My Takeaways from the Game Tonight

[bileever]

Being without Williams, Murphy, Nwosu, Mafe and Baker is more than a few players that's 4 of your front 7, plus Murphy. Then they lose Love. That's nearly half your defense.

I agree with what you're saying, BUT we're supposed to have the best cornerbacks in the league, and with or without a pass rush, I would have like to have seen at least a few more contested catches and an incompletion or two. Witherspoon did not have his best game. Two things can be true at the same time: One, we really suffered from our D-line being out hurt and two, our defensive backs and backups on the D-line didn't perform as well as we would have liked.

But I agree that there were many encouraging aspects of the game as well, and I also came away feeling generally positive about the direction of the team.

 

[chrispy]

This loss doesn't eat at me like I recall most have over the last 3 years. I don't recall any plays where I thought lack of effort was a problem. You can't win em all. In retrospect, yah maybe a few different decisions, but it feels like a growth game.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

When I look back at the numbers some things really stood out. As much as is being made of Goff's passing, he only had to throw 18 passes. Then looking at the number of snaps, Seattle held the ball a lot more than the Lions. That and thinking back to the game, imo the biggest issue was the chunk plays we gave up. A 40 yard screen to Montgomery , 30 yards to Laporta, 70+yd TD to Williams.

When you let the other team score that fast you also don't give your D as many chances to get a sack or some sort of drive killing play. Looking ahed to the Giants, that's going to be a big part in turning this around. Dare Daniel Jones to actually be able to drive the ball down the field. Don't give up anything easy to Nabors

 

[OneLofaTatupu]

I dunno about this game. Personally I wanted to see more nipple shots of coach mike - I never get my way.

 

[DarkVictory23]

I agree with what you're saying, BUT we're supposed to have the best cornerbacks in the league, and with or without a pass rush, I would have like to have seen at least a few more contested catches and an incompletion or two. Witherspoon did not have his best game. Two things can be true at the same time: One, we really suffered from our D-line being out hurt and two, our defensive backs and backups on the D-line didn't perform as well as we would have liked.

But I agree that there were many encouraging aspects of the game as well, and I also came away feeling generally positive about the direction of the team.

I think it's important to note that, yes, Goff went 18 for 18... but 18 pass attempts (technically 19 throwing in the Philly Special) is 13 fewer pass attempts than the average pass attempts per game this season. Meanwhile, their 28 rushing attempts was slightly higher than average.

Additionally, 7 of Goff's 18 pass attempts were just screens/dump offs. That leaves only 11 pass attempts to for our secondary to even attempt to make a play on and when your pass rush is generating pressure on so few attempts (Goff had over 2.5 seconds to throw on 15 out of 18 passes), you can't expect that secondary to be able to keep up with those receivers for that long... especially when they are cheating towards the line to try and be able to fill the holes in the running game.

Would I have loved to see an interception? Yeah, but we only put the Lions in 3rd and long twice all game, so there were basically no chances for us to sell out on pass plays. The first one they ran a give up draw up the middle, and the second one was, unfortunately, that one where it appeared Witherspoon blew his assignment (I think he was expecting a dump off to Gibbs, so Amon Ra St. Brown just goes to the end zone completely uncovered... but even that is kind of a knock down effect of getting burnt on dump offs/runs all game long.)

 

[bileever]

I think it's important to note that, yes, Goff went 18 for 18... but 18 pass attempts (technically 19 throwing in the Philly Special) is 13 fewer pass attempts than the average pass attempts per game this season. Meanwhile, their 28 rushing attempts was slightly higher than average.

Additionally, 7 of Goff's 18 pass attempts were just screens/dump offs. That leaves only 11 pass attempts to for our secondary to even attempt to make a play on and when your pass rush is generating pressure on so few attempts (Goff had over 2.5 seconds to throw on 15 out of 18 passes), you can't expect that secondary to be able to keep up with those receivers for that long... especially when they are cheating towards the line to try and be able to fill the holes in the running game.

Would I have loved to see an interception? Yeah, but we only put the Lions in 3rd and long twice all game, so there were basically no chances for us to sell out on pass plays. The first one they ran a give up draw up the middle, and the second one was, unfortunately, that one where it appeared Witherspoon blew his assignment (I think he was expecting a dump off to Gibbs, so Amon Ra St. Brown just goes to the end zone completely uncovered... but even that is kind of a knock down effect of getting burnt on dump offs/runs all game long.)

These are all very good points that you make here.

In reading some of the assessments of the game, it looks like the cornerbacks didn't play badly, but the couple of times we noticed them were glaring instances like Witherspoon's hit on Montgomery where he bounced off and went for an additional 40 yards or the 70-yard catch and run by Jameson Williams where he scorched the entire secondary (in addition to the one you mentioned with St. Brown).