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Week 6 GDT: Jacksonville Jaguars (3-2) VS Los Angeles Rams (3-2)


.Buzz

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Just now, Tugboat said:

I'd be pretty supremely impressed if we hold their offense to 12 or less.  Even if we do take away the air for the most part, Gurley is no joke.  They could counterpunch right with us just on the ground.  It's not like our defense has been that stellar against the run so far (even without that NYJ run - he was down!!!  arghhhh!!!).  

Like I said, it'd be a Jaguars/Rams thing to happen. Wouldn't shock me in the least honestly if one of those things happen and it ends up a blowout one way and one of the units that our team hangs their hat on have a bad game..

Rams had some unlucky turnovers last week, but they scored under 12 against a Seahawks defense that is good, but I don't think is as good as our unit. So again, wouldn't shock me.

Even though the Steelers have had some ups and downs this year, I don't think anyone expected us to hold them to 9 points either. Especially with Big Ben's history at home.

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Just now, .Buzz said:

Like I said, it'd be a Jaguars/Rams thing to happen. Wouldn't shock me in the least honestly if one of those things happen and it ends up a blowout one way and one of the units that our team hangs their hat on have a bad game..

Rams had some unlucky turnovers last week, but they scored under 12 against a Seahawks defense that is good, but I don't think is as good as our unit. So again, wouldn't shock me.

Even though the Steelers have had some ups and downs this year, I don't think anyone expected us to hold them to 9 points either. Especially with Big Ben's history at home.

I guess i'm just not convinced that our defense is actually better than the Seahawks unit.  At least, not convinced yet.  How they perform in this game will help build confidence in them if they continue to perform at such a high level.  But the Seahawks unit has been top tier for a while now, and sustained that.  They're a pretty proven commodity.  Sacksonville is...potentially entering that conversation if they can sustain this, but #earnednotgiven or whatever.  Forgive me if i'm a little slow to believe after a traumatic decade of bad football.  :D

 

It is one of those cross-continent games though, you're right.  Those can get funky.

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Just now, Tugboat said:

I guess i'm just not convinced that our defense is actually better than the Seahawks unit.  At least, not convinced yet.  How they perform in this game will help build confidence in them if they continue to perform at such a high level.  But the Seahawks unit has been top tier for a while now, and sustained that.  They're a pretty proven commodity.  Sacksonville is...potentially entering that conversation if they can sustain this, but #earnednotgiven or whatever.  Forgive me if i'm a little slow to believe after a traumatic decade of bad football.  :D

 

It is one of those cross-continent games though, you're right.  Those can get funky.

I know it's only 5 games and we're the Jaguars so we should always expect the worst, but it's just looking at all the talent and the fact that they are showing it on the field this year. I mean, you've seen the report of where we are basically playing to the players strengths which is in turn just playing a basic defense and letting them go out there and beat them 1 v 1 because we think they're just that good, right?

Secondary as a whole has been historically good. Jack has been what we all hoped we drafted so far this year. Telvin is Telvin. Calais Campbell has been one of the most disruptive DL in football through the first 5 games and has a track record of being elite.

I don't know, I just don't see how the unit falls off that much. 

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Just now, .Buzz said:

I know it's only 5 games and we're the Jaguars so we should always expect the worst, but it's just looking at all the talent and the fact that they are showing it on the field this year. I mean, you've seen the report of where we are basically playing to the players strengths which is in turn just playing a basic defense and letting them go out there and beat them 1 v 1 because we think they're just that good, right?

Secondary as a whole has been historically good. Jack has been what we all hoped we drafted so far this year. Telvin is Telvin. Calais Campbell has been one of the most disruptive DL in football through the first 5 games and has a track record of being elite.

I don't know, I just don't see how the unit falls off that much. 

There are always fall-off possibilities.  Especially because Jags.

a)Defense gets tired of the offense and quits.

b)Teams get wise to the fact that we're selling out, or at least better oriented against the pass and punch us in the mouth with the ground game, like we're trying to do to them.

c)We come up against a legitimate powerhouse offense that is actually on top of their game and it all comes crashing down like a house of cards.

d)Aliens.

c)Teams start to get film on what we're doing and come in actually expecting and prepared for a good defense, and make gains.  The mark of a great defense is how teams fare when they know they're in for a slugfest.

d)All of the Above.

