Week 2 Thieves: The "Nathanial Hackjob" Edition

[Hunter2_1]

I think Jack Del Rio

[Raves]

The Refs in the Saints/Bucs game.  Only ejecting Lattimore and Evans when Fournette deserved an ejection as well if Lattimore was getting sent packing and then walking Brady down the field for a TD with a bunch of BS calls.  Saints ended up imploding after that trying to get a TD back when their offense was already struggling and probably hoping to win a 6-3 game as the defense wasn't letting the Bucs do anything.  So the Saints turnovers in the end did cost them the game, but those turnovers that led to the game being put out of reach might not have happened if the Refs didn't hand the Bucs a free TD either.

[MWil23]

15 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

I had to edit the thread title. It's a 3-way race today between Hackett, the Browns defense and Baltimore's defense.

*The Cleveland Browns special teams has entered the chatroom giving up a fake punt that led to a TD after a conversion, a missed PAT, a muffed punt, a failed onside recovery, and a missed PAT*

[Broncofan]

10 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

Nathaniel Hackett is the newest version of Matt Nagy and Adam Gase... and that's not an overreaction.

I'd say Mike McCoy and Lynn combined into 1.  Unlike Gase/Nagy, the scheme actually works.   But Hackett isn't getting plays in until there are 20 secs or less on the clock.   And some of the play calls are mind boggling. 6 YPC and you're calling an option with the TE Andrew Beck on 3rd and 1?    Calling for 5 passes inside the 5 yard line out of 6 tries with said running success and no Jerry Jeudy????  GTFO.    And that's before we get to TO management (not calling TO on 4th and goal at the 1 with 25 secs left in the 2Q...with 2 TO's in the pocket.  OMG SMH).  

Hackett's decision-making to get plays in, his choice of plays and his inability to process crucial decisions is mind-boggling.  He can't even fathom thinking ahead.  That 4th-and-2 FG-turned-delay-of-game-turned punt was a prime example.   It's 3rd and 1, you call a TE option and miss.   He had NO IDEA what to do next, he couldn't decide on gambling or punt.   You HAVE to be able to think ahead - frankly, it's crushing that he couldn't think ahead "if we miss on 3rd down, this is what we're doing".    The game is just WAY too fast for him, or he's got too much he's trying to do...or both.   Either way, it's baaaaaaad.

The only saving grace for DEN besides the weak competition is that the scheme does appear to leverage the players' skills (Jeudy and PS2 out are killers though, and our ILB's plain suck).    But the in-game play calling and inability to make ANY decision, or anticipate - it's historically bad.  

The big thing to me are 3-fold:

1.  There hasn't been ANY improvement in preparedness from week 1 to week 2.  12 penalties, followed by 13 penalties.

2.  There hasn't been ANY improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 in getting plays in sooner.

3.   There hasn't been ANY improvement in game management decisions; other than being more unsure what to do, and burning more TO's.

Those are ALL HC responsibilities.   That's crushing.

Every coach normally gets a minimum of 2 years, and usually 3 years to show if they're the right guy.  But we've never seen ineptitude for in-game decision-making like we see with Hackett in their first 2 games.   Contrast that to Mike McDaniel, Kevin O'Connell and Brian Daboll (all 3 who I supported as great candidates to target) - it's disheartening.   

If we knew the OC & DC could handle play-calling then Hackett could be the very 1st coach to be replaced in-season year 1.   It's NEVER a good idea to go there - and I'm willing to wait - but if we get 2-3 more games like the first 2, it's actually in the discussion.  Which is literally a "never-been-seen" scenario. 

It's only 2 games, but it's literally the worst 2-game debut by a mile now.   Game 1 was probably outdone by Freddie Kitchens, but Week 1 AND 2?   Sorry, clear winner now.  We should be 2-0, but we feel lucky to be 1-1.  And that's with a team that's FAR more talented than last year, and with a decent HC & staff, feel good about playoffs.  Now we just cringe about what happens from week to week.  

Edited September 19, 2022 by Broncofan

[BroncoSojia]

10 hours ago, Dr LBC said:

Nathaniel Hackett is the newest version of Matt Nagy and Adam Gase... and that's not an overreaction.

I honestly think it's an insult to Nagy and Gase to be compared to Hackett, based on what we've seen thus far.

[Art_Vandalay]

The Broncos fans assisting with the play-clock countdown was gold

[BroncoSojia]

1 hour ago, MikeT14 said:

Jack Del Rio for sure.

