The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Good: A WIN! Ben shaking off the rust, Dupree looking solid, Watt solid with an impressive pick, Juju showing he wants the #1 status, Benny Snell football, and Bince playing strong.

Bad: Pass D was less then impressive. The Boz miss, Johnson needs to concentrate.

Ugly: Here we are talking about James Conner being injured again. Again. 1st game. The injury to Banner looks grim. Wisniewski going out is also a concern. Hope DeCastros injury doesn't linger.

 

I'm not concerned about the pass defense yet. Tomlin said he threw the secondary under the bus with a game plan that focused solely on Barkley.

It worked! And Tomlin seems to have been involved.......holy ****!

 

We won, on the road, with a quarterback who needs dipped in WD40.

It was a good start.

 

Good? BEN!!....knocked off a little rust and looked like the Ben of old.

Bad? Defensive secondary..........need I say more?

 

I don't understand the hate on Ben?

Sure he was a bit rusty, who wouldn't have been?

Sure he's old, but he is still one of the op 5 QB's in the league. And he played like it last night.

 

Not good, bad or ugly...... but a concern of mine is Dionte Johnson's size/strength...... he just looks like a fumble waiting to happen on almost every catch, he's just so tiny compared to everyone. Might not be a valid issue going forward, it's just something I noticed..... nearly every player tackling him was taking a whack at the ball too.

 

I'm not so much concerned about his size but his recklessness with the ball is a big concern.

 

Here's a Good, Bad, Ugly on DJ's game last night alone.

The good. His second effort in order to score the TD with 11 seconds left in the first half. Didn't give up on scoring.

Bad. As you mentioned defenders punching at the ball. If the defender solely concentrated on the tackle. DJ probably wouldn't have scored. Instead he was punching at the ball instead of trying to get him to the ground.

UGLY - His punt return skills. The early fumble and everything thereafter he looked jittery back there.

 

Yep, that sums it up nice. I want to see more plays for Claypool and I bet we get it.

The Sad:
Seems to me all the games I watched lack excitement without having a stadium full of fans. Even the players seemed less energized.

 

Where in the heck are you seeing any hate for Ben? Have you been down to the beer basement?

 

Ben did fine for the situation he was in. So many weapons at his disposal. Looked off target until he got his rhythm in second qtr. Whoever was calling the plays in the first half was ugly all over. Claypool is a potential monster on this team. Loved his reaction after his end around for a first down in 4th qtr. Bad ass in the making. Conners time with us is short as not only couldn't he get rushing yards, he looked like a juggling artist when Ben dumped the ball to him sometimes. He can't shake the injury bug. Period. Defense was flying all over the field and even crawling to get to the QB. That is something that you can't coach. We have it. Need to clean up the secondary coverage though. Opening day wins, especially away, is a rare event over the past 10 years so I'll be content to see if we can string a couple of wins together win a win at home.

 

Technically..... that was James Washington that scored the TD at the end of the half

 

Damn beers.

 

Anybody else relieved about Juju`s performance? I was concerned he might be regressing a bit last season, but he seems his old self out there last night.

 

QB play had a huge role in his dismal performance last season. Ben has a ton of receiving weapons now and that will certainly free up JUJU to take it to the next level. I think he can have a Pro Bowl year if everyone stays healthy. Right now the Oline and RB situation is a major concern.

 

It wasn’t elite, but they got the job done considering the aim was to keep Barkley in check. NY threw it 41 times and got just over 250 yards, and 2 INTs... Not amazing, but not bad.

 

Just the comments about how old he is, needing dipped in WD-40, rusty, not elite any more, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong Sandy but isn't "elite" sort of reserved for the top five in the league? And there is nothing to suggest that Ben isn't still in that top five.

And......yes!

 

For those of you who saw our secondary give up a lot, take heed to Tomlin's comment after the game.

Tomlin:
"We put our secondary in harm's way some in an effort to do so [stop Barkley], but it's a team game, and they embraced that challenge. We needed to stack the line of scrimmage, we needed to bring people like [cornerback] Mike Hilton and so forth, and we did. We did what we thought was necessary to minimize [Barkley's] impact on the game"

Another key to the above comment is that it would appear that Tomlin did more than just slap the guys on the butt in the practices leading up to Monday night! #7 comin up!

 

For a quarterback Ben is old. Even you suggested he was rusty. That’s not hate though. Just acknowledging the obvious. As far as being top 5. I think we need a few more games before having that conversation.

And good.

 

Maybe hate is strong word But I don't get why so many are so willing to think he is done.

Brady is 43 Unknown
Brees is 41 Great
Rivers will soon be 39 Joke
Ben is 38
Rodgers will soon be 37 Unknown

I believe that of those guys, Brees is the only one I would put above Ben, as far as current ability. Rodgers and Brady are unknown at this point, and Mahomes and Wilson are the only young studs clearly in the mix.

 

Aaron Rodgers was 32 of 44 for 364 yards, 4 TD's, no INT's for 127.5 QBR. I don't know how you put him in an "Unknown" category?

 

That was one game.

 

Oh' My bad, you want to talk about his career? I'm certain he's not suddenly going to get benched this season.

 

He really really helped my fantasy team last week.