I’m not sure where to even begin.
This was a true team loss.
1. Ben Johnson
BJ decided to go for it instead of settling for a relatively easy FG. He could’ve tried to draw them offsides for a cheap 1st down, but instead BJ let the playclock expire, called a TO, allowed their D to regroup, then left 3 points that would return to haunt them.
That wasn’t BJ’s only blunder. Apparently the ball is part of the player in the process of the catch. yet he challenged the play. It was never in question that Sewell touched the ball, so in effect it was a totally wasted challenge/T.O. that again, Bears could’ve used later.
BJ also screwed up with the final kickoff. Apparently, he said he did tell Santos to kick it out of the back of the endzone, but it wasn’t even close. He either failed to realize Santos was too limp-dicked to do so, or he never even considered maybe Tori could do it. At the very least kick it out of bounds. Sure, they’ll move the ball to like the 40, but who cares by then?
Finally, BJ seemed to make no adjustments while O’Connell DID make adjustments.
Wunderkind my ass.
2. Caleb.
Even more concerning was Caleb. Sure, he started off ‘hot’ 10/10, but a lot of those were on scrambles to checkdowns. Not exactly Joe Montana highlights.
Caleb looked gun-shy or oblivious. I would like to see his QBR when he stayed in the pocket and threw to WRs. Couldn’t have been better than Fields this weekend.
He still held on to the ball for too long; the only difference is that this year the Oline isn’t complete dogshit, so it bought him more time to escape instead of getting crushed.
But Flores caught on, and in the second half started blitzing more once he saw that Caleb morphed into Chase Daniels.
Then when Caleb did throw beyond 10 yard, he seemed erratic. None more so than missing a WIDE open DJ for a big play.
This is frustrating because Caleb in the same game makes these types of throws.
Still, as Kurt Warner often says, if a QB can’t make the layups consistently, then he’s not a good QB. Can’t win a SB with a QB like that, and I don’t know if Caleb has ever put an entire game together where he was consistently good from start to finish. He simply cannot throw in rhythm from the pocket for 4 QTRs.
It’s like he’s good Rex/bad Rex, but not from game to game, rather half to half.
3. Specials.
Santos was terrible. Those 3 points he flopped also could’ve helped tremendously. Then he was too weak to drive it through the back of the endzone in that last KO.
Tori got blocked. The gunners sucked.
Specials were a liability all-around.
4. Defense.
They actually started off strong, Dayo specifically while the JV secondary punched above their weight climaxing with Wright’s pick-6
However, Byard kept taking bad angles, Sewell as we all know couldn’t cover, and they ran out of gas and failed to stop the run in the second half despite knowing it was coming.
Add some bullshit reffing, and voila, another abysmal Flusian chokejob.
Tweets.