I know people have already said this but Doug and whoever else needs to fix the O-Line ASAP because if they can’t protect TLaw for ATLEAST a few seconds then he could be out for a few games or like Burrow THE WHOLE SEASON. We play the Ravens as well and they don’t seem to care that much about hurting Burrow so it’s a big problem.
Some people are saying you can’t do anything with the personnel we have, but I think that isn’t entirely true.
Look around the league and you can see quite a few different approaches to dealing with below-average o-lines. Obviously it’s all easier if your line is great, but I think there are still levers our staff could pull to make it easier.
Stop mis-using Ridley. He is constantly on an island on the edge being asked to just clear out and run some shit that doesn’t interact with any of the other routes. It’s them saying, “go win” and not realizing halfway through the season that he a) isn’t winning or b) isn’t getting enough time to win on those long routes with our o-line.
Go back in time and keep Manhertz. We were getting a ton of value out of Manhertz last season. I know “blocking TE” is about as boring as it gets as a far, but just look at the results we got last year compared to this year. Other than Jawaan, there’s no major change outside Manhertz and I don’t think Jawaan was the problem.
Move the pocket. Doug made a comment about being limited by Trevor’s injury, so the optimistic part of me wants to say *maybe* this is why they haven’t been doing this. Maybe rolling out/throwing while he’s on the move has been the thing his knee injury has impacted. it would make sense not to come out and broadcast to opposing teams that “yeah, I can’t really throw on the move right now or roll out,” because then it’s one less thing they need to gameplan for. But doesn’t it feel like he normally rolls out and scrambles to extend more often? The last couple games since his knee injury it feels like he’s not scrambling to extend. He is just picking a direction and running straight.
IF he is able to move/roll, then I think we need to just pull a guy and overload one side and let Trevor roll out that way. If nothing else, he’s at least running away from the unblocked guys and will know what direction they’re coming from. Right now, he can’t even reliably say, “I should be safe from my blindside” or “I should be safe on the interior,” etc, because everybody is losing. On a pure dropback he’s just getting surrounded.
So roll him one direction and make all the defenders get in eachother’s way as they funnel in to chase him.