[Exoter175]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

Feel free to ignore. This is just a catchall for my thoughts on the game.

1. Alex Smith has absolutely nobody to throw to. I'm looking at as much of the field as is shown during the snaps, and nobody is getting open. I'm not even sure Avery and Jenkins played, and Bowe's not exactly known as a receiver who gets wide open anyways. This is extremely troubling, and dooms us against CB-heavy teams like the Seahawks, 49ers, and Patriots (as if we weren't doomed against them already).

The good news, however, is that our non-WR receiving corps looks strong. Charles still looks great. Fasano ran routes very well last night, and Kelce has serious promise. DAT looks like he could be sharp on routes, and another year should allow Davis to develop further.

But this is a team that had the fewest receptions and yardage at the WR corps of every other team in the league, and we didn't replenish any talent in the Draft, which only featured the deepest WR class in NFL history. ****. AND we lost what was a fairly critical piece of that package last year in Dexter McCluster. Basically this means that AJ Jenkins needs to explode this year, that DAT learns the ropes in the slot very quickly, and that Travis Kelce and/or Junior Hemingway takes off, somehow.

2. Really thought Fisher looked really good on all of two plays. I watched him like a hawk, and his runblocking looked far stronger than it ever was last year. Carlos Dunlap is a very big passrusher, however (he's around 290, I think?), and gave Fisher fits on two pass plays, which tells me that the achilles heel Fisher had last year (struggling against strong passrushers) is still going to be a problem this year. On the strip-sack Fisher gave up, Trent Green argued that Fisher did a solid job on the play, but Smith held the ball too long -- which gives me some hope that Fisher is coming along.

But Alex Smith does hold the ball too long, and takes sacks rather than throw down field. That's always been Smith's game. If that's the case, than it's going to be yet another atrocious year in the game threads as folks on this forum cry (justifiably or not) about Fisher struggling to come along. As long as he blocks for Alex Smith, he's going to give up coverage sacks. Last year, however, he was just beat like a rug -- I only saw that once yesterday, when Fisher greeted a bullrush too high and got pushed back into Alex Smith's lap.

3. God, we are so fast now. We've started noticing the trend that John Dorsey has an almost Al Davis-like fascination with speed, and that shows on the field now. Charles, DAT, Albert Wilson, Knile Davis, Donnie Avery, and AJ Jenkins. Travis Kelce burned folks on his long play, too. This is as much a track team as we've ever seen, and hopefully that can compensate on offense for our lack of receiving talent.

It's noticeable on defense as well. Dee Ford is so fast around the edge, James-Michael Johnson runs like a receiver, and it sure doesn't look like anybody is going to be outrunning Phillip Gaines.

4. Rookies had a rocky performance last night, but it was great seeing them out there. Dee Ford was disruptive against the 2nd team OL, and can close that gap in a hurry. He'll need a couple years to add to his passrush arsenal, and also to work on his coverage and run-stopping abilities. That's stuff that Justin Houston had to do (albeit to a lesser extent) and hopefully Ford will improve leaps and bounds in that respect by this time next year. Phillip Gaines looked lost in coverage -- he was always going to be a project, which is why I saw him more as a 5th rounder than as the 3rd rounder we made him. On that long pass to the endzone he broke up, he showed that elite recovery speed that makes him such an outstanding athlete and could make him a great corner, but he also gave up two touchdowns from players that embarrassed him in routes. He does truly have shutdown potential, however, he just is going to take a while to get there, if he ever does.

DAT of course looked brilliant, no comments needed there, and we saw next to nothing of Aaron Murray. Fulton looked... alright. First of all, he looks ****ing massive, and not entirely in a good way. He's got a lot of extra love on those love handles, and he's going to get beat by athletic three-techs all year. But he had a decent performance last night against a DL that was missing their most important piece. I do like that he's getting his experience now. (How bad was Rishaw Johnson -- sheesh, maybe Fulton won the job by default.) I didn't notice hardly anything from Duvarney-Tardif, but I'll be rewatching soon. Albert Wilson looks like he could end up being a UDFA gem -- something this team badly needs this year. Wilson looks great in routes (albeit against 2nd and 3rd defenses), has great hands, and excellent speed.

