rudyZ

Ward is better than Mabin and Spoon at CB, at this point. At least, against the Packers, he was, until he was injured. It's really all just sad.

The raiders are cleaning house, Madden-style! Get aaaaaalll the first round picks! Except that if I was playing Madden, and cleaning house, Cooper and Mack wouldn't be the dead weight I'd be trading away. But... Gruden has 10 years to build that roster back up, right? http://isgrudengoneyet.com/

The turnovers are an embarassment. It's just ridiculous. I don't know if there was a point where it was funny, but it's for sure not funny anymore. It's downright embarassing. I'm not a fan of Saleh, but the defense hasn't been that bad, overall. It really isn't helped by the offense always giving the ball back to the other team, and by the complete absence of any type of edge pressure. The tackling is poor, sure. The young guys in the secondary are baaaad. But again, no pass rush... maybe as a DB, you can focus better and have greater confidence when you know you only have to stick to your guy for 4 seconds, instead of 7-8. When you know before the ball is even snapped that you're going to have to cover perfectly (it has to be perfect for Cassius Marsh to get to the QB), you have no chance. Sherman can do it, because he's been there, he knows what to do. But the others are in panic mode before the play even starts. The most positive thing we've seen this year is probably that it doesn't matter who's carrying the ball, our running game is strong. I wasn't too sure last year. But seeing Mostert look really good two weeks in a row makes me feel really confident for the future of this team. We'll be good, guys. We have to find ways to get receivers open (either by changing some plays, or by changing some players), and not turn the ball over, and we'll be good. And Kittle, my god... he's a stud. Add an edge rusher who can get home to this team, and we're instantly improved by a lot. And please no more turnovers. It's just so sad to watch. Embarassing.

Competition is an understatement. QB CONTROVERSY!!!

You can do it, CJ!

I think we can beat them. I think we can beat them hard. Go CJ!

It would have been McKinnon, but right now it is Juice.

With the way Beathard is playing, running head first into multiple defenders, it's not crazy to think he'll be injured at some point this season.

I found it depressing when it really started looking like we were set on drafting Thomas. He was simply redundant. I don't mind drafting someone we love at a position we don't actually have a need for. As long as we have a plan. I had no issue with drafting McGlinchey, this year, because there was a plan. We knew for weeks that Trent Brown was most likely on the trading block (all the coach talk about him being a great player, to me, didn't indicate he was part of our future, it was mostly just an attempt to inflate his trade value). So drafting McG in the first while getting a second rounder for the guy he was replacing? Almost a no brainer. But drafting Thomas when we had Buck, Armstead, even Blair who's a bigger end... it made no sense unless we had a trade for Armstead in waiting. Or else, the staff was just delusional as to how his skillset would translate. And it still is. So now, Armstead has no value, and no pass rush skill. We completely depleted Thomas's value as well, by making him look incapable. Honestly, I think Thomas was a character pick. Let's pick the character guy, and figure out how to play him later.... yeah, right... never figured that part out.

Yeah, no need to force him onto the field. I prefer having him 12 games at 95% than 16 games at 75%. This year, at least. If we were in the running for a playoffs spot, I'd want our best (available) RB to try to be on the field every game. But this year, I prefer to be cautious with everyone's health.

justone is right in that it is his choice. He is responsible for the consequences. The consequence of his jump was a contact to the head of the QB. So I guess that by rule, there had to be a penalty, however soft it was. I do disagree about the excessive fine, though. I guess it's not a subjective application of the rule. If someone has any judgment, it's clear there was no malicious intent. But again, by the rules, they had to fine him, or else they'd be saying the referee was wrong, which he wasn't, because he did hit the QB to the head, however soft it was. And the amount of the fine also usually isn't arbitrary. It's probably 20k because he was fined before, no? It escalates. 5k, 10k, 20k, something like that? So the amount of the fine is not indicative of the severity of the hit, just of repeated behaviour. Or maybe I'm just wrong and confused. Very soft hit, weak call, but unfortunately for K'Waun, probably the right call.

I'm telling you guys, CJ got this. Blow out warning.

BEAT HARD! *clap clap* BEAT HARD! *clap clap*

I agree with this so much. Yeah, it's not Kyle's role to yell. But who on that staff is raising his voice? Who's vocal leader? I can't think of a coach who has that kind of personality. Back in the Harbaugh years, we had a lot of vocal leaders on the staff (and on the team). Tomsula spent entire games on the sideline screaming. BLUDGEON! Fangio was a guy I don't feel players wanted to piss off. Jim Leavitt also had a strong personality. We lack strong leadership on the defensive side of the ball for sure.

I'm not talking about ra-ra, just enforcing some kind of accountability. We obviously don't know what's going on in the locker room and in meetings, and maybe that's where all of this is happening. I just don't it reflecting on the field. Of course, talent hinders is ability to send a message. You can't really bench a player who has taken a dumb penalty or plays poorly when the next guy up sucks. Well... you can when Jimmie Ward plays poorly. I doubt he was benched because Greg Mabin was pushing him for playing time. But at other positions, there's very little he can do. If Marsh sucks, who are we going to play instead? I don't know. I'm just disappointed with the way the team is looking on the field. As I said the other day, it feels like the players were playing harder on a winless team last year than they are this year. Maybe last year the only way was up, so players were optimistic for the long term. And this year, we had Jimmy G, and were optimistic from the start, and his injuries killed many hopes. But the team was indisciplined before the injury... so I don't know.