chw42

They're setting up the ND vs. Miami narrative for the final spot. They realized that if Bama is between those 2 teams they can't have arguments about that in this final week. ESPN needs their sports drama for their talk shows.

You're forgetting that a G5 school will be #12. Realistically, the only argument is Notre Dame vs. Miami if BYU loses the Big 12 championship game because they have the same record, mostly played the same teams, and played each other. ESPN has been trying really hard to argue for Miami.

I don't think there's any scenario where Alabama is out if BYU loses the Big 12 championship.

Or change their schedule so that recruiting happens later in the year and coaches aren't forced to do this.

If the field is expanding to 16 next year, I think we'll see this argument less. But yeah, if Vandy somehow got in over Texas when they played nobody good in their non-conference play and got beat by Texas, then there's a great argument for never scheduling any elite teams in non-conference play for SEC or Big Ten teams.

He went up against 2 of the best defensive lines and came out looking good enough. Keep in mind he went against Maxx Crosby in week 4 as well and did ok. They really threw him to the fire and he's survived so far. It won't get any easier though. He's gonna see Parsons and Garrett in the next 3 weeks. Just an absolute gauntlet for a rookie tackle to go through. He's basically gone up against a top 10 pass rusher in every game he's started so far.

Win 2 of 5 and they're in the playoffs. Win 3 of 5 and they win the division. I think they need to aim for at least a split with the Packers, beat the Browns at home, and then win 1 of 2 against the Lions and 49ers. Win 1 of 5 and they're gonna need the Lions to lose 3 of their last 5 and the Cowboys to lose 2 of their last 5.

If Trapilo can be a long-term left tackle it really frees him to go all out on defense.

Hopefully we get TJ Edwards back for next Saturday. Jackson and Ogbongbemiga did fine the past 2 weeks, but they were special teamers for a reason.

I was shocked at how easily we ran on them all game. If Ben had done that all game instead of trying to throw the ball in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, we probably win this game by 3 scores.

The great thing about this win was that our running scheme was so good that it forced Fangio to either commit to the run or defend the thing Caleb is really good at: the play action dig route. Fangio basically said we'll let you run but we're not gonna bite on play action and let Caleb dice us up over the middle 20 yards at a time. The result was an ineffective play action game and Caleb no longer being able to do the thing he's really good at, but we absolutely destroyed them on outside zone cut backs over the middle. We must have ran that like 10 times this game and averaged 10 yards a rush. Ben out schemed Fangio today and that is not easy to do. I've been wondering why DCs don't try more to scheme against that dig post combo off play action more. Because that's easily our most efficient pass play all year and we go to that concept every game.

He was pretty awful for 3 quarters. But when the Bears needed the conversions on the last 2 drives he got them. The Eagles make a lot of good QBs look bad. Love and Goff looked terrible against them too. Goff completed like 1/3 of his passes.

They're 7 point underdogs on the road. So it's not some impossible feat, especially given how inconsistent Philly's offense has been all year. They looked great against Dallas for 1.5 quarters and then Eberflus of all people adjusted and they didn't score the rest of the game. My main concern is the line blocking for Caleb against that vaunted Eagles defensive line. We saw Love and Goff struggle a lot against them. The offensive line did fine today against the Steelers' very good defensive line. Watt, Heyward, and Herbig are all great defensive linemen. Trapilo absolutely shut down Herbig, who was one of the highest graded pass rushers by PFF going into today. They probably would have had no sacks today if Caleb just stayed in the pocket and threw to DJ in the middle of the field on that sack fumble TD. I've been worried that as the competition got better, we were going to start seeing more holes in Caleb's game. Because he does hold onto the ball too long. He does linger on reads. But we're 12 weeks in now and we've faced 3 really good defensive line groups in the past 3 games and Caleb's doing just enough to pass the test and we keep winning. I think going into this week, I would have given us maybe like a 20% chance of winning this game. After today and seeing how we held up against a pretty damn good pass rush, I'd give say my confidence level is up to maybe 35%? It's a short week, it's against the defending champs, and it's on the road, it's never easy to win given those circumstances.

The Giants are going through what we went through last year. Bad coaching does a lot to lose you close games.

Could be, but that possibility is why you trade a guy having a near career year at age 34.