4. As per the DL, Jaye Howard looks awful against the 1st stringers, and frequently looks bade against the 2nd string. I may revise that when I watch the game again, but I doubt it. There were huge holes opening up time after time against him in the run game. He made a couple plays against the 2nd/3rd string OL, but even then he was getting annihilated. I think he's buried on the depth chart behind DeVito and Catapano, so let's just hope we don't see a lot of him this year. That is definitely not working.

On the plus side, how good did Allen Bailey look? He's decently stout in the run game, but he's FINALLY providing the passrush from the DE position that this team desperately needs. I believe this is his contract year, and I've always loved his athletic potential. If he plays stout and throws in about 5-6 sacks this year, something he's very capable of doing, there's no reason he shouldn't be re-signed. But there is still a lot of football to play.

Vance Walker is a waste of a signing. Wow. Walker provided very little in terms of push at the NT position, and his play against the run was not that great either. He's listed as a backup NT now, but if Poe ever goes down, something tells me the team would rather slide DeVito over than get murdered up the gut thanks to Walker, who has never been a celebrated run defender anyway.

5. 3rd string guys I really like: DE Jairus Campbell, WR Frankie Hammond, QB Tyler Bray, TE Demetrius Harris, CB Kevin Rutland, RB Charcandrick West.

6. I said before that our backup OL was probably the best backup OL we've had on the field since I've been a fan, and you could see that in the 2nd quarter and 2nd half. Against a very deep Bengals team, Knile Davis, Cyrus Gray, and Charcandrick West had holes blasted open for them all game. The Chiefs offensive momentum in this game was almost entirely due to the 2nd string OL dominating on the ground.

7. As I've mentioned, I'll be watching the game a 2nd time, so I'll add thoughts to this thread as I do.

1. The O-line did not look good at all, luckily Alex is pretty good on his foot, and I expect him getting out of the pocket often early in the season until these guys start to mesh and Fisher gets up to speed. He was looking mighty slow there out of the gate.

If I'm not mistaken, Avery, Jenkins, and Hemingway did not suit up for this game. Having a healthy Kelce back with Jenkins/Avery/Hemingway/Wilson/DAT in the slot or Fasano inline should prove to be an upgrade (shocking) to the passing game this year. I foresee a lot of double TE sets early on until we can get DAT/Wilson up to speed in the slot. As for the Seahawks, Niners, and Pats, I think a few of those matchups with CB heavy teams will actually work out in our favor due to a few mismatches. Kelce/DAT on the field against Pats Nickel coverage would be one of them providing a big mismatch and giving Bowe/Hemingway sizable 1 on 1 matchups with their big bodies. Kelce vs. S/LB, joke, we'll run away with that. The Seahawks I see being a matchup where we'd have to utilize Jenkins/Hemingway opposite Bowe, but with Kelce/Avery out wide with Charles/DAT in a twin back role. If everybody stays healthy, I see a lot of 1 on 1 matchups to exploit with Kelce, Bowe, and Hemingway in the redzone. Its all going to LEAN on that Offensive Line, which 3 years from now could be stellar, but right now looks as skeptical or worse than our defensive secondary.

All in all, we're going to see an upgrade in production from the TE/slot position, and a true dual threat running back tandem. Did you notice how good Knile looked too? He came out looking like Post-Season form this week, aside from his kick return haha.

2. I didn't see anything truly downgrading of fisher, but his footwork looked slow on pass protection to me, but could change as pre-season gets him up to speed.

3. This is an incredibly FAST team. If the line can protect well enough or we can get alex out of the pocket on some crossing routes, this could end up being a shootout team very quickly. Hemingway and Jenkins really kind of shore up the outside opposite Bowe for us, giving us two different receiver types to draw from, which should open up some exploitable 1 on 1's with Bowe or to the slot and that can get dangerous considering everyone from kelce to Wilson that might end up in the slot has nearly 4.5 speed or better. Could be a few track meets this year.

