reesebobby

Unfortunately those are not mutually exclusive.

He's never missed a game, is probably our best run defender and has been our best pass rush threat for some time. I wouldn't be surprised if we tag him, but I can't see a scenario where they remove playmakers from this defense.

Why?

Frank Clark has more sacks since 2015 than Ford. Ford had one good year here and was mostly considered if not a bust, then at least bust "ish" until that time. He certainly was disruptive in 2018, but there's no place for him in a 4-3. You could make a case for Houston as a 4-3 DE, but not Ford. He was a complete liability against the run.

Justin Houston has played in exactly 1 full season since 2012, he's on the wrong side of 30 and plays a position that doesn't exist in a 4-3. He's been a "leader" on one of the worst and most frustrating defenses that any of us have ever tried to cheer for. The fact that you've never heard of Frank Clark speaks a lot about your football knowledge and not about Brett Veach. He's one of the most highly regarded young defenders in the league. And him making Cam Irving look bad is not a reason to think it wasn't time to move on. It was. A frustrating night, but come on.

East bound and down. See you at the stadium.

I understand the next man up thing. And yes we have had a lot of penalties. But still you can't lose the best return man in the NFL since Devin Hester and not have a negative effect on special teams.

They miss Tyreek in the return game for one thing. He had the return for a touchdown in week one last year. He generally makes good decisions and is really missed.

If we are not last in special teams then there must be some really shitty special teams.

Chiefs 42 Colts 24. Everyone freaks out because we give up a lot of yards. Mahomes balls out for 5 touchdowns and 425 yards. Andy Reid grabs his crotch in a rare lapse of sportsmanship late in the 4th quarter.

Hard to imagine adding our best player to this offense (other than Mahomes).

That's really cool. Thank you.

I'm thinking all of the yards for the hook and ladder to Kelce show up as receiving yards for McCoy?

Could be. But it just seems to develop very slowly with McCoy.

I like McCoy, but for now it seems like there are too many negative plays from him. Kareem didn't always break it, but you rarely saw him stopped for no gain or a loss. McCoy had 56 yards rushing on 11 carries against the Lions, which seems good on the surface, but 39 were on the one carry. His other 10 carries gained 17 total. That's not helpful for a feature back.

He’s still on pace for 6000 and 40.

Not that there's not room for improvement, because there is. But these games happen. The Patriots had a scare from the BIlls, the Cowboys are behind the Saints, the Rams lost. You win these games and consider it lucky and move on. One game doesn't mean more than the previous 20.

It feels like it sometimes.

It's hard to tell when you are watching a game who is doing what on defense. And I have not broken down film or anything. But this defense is looking light years ahead of anything I've seen here in a while already. They are getting stops, 3 and outs even, and generally looking like an actual real defense that has a plan. I don't know how much of that is Clark, but I personally do not miss Dee Ford in the least.

Yes. But it just shows how few wins there are in that division when you remove division play. The AFC West is 8 games over .500 against non division. The AFC East 12 under. That's a big swing in 4 seasons.

If you exclude the record against the Chiefs, the rest of the division is above .500 for that time. Not so for the AFC East. And 24 of the AFC east wins (excluding the Patriots) come from playing each other 6 times a year. Somebody has to win no matter how bad they both are.

That’s pretty close to our division record over that time period.

Yeah, but they have not swept the division in a long long time strangely.

Yeah, for as easy as the Patriots division schedule is, they have a fairly rough patch before the play us. At Ravens, at Eagles, Cowboys at home and then at Texans. They sure could drop at least one of those. And we've got the Texans and Packers to worry about. Obviously any given Sunday, but aside from an upset there's some tough games coming up.

True. That upset you also.