An outstanding game review by Merlin...

Here’s Merlin...

I actually think for Jerome Boger that was a far better game than usual. He actually picked up some flags which he rarely used to do. Maybe getting his ass reamed by the league behind the scenes has made him smarter idk. What they missed IMO was tons of aggressive contact by the Bucs' wideouts, however Brady is the goat and him getting calls his way is no surprise. Someday hopefully Goff will get that kind of treatment after he wins a few Super Bowls.

Evans gave Ramsey all he could handle. He's really matured as a wideout and their passing game runs through him. If some of those passes had been on target it would have been a rough and atypical night for Jalen. Also if I'm Jalen I'm buyin Johnson a steak dinner for that pass breakup down the right sideline. He dropped the INT but that prevented a likely TD.

Arians (like McVay) has a potential Super Bowl roster. But unlike McVay his insistence on forcing deep passes is limiting the quality of the QB play he gets from Brady. Brady is not a deep ball guy and a career of feasting on short/intermediate routes hasn't really prepped him for taking deep shots and reading the safeties. If Arians wants to have his best shot of getting back to the big game he's going to need to tailor the offense to his QB IMO. We're probably going to play these guys again in the playoffs, and I think they have the best roster in the NFC.

Goff's anticipation of pressure was on point and has been the last two games. We can thank Miami IMO for that ass beating that I think led to them as a unit (QB and the pass catchers) sharpening up their blitz pickup and outlet game and the tempo has been excellent since. What Tampa did was not an easy read for a QB, they were mixing it up and Goff basically read every look just a very impressive game by him and far moreso than the Seahawks game. In those situations it's on him and McVay can't help him, it was all Goff moving the offense and winning us that game but of course all the talk will be about McVay this week in the media.

Our defense has become an elite run stopping unit. What they did to that Tampa run game was impressive. Front to back these guys just ball their asses off so fun to watch. The first run from scrimmage by Tampa seeing Kiser fill downhill like he did was a thing of beauty. Hope he's ok man, because if not we're going to miss him. He's really turned into a good ILB.

SF with two weeks of prep is very dangerous. McVay needs to stop the bleeding with Shanahan and put those guys down. It's going to be hard and physical and they're going to do all they can to trip us up and are still dangerous even with the injuries.