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MalibuRam
It will come down to Arians vs McVay. Who has the best game plan and makes the best adjustments.
I think the Rams have better coaches.
Arians has been formidable against the Rams, but your point is well taken. The trouble is, the Bucs picked us apart last year with J Winston. Brady struggled to adapt to Arians at first along with what his expectations were from his receivers but that's been improving steadily. Know this...they will have a plan to exploit our weaknesses and we will all be wanting to throw our beers at the TV several times this Monday. Bet...
The real key on defense is how frequently AD can wreck the plan and if anyone else can win their one on one matchups.
Our offense is an enigma. As surprising as the effectiveness has been in our run game, the passing game goes from stellar to WTF so frequently that not even McVay seems to know what to expect. Sean may well have an excellent plan, but will Jared and the protection execute it? I mean, how many drives stall because Jared misses a read, a WR has a bad drop, an OL misses an assignment, a TE whiffs a block, the DCoordinator dials up a perfect blitz, or we suffer an untimely penalty? It's tough because McVay has wisely shortened the length of the pass plays to improve the protection but longer drives require more consistent execution and without Whit, the field needs to be compressed even more than it has been.
To me, this comes down to Kromer mixing up the run game expertly. He has to sprinkle in more powers and traps so they can't sit on the zone running plays all day. If we have to depend on the ability to convert a number of third and longs (which lately resorts to sniffed out bubble screens) it's gonna be a sh*t show.
And my Gawd, if this comes down to the Unspecial Teams, I probably won't make it through the third quarter before pretentiously swearing off football for the rest of the year.
And my even greater fear is that if we manage to win this game, this particular team seems to lose focus shortly thereafter and play flatly against the next opponent and we are about to meet mostly division opponents the rest of the way.
So ask yourself this: do you ever get to feel comfortable or confident about winning any game with this squad even as the game unfolds? I find myself holding my breath every friggin possession. We have a good team with several excellent players and a future HOF coach and deep assistants. But it never feels like '18, does it?