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WEEK 2: 49ERS @ BENGALS


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2 hours ago, PatternMaster said:

I wasn't there but from watching the game on TV it seemed like some guys weren't laying it all out, specifically #27 &#52.

 

That was a pitiful defensive performance, one of the worst of all time and the stats back that up. The defensive alignments worked well in Seattle,  it was the effort and the tackling that wasn't the same. 

 

As for the booing, atleast it shows that the fans are emotionally invested in the outcome of the game. 

It's 95 on the field...in full pads...going against an offense hitting everything it ran. If every play wasn't appearing to be textbook Charlie Hustle on the idiot box, there was no question that they were giving their best. Playing every snap because of lack of LB's and a goofy rotation system, sort of does that to a human body. 

 

And, as I said last week, this "new defense" did work well against Seattle. As I also said, film can be an equalizer--and SF had a week to see it. 

 

It (defense) will drift back to "competent" this week. Even in a weird system, film can work the Bengals way too. 

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40 minutes ago, Le Tigre said:

Of course it's always nice to have a player somewhere around where a player is supposed to be to make contact, Lou. 

 

Lou needs to accept the blame rather than put it on the players.  

 

"Everyone is needed, but no one is necessary."  Bruce...

 

"We can't run. We can't pass. We can't stop the run. We can't stop the pass. We can't kick. Other than that, we're just not a very good football team right now."  Bruce...  

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That reads more as a not-as-funny John McKay. 

 

Yet "blame" is not needed..."waking up" more apropos. A week of film helped SF expose this 2-LB alignment for the approaching disaster it was. For Lou...good that it came in Week 2. If he is all that as a DC, he finds a Plan B and fast. I suspect you will see a different defensive setup this week. 

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1 hour ago, Le Tigre said:

That reads more as a not-as-funny John McKay. 

 

Yet "blame" is not needed..."waking up" more apropos. A week of film helped SF expose this 2-LB alignment for the approaching disaster it was. For Lou...good that it came in Week 2. If he is all that as a DC, he finds a Plan B and fast. I suspect you will see a different defensive setup this week. 

That would require additional competent linebackers which seem in short supply.

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9 minutes ago, UncleEarl said:

You can have the proper alignments, but when guys can't cover or tackle it really doesn't matter.  In the case of tackling it's more of a won't tackle.  All of these guys know how to tackle, they just didn't want to do it.

Agreed, it's not like the 5-2 defense didn't put guys in the proper places to make the play last week, the players just didn't make any plays.  

 

Kirkpatrick was awful last week, the LBs looked scared to hit anyone, and the DL, except for Geno,  couldn't do much of anything.

 

Every team puts up a clunker of a game throughout the season, hopefully last week was the floor for the Bengals. 

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58 minutes ago, PatternMaster said:

Agreed, it's not like the 5-2 defense didn't put guys in the proper places to make the play last week, the players just didn't make any plays.  

 

Kirkpatrick was awful last week, the LBs looked scared to hit anyone, and the DL, except for Geno,  couldn't do much of anything.

 

Every team puts up a clunker of a game throughout the season, hopefully last week was the floor for the Bengals. 

The problem I have with the game is that it's a pattern for the Bengals.  They play a game with an edge and are competitive.  (They lack talent, so the results shouldn't be surprising.)  The next week they feel good about themselves, relax, don't come prepared to compete and you see the results.  This happened over and over while Marvin was the coach.  It's seems to be instilled in the team.  They need some leadership on the player side to not allow this to happen.  The coach shouldn't be complaining about the players in public, the leaders like Dunlop, Kirkpatrick, etc. should be saying it out loud themselves.  The fact that they aren't suggests they are part of the problem.

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20 minutes ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

Good post, that about sums it up. ZT will have to figure out how to break the culture or he will meander like Merv did

I never bought into that culture BS. That puts it on the players like they don't want to win or don't know how. Every player in the NFL is familiar with winning in their football career. It comes down to the coaches and org creating a team that's consistently better than the other teams.

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56 minutes ago, Hooky said:

I never bought into that culture BS. That puts it on the players like they don't want to win or don't know how. Every player in the NFL is familiar with winning in their football career. It comes down to the coaches and org creating a team that's consistently better than the other teams.

Maybe seeing a stadium that was half empty deflated these guys? They played with an attitude in week 1 vs a much better opponent. Complete opposite vs a team with the #2 pick last year in week 2. How many times have we seen this Jekyl and Hyde team? If what we really are is why we saw in week 2, we are the worst team in the NFL....again. 

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16 minutes ago, OneHeartBeat said:

Maybe seeing a stadium that was half empty deflated these guys? They played with an attitude in week 1 vs a much better opponent. Complete opposite vs a team with the #2 pick last year in week 2. How many times have we seen this Jekyl and Hyde team? If what we really are is why we saw in week 2, we are the worst team in the NFL....again. 

Not that it matters, but the dolphins are the worst and are still unloading their good players, so that rank is safe.

 

Also, the chargers had a couple of good seasons in an empty stadium. I don't think that matters.

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3 hours ago, PatternMaster said:

Agreed, it's not like the 5-2 defense didn't put guys in the proper places to make the play last week, the players just didn't make any plays.  

 

Kirkpatrick was awful last week, the LBs looked scared to hit anyone, and the DL, except for Geno,  couldn't do much of anything.

 

Every team puts up a clunker of a game throughout the season, hopefully last week was the floor for the Bengals. 

