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I've read and watched most of the reviews of this game, and I cannot think of a single instance of someone praising DK Metcalf for his game of 76 yards on 6 targets and 6 receptions. I thought it was his best game as a pro. He made difficult catches, some he wouldn't have caught in years past. He could easily have had two TD's to add to his stat line.

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Who knew we were so deep at Tackle...turns out we have four starters. That is a pleasant surprise to me. As they say (well actually as "I" say), " offense depends upon, begins and ends upon the O-line!"

Overstated? Nahhh...championships are won in the trenches.

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Seems to me Geno's comfort zone is better in Road Games, not at Home. Watching Stafford last week showed us what some QBs bring, as they find the calmness to read the situation unique to every play. Stafford effectively cycled through the designed progression, getting his passes to the 3 or 4 receivers who get open as the play clock ticks. The Deep Ball needs time to develop. Geno looks intent on getting his passes out in 2 seconds, negating the deep pass. Just showing a Blitz will rattle him and lead to many of our troubles. I was most pleased Curhan and Forsyth held their own yesterday. Did not expect to see that. I suspect Detroit didn't either. (Hutchinson who?)

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Also, an interestingly good day for the 2021 draft class. Tre Brown won us the game and Stone Forsythe didn't lose it.

***

I disagree with you regarding Geno. He was good though not great. He excelled distributing the ball, keeping it secure, and evading pressure. The line didn't suck, but they played far from a perfect game. Every now and then someone was on Geno's face, and he took zero sacks until his last snap in regulation.

And even that sack has some excuses. Geno wanted the first down, but he also needed to burn 11s of clock. A draw play would have achieved the latter, but no chance of the former. So he scrambled trying to find something, and when he didn't, he kept scrambling to make sure the clock would go below 2 minutes. In the heat of the moment, you don't know how many seconds have passed, so he didn't throw the ball away (as he should), probably because he thought better to lose some yardage on a sack than give an extra timeout to the Lions. He ended up losing a lot of yardage and Dickson bailed him out, but even his worst play of the day had a context.

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We may be watching Geno establish the Journeyman QB: be consistently Good/occasionally Great. Under Wilson, there were times I felt the Team wasn't getting their play recognized and moved into a bad attitude of "Give it to the Hero- let him win it." It says much about us, as fans. I am super pleased to see Curhan and Forsyth getting a ton of recognition, if only for the complete lack of attention historically given to our Linemen. I tag them as the Heroes of the Week. Let them finally bask a bit. No doubt they got a lot of help from our tight ends, so Waldron/O.L. Coach should get equal praise for their designs. Considering Hutchinson was shut down, Detroit never saw it coming and never adjusted. That's on Campbell.

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Sep 18, 2023·edited Sep 19, 2023

That ridiculous grounding call earlier may have been in the back of his mind as well. FWIW, the zeebs made the same call against Stafford in the Rams-Niners game.

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Geno lost his mind on one play. Absolutely lost it. And it could have cost them the game.

But other than that, he played fine. The Hawks moved the ball well throughout the game.

Forsyth and Curhan played so much ch better than i anticipated. If I had game balls to give out, they would each get one.

And yes, Odd Year Myers is a thing. Glad it will be an even year for the Hawks Super Bowl season next year.

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I think of those "Pick Me!" commercials a few years back. It shows a player punching thru sheetrock and one-handing a throw, turns and says "Pick me". More important was the Kicker who nails 3 kicks into a distant bell tower and rings the bell each time. ("Pick me!") Reminds me of Tiger Woods bouncing a golf ball and finally nailing a homerun drive out of sight, on the first take. (supposedly) I'm expecting we'll see a lot of Dickson's rugby/soccer buddies coming over from Australia...

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If he doesn’t get better this year I doubt he’ll be on the team next season.

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Sep 18, 2023·edited Sep 19, 2023

I learned that two really bad possessions can offset two turnovers. (Or maybe it’s the other way around.)

Myers’ first miss came after a very poorly thrown deep ball, a rush for no gain, and a throwaway. A promising drive, down the drain. But, hey, what if Jason had made the kick and the Lions went into their final possession (following “the least clutch play in Seahawks’ history”) down by six from the fifty? They already had touchdown drives of 75, 65, 75, and 75 yards. Who would have bet against them moving the ball fifty yards in 1:44? Myers’ miss may have been a blessing in disguise.

Lockett and Metcalf had fine games, but how about those TEs? Dissly, Fant, and Parkinson combined for 9/132. They each had a big play, too.

Seaside, why do think Myers’ should made the 56-yard try? This day and age it’s conceivable but not a gimme by any stretch.

