i am going to start out this post by saying that i am not a gase fan and am on the 'fire gase' bandwagon, but today's loss was not because of adam gase.
this OL is bad. so, so bad. compton and shell were getting wrecked today. it's just how they played today, but you have to accept this as a possibility when trying to operate with sub-optimal talent. the offense and the team looked good when the OL had been able to put in solid performances the past few weeks, but today they just weren't able to do that. that's down to talent. today beachum just happened to put up a stinker and the rest of the OL was really sorry for it
almost all of the holds occurred for similar reasons - talent. it's not like they were out there needlessly holding for no reason. they were holding because they were getting beat so, so easily and couldn't do anything else otherwise. it would either be a hold or a sack.
i'm not going to buy that as a discipline thing, it's down to talent. i still feel the beachum block in the back was a weak call, but it was correct. but beachum is a grown man and has been playing this game his whole life, and knows better than that. he shouldn't have done it. nothing there should be put on coaching or the coaching staff to teach beachum that he shouldn't be doing that in that situation, he already knows.
there weren't many/any positives from today's game. one thing i am actually pissed about is the fact that sam was still in there for the last drive when the game was over and we were getting wrecked. i would have taken sam out, which may have still drawn ire for gase with regards to 'quitting' but it was the right thing to do. then bringing him back for the final needless play after sam actually got hurt, only to see him running for his life after he'd just sustained a knock to his legs. that excrement was dumb and gase shouldn't have done it.
i also don't think any of sam's progress is down to anything from gase either. what we've been seeing is sam's natural progression as a talented, smart 2nd year QB. i'll give gase credit for the good playcalling he's displayed the prior few weeks. other than that, i am not a fan of gase, not at all
however, today's loss had nothing to do with gase. there was nothing he/we could have done
Great, great post. I don't think I would have pulled Darnold, but I agree about your point about the offensive line. It was atrocious today. There wasn't really anything you could do about it, especially when you combine it with the penalties. Everyone wanted to run the ball (including me at one point). But when you can't generate any push in the run game, it becomes a waste of a down.
And while I was giving JE some excrement earlier, I agree that Darnold's development isn't necessarily because of Gase. But I don't think it really matters - as long as Darnold is playing well, we should keep him in the same system, unless Gase shows he is an egregiously bad coach. And I haven't seen that. He isn't out there blocking.
But to JE's point of, "We aren't the only team with a bad offensive line," you're right. Here are the five worst offensive lines in the NFL entering this week according to FootballOutsiders.
32. Dolphins
31. Jets
30. Bengals
29. Bears
28. Falcons
You know what all of those teams have in common? They suck! They're inconsistent offensively! Atlanta, Miami and the Jets have all had games where they've clicked offensively. They've also all had games where they looked like absolute garbage offensively. That's what happens when you have a disaster offensive line - sustained success becomes extremely difficult.