No one said the 5-2 in theory wouldn't put people in proper places...it's that SF noted the places they were not, and hit the vacated places. All you have to do is look at the vid above to see that. And, being at field level, it was patently obvious that Jimmy G could see the open field where a LB or another S should have been. Bad tackling--yeah...but the RB has a 15 yard head start before there even is contact.    

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2 hours ago, Hooky said:

 It comes down to the coaches and org creating a team that's consistently better than the other teams.

Ummm, that is 'culture'. It is the organization creating the winning environment. So players who come into the locker room KNOW the expectations. There has never been any of this since Mikey took over. If the players feel the organization does not prioritize winning it won't matter if 10 of them really want to win, others in the room will simply drop their level of commitment to match the organization. it is human nature. Think of it this way - Companies like Google and Apple are driven from the top down to be leading edge winning organizations. If you are a lackluster employee you will either be forced to up your game or you will be gone. Conversely, we all know how lackluster government departments are run, if they have a few keen performers they will simply be swallowed up by the greater volume of under performers because the culture is one of *meh*.  This is basic human nature. 

 

Good luck to ZT in terms of changing this teams culture - if there is no message from the top that they will do whatever it takes to win i can't see the culture changing in the long term. We may get a little spurt of new energy but it won't last. Ask yourselves this - would you be more excited and engaged in your job if you worked for Robert Kraft of Mike Brown? It makes a huge difference in the attitude and performance of the people and players below them. Kraft has built a culture of winning, Mikey has a culture of simply existing. 

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3 hours ago, Hooky said:

Not that it matters, but the dolphins are the worst and are still unloading their good players, so that rank is safe.

 

Also, the chargers had a couple of good seasons in an empty stadium. I don't think that matters.

The Chargers actually had decent attendance for most of their existence in San Diego.  Qualcomm was a really shitty stadium so some of the seats were pretty hard to sell but they usually averaged over 90%.  Once they announced they were going to move the attendance dropped like a rock.  I simply can not remember a time when a team's home opener only SOLD 77% of the tickets available under normal circumstances like the Bengals did this week.  That is pretty bad. 

 

Add in ALOT of decent tickets for the next game are going for less than $50 on Stubhub and we may see a half empty stadium vs the Cardinals  if they lose to the Bills.  

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2 hours ago, I_C_Deadpeople said:

Ummm, that is 'culture'. It is the organization creating the winning environment. So players who come into the locker room KNOW the expectations. There has never been any of this since Mikey took over. If the players feel the organization does not prioritize winning it won't matter if 10 of them really want to win, others in the room will simply drop their level of commitment to match the organization. it is human nature. Think of it this way - Companies like Google and Apple are driven from the top down to be leading edge winning organizations. If you are a lackluster employee you will either be forced to up your game or you will be gone. Conversely, we all know how lackluster government departments are run, if they have a few keen performers they will simply be swallowed up by the greater volume of under performers because the culture is one of *meh*.  This is basic human nature. 

 

Good luck to ZT in terms of changing this teams culture - if there is no message from the top that they will do whatever it takes to win i can't see the culture changing in the long term. We may get a little spurt of new energy but it won't last. Ask yourselves this - would you be more excited and engaged in your job if you worked for Robert Kraft of Mike Brown? It makes a huge difference in the attitude and performance of the people and players below them. Kraft has built a culture of winning, Mikey has a culture of simply existing. 

You can say culture 20 more times, but players want to win regardless of who they're playing for. An org doesn't need to create that attitude. They need to put the pieces together to create wins. You can't compare a sports team to other corporations. A google employee isn't performing for thousands of people. A professional athlete is a different animal. They are driven to succeed. Kraft has a history of winning because he continuously hires good coaches and personnel and makes good decisions. They don't win just because they won before.

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28 minutes ago, Hooky said:

You can say culture 20 more times, but players want to win regardless of who they're playing for. An org doesn't need to create that attitude. They need to put the pieces together to create wins. You can't compare a sports team to other corporations. A google employee isn't performing for thousands of people. A professional athlete is a different animal. They are driven to succeed. Kraft has a history of winning because he continuously hires good coaches and personnel and makes good decisions. They don't win just because they won before.

And these athletes KNOW when they don't have the talent to win.  No way Atkins looks at Hart and Smith starting and thought the O line will be fine because they have a good attitude. 

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9 hours ago, UncleEarl said:

The problem I have with the game is that it's a pattern for the Bengals.  They play a game with an edge and are competitive.  (They lack talent, so the results shouldn't be surprising.)  The next week they feel good about themselves, relax, don't come prepared to compete and you see the results.  This happened over and over while Marvin was the coach.  It's seems to be instilled in the team.  They need some leadership on the player side to not allow this to happen.  The coach shouldn't be complaining about the players in public, the leaders like Dunlop, Kirkpatrick, etc. should be saying it out loud themselves.  The fact that they aren't suggests they are part of the problem.

Dunlap was upfront about the effort, I didn't hear from Kirkpatrick and I can't say that I wanted too...he's pretty much useless in my book, he should go back to making shitty rap music because this football thing ain't working out.

 

The "moral" victory at Seattle was more bad than good, the Bengals were acting like they won that game when in reality they didn't, although they should have. They should have been pissed off, not encouraged and played angry vs. SF instead of that weak sauce they displayed on Sunday. 

 

There are no participation trophies in the NFL, either you win or lose.  If you lose games you should win it's not a moral victory because the media thinks you will be a shitty team and you actually compete. That's a loser/little brother mentality, it breeds a false sense of security and

mediocrity.

 

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