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I'm not worried about Geno. I thought he played well enough and the Hawks won in a difficult environment against a good team. It's only game two and this week was a vast improvement over Week 1.

Watch any QB tape and you'll see open receivers who don't get the ball all the time. We have no idea what the progression is supposed to be for Geno's reads so an open guy who doesn't get the ball isn't necessarily an indictment of Geno's play.

This week is in the books and it was a "W". Let's get ready for Carolina.

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I love it when I'm wrong. I said before the game, with two backups at tackle, if we didn't run the ball effectively we had no chance to win. Turns out, not so much. Props to Stone and Jake, as they looked just fine thank you very much. The only time Geno got touched was his own damn fault for going all Russell Wilson on us. If you're QB doesn't get touched at all on 44 pass plays, that's damned fine.

We do need to get our timing sorted out for the run game. RB's are not getting much space to work with, and we just don't seem coordinated on the o-line. Watching shootouts with the QB throwing over 40 times is fun, sure. But when we're protecting a lead, we gotta be able to get a few first downs running the ball. Hopefully we see some improvements over the next couple of games.

Spoon is going to be just fine. Coming off an injury, first NFL game, I thought he looked ok, and made a couple of nice plays. He'll get better every game.

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Sep 18, 2023·edited Sep 18, 2023

Geno - Doesn't feel like we're gonna see that Week2-8 form from last year. Feels far more like the Geno we expected to see. Upside, at least by taking the safe one read then check down he's protecting the ball. Downside, he really should have suffered 2 INT's and 1 strip sack, which would drastically change the result and his stat line. If this team genuinely wants to win a playoff game, Geno must start showing week to week improvement.

Devon looked nice, but i'm still hoping for a bit more from the DB unit. Browns INT was about as on-a-plate as you can get (seriously, that throw was two yards behind the receiver who was running the other way, and directly into Browns stomach), and I can't recall too many other cases of getting close to snagging the ball. Progress from Week 1 so lets hope it's just about gelling and finally being fully healthy.

D-Line still leaves me unconvinced. They did get some pressure in this time, and the run game was held in check. But does it feel equivalent to the outlay in terms of draft capital and cap space? Not yet. Big opportunity to stat pad next week against Carolina, and if they can't turn up there it's a major concern.

How i judge Meyers this week will only become clear in time. If he nails 75% of those 50+yard kicks this season, this gets marked off as unlucky and he has a good season. But 56yards, in a dome, when you want/get Justin Tucker equivalent money I rightly demand Justin Tucker equivalent play.

Final note on Charbs - good to see he got some more snaps. But i continue to feel through two weeks that Waldron isn't sure how to scheme up with so many options. So i find myself questioning if using that 2nd round pick on a RB was a good call or not. Early to make that judgement yes, but seeing JSN & Bobo getting so few looks, and just so many "ordinary" line-ups and plays for the number of weapons available... Is it that Waldron isn't good, or does he not trust Geno, or not trust the Rookies?

We got the win, yes that's good. But i remain far from convinced about this team. Especially watching how the Rams, 49ers and Cardinals have all started! This season isn't going to be a gimmie and we need a big comfortable statement performance vs the Panthers to really cement our status as playoff contenders.

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On Tre's INT, it looks like Chena forced Goff to pull his throw a bit left or get it knocked down.

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Most important play of the day: winning the toss prior to overtime play.

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I would like to see whether Geno just isn't throwing to Jaxon. I have a feeling he's open far more than he receives the ball. Same with Bobo.

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Geno looks over two weeks to be making one read, than going to his check down/safety valve. Ok last week he was under pressure, but then week he had a bit more time but it seems like 1second read, 2 seconds checkdown, and on longer plays he's panicking if there isn't a clear 5yd scamper.

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Also re. punting out of end zone...part of me expected Dickson to pull off something like this:

https://youtube.com/shorts/swyPqmvzOkk?si=QoJyFOkTDVKl75se

It's coming...just wait. 😉

As much as I'm happy about the win, I'm at least equally happy that they were *fun* to watch again today! 😁

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Also nice to see the TEs contribute at several key times. 9 catches om 10 targets for 132 yards and I'm not sure how many first downs, but it felt like several. I think they also used a 3-TE set in OT, I assume in order to help present a credible threat of running. All in all, a nice element of the offense today.

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Did we see Parkinson replace DK on at least one completion?

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A day late, but...I don't know. There was at least one OT completion to Parkinson (2nd and 7 snap at 7:33 ot OT) while DK was on the sideline and Parkinson was part of a multi-TE set, so...yes?

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I enjoyed this game even though it stressed the hell out of me too. I agree KA/Joe that this should have probably been a blowout. Just happy we won.

