobs fumble almost sealed the game. Shoutout Terry for diving on his second football of the year. This one ended up not meaning much, but if you erase Sam’s pick 6 and put a game winning drive in its place, then it would have.
There was just so much bad involved with this game. The coaching, the players, no matter what you can think of. It was all bad. Excluding the flyover. The flyover was sick. It was almost everything after kickoff that went bad. The biggest bright spot was our defense coming up with 9 sacks. It was the most sacks we’d had in a loss since 1984. We were one away from tying the franchise record. These sacks were the only reason this game stayed competitive. Pretty much every play seemed like it was going for positive yards unless we got to the meatball boy. I don’t even want to think about what the score may have been if we didn’t put up these numbers. Prayers up for Efe. Hoping for a speedy recovery and to see him suit up again in the future. The only other bright spot coming to mind was once again Brian Robinson. Even though he did not find the endzone, he played one hell of a game.
Our offense never remotely got going. In terms of EB’s coaching, it wasn’t his best showing, but as Ron said you can’t blame the coaches for fumbling the ball. We kept Sam relatively well protected only allowing 4 sacks. Something I can’t wrap my head around is not getting Terry more involved. Not only him but all of our wide receivers. Sam throws to our running backs and tight ends way too much. More than half of our throws last game went to them. Sam commented on taking what the defense gives us. A response that makes sense. But it forces the question to be asked if our WRs just suck and can’t get open. Coming into this season our WRs were the 2nd best unit on the team. I think the answer to my question is no but you would think EB is drawing plays up to get the ball downfield and especially to our number one guy. Obviously, he’s not telling Sam to throw check downs every other play but it seemed like it last game. The Deonte Banks postgame comments were so unnecessary. Nothing good comes from when players go on instagram live. He can ask Ja Morant about that. He put a target on his head for absolutely no reason. We’ll see how that works out for him. It will be fun to watch Terry cook him for the next couple of years. I’m sure he’ll regret those comments at some point.
This loss was definitely grounds to fire everyone. It won’t happen in a short week, but it may happen next. In my opinion, a 50 point blowout loss in front of the whole country might just be enough to get JDR and maybe Ron out of here. While I don’t think Ron will get the boot midseason, I do think this would get JDR on the road earlier than expected. I foresee their offense single handedly hitting the over. We made the Giants no name receivers look like studs. I can only imagine what Ceedee is going to do to our secondary tomorrow. Forbes has just been ruled out for the game along with JSW. Probably a good thing for Emmanuel’s confidence to not have to line up across from Ceedee. We wouldn’t want him to get his feelings hurt again. I really hope we don’t get run off the field, but there could be some long term benefits if what we all expect does end up happening.
It will be another game for Sam tomorrow where I am hoping he doesn’t get killed. The touchdown run last week was enough of a scare. He was bouncing off people, took three big shots in maybe 5 seconds, and still powered his way for 6. You can’t question Sam’s competitiveness and determination. He gives me Baker Mayfield vibes in that regard. He makes it very obvious that he cares a lot and does not want to have his job taken. I loved the fight that followed Sam getting slammed. I don’t like watching him get rocked. But I do like seeing our whole team sprinting to defend him. Coming to mind, this was the third time this year I have seen our team go to war over Sam getting cheap shotted. We definitely need to get those numbers down, but we are 100% on starting fights to defend Sam when it seems warranted. I don’t know why Curtis was ejected but I am assuming it was because he threw a punch. I will take that ejection for defending our QB every single game. My only knock is that he didn’t hit the guy harder.
Our offense is going to have to put up over 50 if we want this game to stay competitive. I would consider it a moral victory if Sam hung 4 touchdowns on them and we lost but still put up over 30 points. My expectations of that actually happening are quite low but crazier things have happened. Regardless of the outcome from this one, Sam is still the quarterback of our future. If he goes out there and puts on a show, then he confirms what I already believe in. If the Cowboys eat him alive, I’ll write it off because I guarantee it will be due to their D having 10+ sacks and our Oline giving Sam zero time.
A short blog for a short week. Bottom line is we suck and tomorrow is going to be ugly. I personally have already mentally jotted this game down as an L. So many things have to go our way for us to pull this one out. You have to be diagnosed as a mentally insane person to think taking our ML is a good idea. At least our kickoff is around the time when my family will be sitting down to eat dinner. It will serve as a good distraction so I don’t have to really pay attention to us getting obliterated. It is times like these where we must remember that football isn’t everything. But if we had a team actually worth routing for, then it absolutely would be. Football aside. Hope everyone enjoys their shortened work week and gets to spend some time with family. Happy Thanksgiving. Skins by 90.
Photo Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports