Helluva win. One of the best road victories of the Tomlin era, but I will say
I’m glad we played Buffalo now and not in a couple of months time when they
will have bedded in their pass rushers a bit more. They have a lot of things to
correct and adjust, but so has every other team in the league after one week.
- I wasn’t surprised by what I saw from Ben yesterday - he spends most of the
summer and preseason sat on his helmet watching the other QB’s do 85% of the
reps and then everyone wonders why he’s rusty and missing receivers and his
timing is off? Come on, nothing new to see here, he’s just got to get that
timing down. He needs reps and not rest at this stage of the season. There were
some truly terrible throws in there, but again, I’ve seen this in every opening
game form Ben for years now. The challenge is to protect him long enough to
enable the downfield throw.
- Offensive line is a mess. They can talk all they want about being aggressive
and taking the fight to the defense, but mano-e-mano, they are overmatched on
this level. It was only when they actually started to pull and trap that they
were able to give Ben time and create creases. Downfield blocking from the WR’s
and TE’s was excellent too. Harris will be fine, but he needs help. Greater
challenges lie ahead. I fear for them when they come up against a team with an
above average pass rush, I fear for what might happen when Cleveland throws
their outside rushers at them. The cohesion will come, but again, we say this
year after year, they always come out in the opening game and play like they
met each other for the first time the night before.
- Defense was great and the rotation along the front seven was good and it
worked, everyone was on a pitch count and kept fresh and everyone who took the
field on that side of the ball contributed to the effort, get Tuitt back
healthy and things will improve further. I liked Bush and Schobert pairing in
the middle, didn’t make many big plays but they were consistent. Norwood played
like he did at Oklahoma, he’s just a guy who can get everywhere and he’s
probably the best candidate for that Hilton role. Terrell Edmunds will always
be the weak link, he’ll always be a couple of seconds too late to stop what is
happening and will always be targeted.
- A big play on special teams was the upset of opening weekend, especially
after the breakdown on kickoff coverage to start the game. I’m so glad they
kept Boswell after he slumped in 2018. Harvin will be fine and his bad punts
will be less frequent than Berry’s were.
Onwards…...