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A 56-yd FG is a crap shoot, I’m not going to hold missing one against any place kicker.

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Just rewatched the game (offense only). I did take an exact count of bad plays/decisions Geno made but my guess would be around 5. Which leads me to wonder, how many poor plays do average and elite QBs make per game? No one is perfect and 5 out of roughly 44 plays (11%) seems pretty good, no? The cool thing with Geno is that at least on the run vs pass decision he got better as the game went on. He messed up in the first half, but then in the second half after a ridiculous grounding call, he ran for 15 and then ran for the first (got called back from illegal formation). Then he delivered a strike on 3 and 10 to Lockett to overcome 2 penalties (awesome) and get the TD when down 4 in the 4th.

I didn't see any clock mistakes so I'm not sure there. And the one thing we know for sure about Geno, his superpower is that he is absurdly accurate. I don't think he missed a throw all day.

I would also put a somewhat simple play... like the blown up screen pass in OT that he successfully threw into the ground without it being close to a grounding penalty is an exceptional play and a winning one. How many times do you see QBs take a sack? Throw a pick? Or get intentional grounding that situation. There are many examples trhoughout the game of extremely good throws under pressure avoiding sacks and allowing the reciever to run after the catch (Dissly).

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Only just watched 1st drive. Got TD in the end, but Geno missed Lockett deep at 12.25 mark, ignored the TE deep in centre & instead passed to Metcalf wide & short at 11.43, went short to TE at 1008 instead of Metcalf? who looked out and deep (in end zone?), threw it over Locketts head in end zone (luckily had foul called - a soft one), threw it behind Metcalf on next play who made a great catch of it at the 1 yard line - shouldn’t have been that difficult - bad throw. That’s just 1st drive. I know no one is perfect and you can’t see everything in the moment, but he had time during that drive to see & hit those players. Maybe they are set plays to the players he went to as well, but those misses are still deeper and arguably better options he missed or ignored. In comparison Goff passed generally long and had a TD in a quick reply.

I realise this is nit-picking, but I think the point is that Geno was only ok. Someone commented that he’s too. Observation. I agree. I wouldn’t call it a great game. I don’t think the stats tell the whole story either. They don’t tell you what was missed.

You’re obviously a Geno fan. Sorry, I’m not there yet. Who knows, I could be if Pete keeps playing him and he somehow miraculously finds his inner champion. I’m concerned it doesn’t exist though, and I would rather we try something else before it’s too late. If that doesn’t work and he’s the best we’ve got, then so be it for this season. But at the moment, I don’t think we have a franchise QB (unless Lock is better than expected) and our next draft could be crucial.

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missed Lockett deep at 12.25 mark: This is fair. However, the play he went to gained 12 yards (with no risk) on a 2nd and 10. You could make the argument that it was a suboptimal decision, but I would reject the idea that it was a bad decision. This was also very early in the game with two backup tackles. It may have been on purpose while feeling out the opponent. I see what you are saying and maybe good for Monday film session and maybe can improve, but hard to crush a guy for getting 12 on 2nd and 10.

ignored the TE deep in centre & instead passed to Metcalf wide & short at 11.43: I don't agree with this. They have two high safeties near Parkinson? Maybe he could fit something in but why risk it? You have one of your best players run a sharp route - get him the ball. And it was such a good throw and timing he gained apx 18 yards on a first and 10.

went short to TE at 1008 instead of Metcalf? who looked out and deep (in end zone?) Maybe tough to say for sure without a better camera angle

threw it over Locketts head in end zone (luckily had foul called - a soft one), one of the few throws that he missed

threw it behind Metcalf on next play who made a great catch of it at the 1 yard line: I agree with Bob Johnston - I think he was trying to protect his receiver. Once again, hard to knock a guy for completing a 16 yard pass to setup first and goal from the 1.

And the Hawks still score a TD.

Overall, yeah of course Geno has room to improve in decision making. I don't think anyone isn't saying that. That is exciting - we haven't hit his ceiling yet. Even with what you and Joe consider to be poor decision making - he diced up Detroit's defense on the road with two backup tackles. That is very good! What does it mean for the future? Not much. Has to stay on it and get better. Just like week 1, week 2 is just one game got to be consistent and if you aren't getting better you are getting worse. Buckle up for the ride.

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I think the throw to DK on the goal line went right where it had to go. Had he led DK it would have been an even bigger collision with the safety.

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Too conservative, not too. Observation.

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Geno was very sharp on his throws and mostly in his pocket presence but made a few bad decisions. Pretty good considering the backup offensive line. Overall I’d give him a B+.

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