Can Geno start playing well against good defenses?

[Spin Doctor]

I'm afraid Geno is going back to the Geno we all know. Good thing is that he'll be cheaper until we can get a franchise QB.

Geno is never going to be the guy from the Jets. He's got some solid fundamentals that he's working off of. His mechanics, natural accuracy, arm talent and ability to read a defense is well above the average NFL QB. You don't see backups doing what he's doing on a consistent basis, he did. Geno is solidly entrenched in solid starting QB territory. Geno knows how to play the position and there is no question about that.

Where the question with Geno comes is his ability to produce in crunch time and ability to elevate the talent around him. As the team goes, Geno goes. He's not the type of QB that seems to elevate the players around him. There is nothing wrong with that. There are only a few Patrick Mahomes characters out there, but we surely don't have one in Geno.

Geno's seems to press too hard. In chaos and crunch time you see QB's such as Tom Brady get this calmness about them. They just go with the flow. Geno tends to get spazzy and wound up. He makes dumb decisions, he holds onto the ball longer than he should, makes reads that he normally doesn't that lead to bad results. He also tends to get careless with the ball. We've had a lot of comebacks with Geno thwarted by fumbles. I really think he needs to see a sports psychologist.

I also tend to think that he got a little complacent towards the end of the year. He made some reads he wasn't making at the end of the year. He got cocky with the ball.

What I'm trying to say is we could do much worse than Geno. I don't think he's going to win us a championship, but he's going to win us a lot of games. He's not the same guy that was on the Jets, watch the two and you will see.

 

[Appyhawk]

Good defenses are generally recognized as such for good reason. They make things more difficult for everyone they face. Geno may not do as well vs the best defenses but neither will other good QBs so it all works out in the end. The main thing we need to do is make sure our defense is as good as we can make it and hope the overall offensive and defensive differences are in our favor.

 

[toffee]

Are we certain our offense's poor performance against good defenses is a Geno issue?

Early in the game, I thought we struggled due to poor playcalling and getting beat in the trenches. Later in the game, I think it was Geno keeping us in it. Geno made some incredible off-balance throws, throws on the move, and extended plays when nothing was there. However, he also seemed to be holding onto the ball slightly longer than usual for him. My hunch is that the receivers were not getting open.

As always, I think multiple things can be true:

I think Waldron has put together a good offensive system and is mostly a good play-caller. I also think Waldron has not handled the pressure of going up against top defenses well.

I like the potential of our OL and I think this is a future strength. I do not think our OL is ready to go toe to toe with a good DL yet.

Our skill-position players are collectively slightly above average. Our skill-position players outside of DK and K9 are not elite, and that gets exposed against good defenses. In general, as fans, we tend to overrate our own players. This is especially true of skill-position players. Most Hawks fans overrate our WRs, TEs, & RBs.

Good analysis!! By adding a good center, a potentially very good slot WR, and two all purposes RBs, could really help Geno out.