First, when a pass is batted at the line and sails over a reciever, it was batted--not overthrown.
Second, when catchable balls are dropped by recievers, it doesn't mean that the throws were not on-time or on the money. You don't say "Niether quarterback distinguished himself" and, in effect, blame the drops on them.
Hoyer was 6 for 14 and should have been 8 or 9 for 14. Johnny Selfie was 7 for 11 and should have been 9 for 11. The recievers didn't distinguish themselves, but the quarterbacks did.
Nor is it accurate to even say that the recievers in general failed to make an impression. Have you counted how many wide recievers are on this roster? Their reps were neccessarily limited, especially with Josh Gordon getting his in.
You look at a guy who doesn't even play more than one and a half quarters--see him make three catches, and are unimpressed! That's downright stupid! It translates to eight or nine catches in a full game!
Charles Johnson caught three for 30 yards. Nobody with a brain will talk themselves into thinking this guy can't "burn", but here he was running short slants and crosses like a possession guy and delivering...although--I think he was guilty of one of the drops (as was Josh Gordon btw). Still, this did not suck. Update: 0 drops.
Jordan Cameron didn't play, and the mislabeled MarQueis Gray did what he did (dropped one himself I think though dammit). He also made a sweet block way downfield to spring--was it Johnson? Anyway the blocking should not be overlooked.
In re both these guys: I TOLD YOU.
The guy that did surprise me was Taylor Gabriel, who one analyst said is faster than Benjamin and Hawkins. He's a microbe, but a lot like Hawkins.
These coaches are not married to Travis Benjamin or any other player they inherited, and if this kid keeps it up he has a good chance here.
As Hoyer said, the offensive line protected the pocket well. The asterisk there is that the Lions didn't do anything fancy to screw them up. Still, this just might be the best four-man defensive line in the NFL, and that's pretty good.
The Lions yanked Bush and Stafford early, and kept Megatron out, but then the Browns kept Wilkins out . The Lions offense, as noted in my last blog, is loaded for bear, especially at tight end. I learned last night that they also have nice depth at running back.
The Browns defense did a nice job against a very potent offense on their field here. That's a good thing.
Notes: the Lions haven't changed much on defense, so they had continuity on that side of the ball going in. The Browns have made more changes.
The Browns had more rookie starters and contributors in Kirksey, Bitonio, West, and Manziel. This was the first real NFL-game action for them ever.
No, I'm not getting too excited over one game. I just needed to point out the massive, gaping holes and flaws in the analysis I've been reading.
As for the QB thing, this game meant less than for any other players because of the vanilla defenses and depth issues in the Detroit secondary.
You can't not be impressed by Johnny's accuracy, even running to his left and throwing on the move, and even touch. You can see it's not "too big" for him.
But Manzielmaniacs will ignore the fact that he either didn't see or ignored open recievers, held the ball longer--which might well indicate uncertainty about what he was seeing--and that on a couple plays he scrambled when he didn't have to.
I saw enough to make me think that he's going to be awesome in time, but he isn't, and won't be, ready very soon. He's known to be an incredibly fast learner with an unusually high conceptual grasp of schemes, yes. But this doesn't transfer to the field overnight.
On the field, they'll show zone and run man, they'll shift after you've done your check, they'll show one guy blitzing and send another instead, delay blitze after the blockers have committed, and pull all sorts of dirty tricks like that which throw the whole classroom thing right out the window.
To master this takes a lot of real reps, including on the scout team in practice, where a Pettine or a Belichick will be practicing what he's going to pull on the upcoming opponent. (They don't warn the quarterback, see?)
Don't say it: of course Manziel's best asset is his ability to improvise when the world is collapsing. But you can't do that over and over again, and it's just no good when one of the reasons for the collapse is the fact that you didn't pull the trigger when you were supposed to, because you weren't sure who your target was, or where he would be!
Also, Mike Pettine has said that a decision on which QB would start next week has not been made. He doesn't know where the report that it would be Manziel came from.
I can tell him: It came from a Manzielmaniac who saw what he wanted to see, and decided that Johnny Selfie had already overtaken Hoyer.
It doesn't matter anyway. Mike might start the kid to see him against and give him a taste of a first string defense that might pull some dirty tricks on him. If that happens, it won't mean anything more than that.
I'm not bashing the kid, either. He did good! So did the defense, Gray, and Johnson. Oh yeah and Armonty Bryant (told you about him too).
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