 

Not to purely play the cynic.  I'd prefer they just keep rolling.  This is the best i can remember the defense looking.  But, y'know...Jaguars.

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3 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

There are always fall-off possibilities.  Especially because Jags.

a)Defense gets tired of the offense and quits.

b)Teams get wise to the fact that we're selling out, or at least better oriented against the pass and punch us in the mouth with the ground game, like we're trying to do to them.

c)We come up against a legitimate powerhouse offense that is actually on top of their game and it all comes crashing down like a house of cards.

d)Aliens.

c)Teams start to get film on what we're doing and come in actually expecting and prepared for a good defense, and make gains.  The mark of a great defense is how teams fare when they know they're in for a slugfest.

d)All of the Above.

 

Not to purely play the cynic.  I'd prefer they just keep rolling.  This is the best i can remember the defense looking.  But, y'know...Jaguars.

Bad games are going to happen here and there, and obviously if the offense is trash one week and turns it over like crazy/doesn't convert causing the defense to be out there all the time they'll get worn down. That happens to any defense, even the best of them.

But besides that, I don't see any of the other points really happening/coming to fruition consistently. The run defense isn't great but besides the NYJ game it has held up pretty decently. Henry went off in the 2nd half but that wasn't because our run defense was trash, that was because a point I just talked about, the offense turned it over/couldn't convert leading the defense to get gassed. 

Bell had some solid runs early in that game but he ended up finishing with 3.1 YPC. Plus, Bell is one of the best backs in football and the Steelers do have a pretty damn solid OL, I expect him to get some nice runs here and there. I'm not saying we are some historic defense, but we are a very good one. Doesn't mean we'll be flawless week in and week out.

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This whole "we'll sell out for Fournette and make Bortles beat us which he can't" has been the thing for every defense this whole season and we sit 3-2. We aren't a great team and due to our lack of decent QB play we likely finish 7-9/8-8 imo, but teams have stacked the box constantly against Fournette and we've managed to pull out 3 wins, and in all reality if the whole Lee/Benn debacles don't happen (every team can do this, I know, but it doesn't make it any less true) this team would be sitting 4-1. Every one of those teams went in the game selling out for the run and making Blake beat them. 

Fournette is just a different animal. I'm sure there's going to be a couple times he gets stopped/can't do anything because of this and Blake is going to have a 2-3 turnover game trying to make up for it, but the guy is just crazy good at making runs that should be negative/go for no gain into 3-4 due to the way he runs. He's just so powerful and it takes team tackles to get him to the ground quite often. As long as he can continue chipping away causing 3rd and short I like our chances offensively even with Bortles playing the way he has. 

We just have to be even or win the turnover battle and I feel good about each and every game. We've done that so far for the most part.

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40 minutes ago, .Buzz said:

This whole "we'll sell out for Fournette and make Bortles beat us which he can't" has been the thing for every defense this whole season and we sit 3-2. We aren't a great team and due to our lack of decent QB play we likely finish 7-9/8-8 imo, but teams have stacked the box constantly against Fournette and we've managed to pull out 3 wins, and in all reality if the whole Lee/Benn debacles don't happen (every team can do this, I know, but it doesn't make it any less true) this team would be sitting 4-1. Every one of those teams went in the game selling out for the run and making Blake beat them. 

Fournette is just a different animal. I'm sure there's going to be a couple times he gets stopped/can't do anything because of this and Blake is going to have a 2-3 turnover game trying to make up for it, but the guy is just crazy good at making runs that should be negative/go for no gain into 3-4 due to the way he runs. He's just so powerful and it takes team tackles to get him to the ground quite often. As long as he can continue chipping away causing 3rd and short I like our chances offensively even with Bortles playing the way he has. 

We just have to be even or win the turnover battle and I feel good about each and every game. We've done that so far for the most part.

100% agree on that.

It's what makes Fournette so impressive so far.  He's doing what he's done, with teams absolutely selling out to stop him.  Every time he takes the field (literally - see @iPwn's complaints for more on this), everyone in the zip code knows he's going to carry the mail.  Yet he's still getting these results.  And waving guys on because frankly...he doesn't seem to think they can stop him.  And so far, they really haven't.

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14 minutes ago, Tugboat said:

100% agree on that.

It's what makes Fournette so impressive so far.  He's doing what he's done, with teams absolutely selling out to stop him.  Every time he takes the field (literally - see @iPwn's complaints for more on this), everyone in the zip code knows he's going to carry the mail.  Yet he's still getting these results.  And waving guys on because frankly...he doesn't seem to think they can stop him.  And so far, they really haven't.