We replaced Rio as our defensive coordinator with Wade Philips in 2015 and had one of the greatest defenses in NFL history with largely the same personnel. He has a habit of wasting good talent it seems.

[lomaxgrUK]

1 hour ago, Art_Vandalay said:

The Broncos fans assisting with the play-clock countdown was gold

I said in the Broncos forum that I am definitely being an old man shouting, "get off my lawn" for saying this, but it was quite annoying how long it went on for as a Broncos fan. You could see the Texans DL were starting to use it to tee off as the clock wound down (a pretty frequent thing for this Denver Offense, for some reason).

Funny at first, then it became genuinely detrimental to the team they were booing due to a lack of Offensive production. Oh, the irony.

[NYJets4716]

14 hours ago, jetjuice said:

Lamarcus Joyner narrowly avoided this list. He's a shell of his former self.

Oddly enough, his missed tackle of Chubb gave the Jets their only chance to win. Jets had no timeouts, 1:30 left in the game, down 13, and won. 

[MikeT14]

1 minute ago, NYJets4716 said:

Oddly enough, his missed tackle of Chubb gave the Jets their only chance to win. Jets had no timeouts, 1:30 left in the game, down 13, and won. 

Joyner 4D Chess during checkers move 

[MikeT14]

2 hours ago, Hunter2_1 said:

I think Jack Del Rio

 

 

[BroncoSojia]

1 minute ago, MikeT14 said:

 

 

He’s a people person…..

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

20 minutes ago, lomaxgrUK said:

I said in the Broncos forum that I am definitely being an old man shouting, "get off my lawn" for saying this, but it was quite annoying how long it went on for as a Broncos fan. You could see the Texans DL were starting to use it to tee off as the clock wound down (a pretty frequent thing for this Denver Offense, for some reason).

Funny at first, then it became genuinely detrimental to the team they were booing due to a lack of Offensive production. Oh, the irony.

Meh. Your HC and QB should probably just not be incompetent if they don't want the fans to treat them as such.

If you don't want fans to count down the play clock..... get plays off in time.

[ThatJerkDave]

11 hours ago, AFlaccoSeagulls said:

a lot of people are blaming Kyle Hamilton for this, and to be honest I'm just not sure. Like.. If the play call is to have Hamilton deep and Marcus Williams in coverage, that is awful because Williams is our only good deep safety who already had 2 picks on the day. So to me it almost seems like Williams should've been deep but wasn't for some reason.

Either way yeah it's a huge communication break down. We had like 3 of those and all of them resulted in touchdowns today.

 

If I had a dime for every time I had seen that in GB, I would have a lot of dimes.  Slick zones do amazing when they work, but they can make the defenders look inept when they confuse the play call.  One of the two got the play wrong.  But, I think when it happens a lot, that has to be on the coach for not getting everyone on the same page.  

[Dr LBC]

4 hours ago, BroncoSojia said:

I honestly think it's an insult to Nagy and Gase to be compared to Hackett, based on what we've seen thus far.

Bears and Jets fans would probably beg to differ.

Though also, is it really a question of whether the scheme works (most schemes when operated correctly work), or whether the guy really isn't that good at running the scheme without crutches to prop him up.

Nathaniel Hackett's offense rank as an OC (by total yards):

19th
26th
23rd
6th
27th
Gets Aaron Rodgers
Becomes Head Coach

That's awfully close to the same path that Nagy went, minus Nagy not having a ton of experience pre-KC.  Of course the scheme worked, it was Andy Reid's variation on Bill Walsh's scheme - you have to try hard to gaff that up to make it wholly ineffective.  In Gase's case, it was always Peyton's scheme or, at least, Peyton's variations on Tom Moore's scheme; it really was never supposed to work without that key cog known as Peyton Williams Manning.

Hackett was a fairly garbage coordinator with the Bills, a mostly garbage coordinator with the Jags, and then he got Aaron Rodgers (and was working under a HC who had worked beneath - and was bringing in heavy scheme elements from - Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan).  The notion that Hackett was anymore responsible for the success of the scheme in Green Bay than the QB (and frankly the QB/WR combo - because Rodgers/Adams was flat out dominant during his tenure there) is kind of ridiculous.  The same way that Nagy and Gase got credit for the success and execution of schemes that they really didn't have much, if any, responsibility for, as well.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Dr LBC