Wentz was not the problem
 

Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t grear. I get it. I have eyes.

But, going in, we all knew the deal with the guy. Give him solid pass blocking and a clean pocket with time to throw, and he’s gonna be more than solid. But, if you let opposing defenses ratchet up the pressure, he’s gonna look like Tom Brady trying to figure things out versus the Giants in Super Bowl 57.

The numbers should be easy to understand. According to PFF, Wentz attempted 27 passes. On 25 of those, the Raiders got pressure. That’s far too many.

A lot of the problems can be attributed to Covid. Nelson, Glowinski and Smith were all dealing with the disease. Eric Fisher was out with injuries, and Ryan Kelly was dealing with something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. The impact on play was obvious.

Not only did Wentz not have time to throw, but Receivers didn’t have time to run their routes and gain separation. While he wasn’t shut down, Jonathan Taylor didn’t have the kind of holes we’ve seen all season, and don’t get me started on the shoestring tackles. There were a season’s worth in one game. It makes me believe that, on a lot of plays, the blocking was just a little off

But, worst of all were the penalties. Illegal proceedure on Smith, holding on Smith, holding on Pryor, holding on Kelly. At least two of them aborted promising drives, and one shoved us back out of FG range.

And, finally, I think that we don’t give Wentz anywhere enough credit for the magic he works with his legs. He can be a magician at getting away from pressure; and, yesterday, he avoided 3 or 4 sacks.

All 3 phases played be!ow par for sure. But Wentz was the worst I've seen a horseshoe QB since Curtis Painter.

It’s impossible to play well when your OL is crumbling around you every time you take a snap

I'll almost never credit/blame a single player for team wins/losses. Especially not football. He was bad, though. Not to absolve the rest of the offense.

This was another of those games where the defense seemed to live and die by the turnover on a drive-to-drive basis. That's how it felt live at least.

And we got wrecked on special teams which fortunately is rare

Whole team lacked focus it seems. Hopefully it boils down to a weird week of preparation and they move on.

I dunno Kray. I think Wentz was terrible but you’re gonna have games like that and good QB’s make something happen. You can put it on the oline but I’d like to bring up another point. I watched Aaron Sunday night and the packers have plays in their offense where Rodgers just takes the snap and sets his feet and throws. I think you have to put some of the blame on Reich for standing there the whole game watching Wentz get pressured and never changed his play calling. Every team has plays with quick routes and I didn’t see any of that. To be honest all he has to do is hit TY on that one play where he wasn’t pressured and we win the game. He was high all night it seemed to me. And yes penalties were horrific. We miss Doyle badly and I hope our first pic in 2nd next year is TE. I’m done with Cox. Paye is getting better every game too. And what’s with Mack? He’d give us way more than Hines out of the backfield.


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This is a good breakdown, and again brings us back to questions about WHAT the hell our global plan is?

We know the WR crew is below average, it doesn't create separation and outside of Pittman there's no physicality to it. Yet it seems we don't have any plays set up for quick across the middle stuff? WHY? Why are we putting him in a position to end up surrounded by 300LB men that are trying to kill him? To me, that's a major coaching flaw as it seems all our routes are long developing complex route tree shit.

Fantastic post! And if he won't throw on time, as the play is designed, then he is worrying about his INT stats, and if so, send his ass packing because you CANNOT win in this league playing like that!

I wish they would use JT out of the backfield more. No one covers him.

How can he only have 1 catch in the last 2 games with all the QB pressure they allowed.

I really don't think this team knows how to run a screen pass with accurate timing.

Agreed. And for all the talk of Frank loving to utilize the TE's in the passing game, TE catches in this offense are a rarity for whatever reason.

Doyle has been nicked up all year, Cox has 2x4’s for hands, and the rest are young. Its been a weakness all year