It makes me that much more excited for a year or two down the line where we may have competent QB play. If Fournette can do what he's doing against stacked boxes, what's he going to do when there is a QB on the team that can make teams pay for doing so? What's he going to do when there's only 5-6 guys in the box?

As long as we can keep the core guys around on defense along with Fournette on offense this team is going to be much more fun to watch/follow then anytime in the past decade and it isn't really close.

Never. Getting. Old.

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5 hours ago, .Buzz said:

Like I said, it'd be a Jaguars/Rams thing to happen. Wouldn't shock me in the least honestly if one of those things happen and it ends up a blowout one way and one of the units that our team hangs their hat on have a bad game..

Rams had some unlucky turnovers last week, but they scored under 12 against a Seahawks defense that is good, but I don't think is as good as our unit. So again, wouldn't shock me.

Even though the Steelers have had some ups and downs this year, I don't think anyone expected us to hold them to 9 points either. Especially with Big Ben's history at home.

Like I said, it was a flukey game. It was the first time I saw McVay look like a rookie coach. Even with that, we had 375 yards of offense and should have scored 30 points (or at least 27). To illustrate:

10 points scored + 7 points lost on Gurley fumble (refs blew the call) + 7 points lost on Kupp's drop (unforced error) + 3 points lost on Zuerlein miss (unforced error) + 3 points lost on Richardson interception (unforced error) = 30 points

Those were all flukey plays. Zuerlein has seven misses in six seasons inside 40 yards (so it happens about once per year). The Rams lose a fumble for a touchback inside the five at most once per year. Kupp dropping a wide open pass in the end-zone likely won't happen often. And a DL intercepting a screen pass is a pretty rare occurrence (this one falls on Goff for throwing high).

So yea, Seattle held us to 10, but that was more due to us than Seattle. It was just a case of the Rams playing a terrible game. I'm not trying to lessen Seattle's performance. They made it hard on us to execute, but our errors were what kept us off the scoreboard. 

We may come out and play a similarly bad game against Jacksonville. Maybe it's just a testament to a great defense that forces us to press and make mistakes. But I think we're going to look a lot more polished this week (and that's not a dig at the Jaguars, it's just my belief that last week wasn't ordinary).

3 hours ago, .Buzz said:

It makes me that much more excited for a year or two down the line where we may have competent QB play. If Fournette can do what he's doing against stacked boxes, what's he going to do when there is a QB on the team that can make teams pay for doing so? What's he going to do when there's only 5-6 guys in the box?

As long as we can keep the core guys around on defense along with Fournette on offense this team is going to be much more fun to watch/follow then anytime in the past decade and it isn't really close.

Never. Getting. Old.

What is Fournette doing? You can't waive on the hit and then let the guy tackle you!  :P

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4 hours ago, jrry32 said:

Like I said, it was a flukey game. It was the first time I saw McVay look like a rookie coach. Even with that, we had 375 yards of offense and should have scored 30 points (or at least 27). To illustrate:

10 points scored + 7 points lost on Gurley fumble (refs blew the call) + 7 points lost on Kupp's drop (unforced error) + 3 points lost on Zuerlein miss (unforced error) + 3 points lost on Richardson interception (unforced error) = 30 points

Those were all flukey plays. Zuerlein has seven misses in six seasons inside 40 yards (so it happens about once per year). The Rams lose a fumble for a touchback inside the five at most once per year. Kupp dropping a wide open pass in the end-zone likely won't happen often. And a DL intercepting a screen pass is a pretty rare occurrence (this one falls on Goff for throwing high).

So yea, Seattle held us to 10, but that was more due to us than Seattle. It was just a case of the Rams playing a terrible game. I'm not trying to lessen Seattle's performance. They made it hard on us to execute, but our errors were what kept us off the scoreboard. 

We may come out and play a similarly bad game against Jacksonville. Maybe it's just a testament to a great defense that forces us to press and make mistakes. But I think we're going to look a lot more polished this week (and that's not a dig at the Jaguars, it's just my belief that last week wasn't ordinary).

What is Fournette doing? You can't waive on the hit and then let the guy tackle you!  :P

Except that dude got ran over and celebrated getting a tackle after being ran over for a 1st down lol. 

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