4A. I absolutely loved what I saw from Wilson. Rewatch that game tape and you'll see what I mean. His stat line for receiving didn't look great, but he had another catch or two that were wonderful that got called back on penalties. On top of that, go watch his blocking. Seriously, go watch it, looks very good. The second we picked him up I was happy about it and calling his spot on the 53 man roster, mainly because I dislike Avery and the plethora of "welker clones" we keep trying to stuff into camp. But that being said, the guy looks like a solid upfield blocker, and god does he have wheels. I may be wrong here, but was that not Wilson who closed a 20 yard gap on Kelce, while Kelce was burning 4 or 5 dudes, just to get in the way of the ONLY defender that could have put a hand on Kelce? Guy plays hard, and he'll make special teams as a gunner without a beat if they just need a single reason to keep him on the active roster. Not to mention, the guy looks good in the slot, and plays with a feisty "swagger" akin to a young Steve Smith (carolina).

DAT looked awesome, nuff said. Total upgrade over Dex, not a "poor man's" like others had said. Kid has wheels on him and has the elusiveness that Dexter lacked, though somehow dexter had this crazy ability to crawl underneath guys' ankles for a few extra yards from time to time. We shall see what DAT can provide in "extra yardage" situations, but I'm sure it'll be an upgrade, and I was pretty high on Dex in this offense.

Fulton I thought did a wonderful job and as these guys mesh, Fulton's going to become a big time piece for us on this line.

Gaines I didn't think did nearly as bad as it looked. While he did get absolutely embarrassed on a couple of those throws, the more embarrassing part was how "out of his element" he looked in this defense, looking clueless towards his safety cover IMO. That should remedy itself in time as these guys learn each others' tendencies and this defensive scheme, though I imagine his ability to play outside press-man in nickel and give smith the inside should keep his double move exploitation to a minimum, I think/hope.

Tardif didn't see a ton of time, but shared about "average" snaps with most of the guys on the offense. He's going to end up being stashed away on the practice squad most likely, he's got a year or two of technical learning to do before he'll truly be ready. Guy has the size and a unique tool set, and the brain to get it all accomplished, just needs time IMO.

Ford looked terrible against the run, as expected, and a little sluggish "up top", but should otherwise get up to game speed quickly. I look forward to his rotation but expect very little from his production this year unless we get some crazy rotations getting Ford/Hali/Houston on the field at the same time.

Didn't see anything from Murray really, and we won't until Game 2 and Game 4.

4B. While Jaye didn't look great, he really is nothing more than a sub-breather role in this defense. DeVito/Catapano/Bailey with Poe plugging up the void is going to be absolutely devastating with our linebacking group. In all honesty, I will not be surprised if we come back 8 games into the season to confirm what I'm about to say........our defensive linemen will show the most improvement than any single unit on this team, even moreso than our Backs and Receivers on Offense.

I get the draft picks, truly, I do. While a lot of it feels wasted because most of these guys are insurance policies over big time players (Ford for Houston/Hali, DAT for Dex, Fulton for Linkenbach), some of them show true promise, but add some incredible depth to this team. Fulton coming in and winning the starting job I was surprised on. I knew he was talented, but he's basically the out of the gate starter at either guard position. I was almost expecting Kush/Rishaw there, but he's made that spot his to lose now. The Ford pick I still like. It provides insurance against terrible double/triple teams if heaven forbid we lose Hali or Houston again later in the season. While Ford doesn't seem like he's up to speed yet, and certainly lacks in the run game, a raw talent of his level would have worked wonders late last year since we literally had ZERO option as a backup. The improvements from DeVito and Catapano though, should make this defensive front the scariest thing we've seen in two decades. You almost can't double team Houston and Hali because of the three guys up front, plus Bailey/Ford on rotation. And JMJ though, has shown some pretty solid strides towards winning that spot next to DJ IMO, I liked what I saw.

But seriously, cannot emphasize enough how much I'm going to like this defensive front 7 if they all stay healthy and in rotation. My god, we might just break the sack record after all.

5. The three guys I liked the most from the 3's were Hammond, Rutland, and those #41 guy whose name is escaping me right now. Had a pick 6 I think, and had another pick called back or something. Guy isn't a solid fit for the defense, but he's got a good mind for this game and could be a solid developmental type if we can stash him away.

6. Our depth at the O-line is decent, I don't think its nearly as good as it seems, though we did have some nice holes. Knile Davis looked superb though, whether that's the line or his play, it was almost mirror image reminiscent of the Colts game post season. It looked solid. I can't kick the image of Chase getting stopped behind the line about every other play though. The backup line had their fine and not so fine points in the game, which is to be expected when rotating these guys out and in as often as we did.

7. Watch Wilson's Blocking and overall hustle.