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wow, I was thinking we were toast, finally got it together in the last minute.....I need an oxygen tank and a heart pill.....and Bengals demolishing the Niners too.

I was too, but we bowed up at just the right time!

Very, very lucky. Undisciplined, lack of killer instinct…….

I still don't know what to make of that game. Was it a good performance against an elite D and elite running game? Or was it luck to win in a game where the Hawks, yet again, lost the 3rd down percentages on both sides of the ball? Was it a testament to the will of a group that never gave up and bent-but-didn't-break under adversity, or the mark of a team that isn't yet in the top tier of teams that wouldn't put themselves in those positions? Did Geno show that he could deliver a big win or show that he has too many flaws to carry the team? I could see reasonable people coming away from that game with totally different takes.

The only clear, undisputed, unassailable conclusion about that win: they got the critical W in the throwbacks, thus not infecting them with negative mojo and sinking their chance of a reappearance. Had they lost a heartbreaker in those gorgeous, perfect, best-in-the-NFL unis, they may have dustbinned them. But because they won, we may see them again some time even after the Cowboys game. If that happens, then we're all winners.

Now we lead the division as the other teams collapse.

Fun game to watch but it's frustrating with the Offensive lull after the 1st Quarter.
These 2 teams are evenly matched and it showed.
What's good:
A WIN!
Geno driving down the field for the winning TD.
The run game really had some good chunk plays.
The Defense hasn't declined and still looks much better than last year overall.
Keeping Myles Garrett in check which means very good OL play and scheming to nullify his impact. Their other DL didn't impress either.
Lucky that the helmet deflection by Adams created a turnover.
SF losing which for the time being gives us 1st place in the Division.

What's bad:
Penalties. They have to stop.
Geno making some bad decisions.
The Offense disappearing for around 3 quarters.
3rd downs on both sides of the ball.

I don't think we can blame all of the offense disappearing for the middle chunk of the game all on our offense, that's a damn good defense we were playing (#1 in the league). Sometimes the other guy makes the plays. I am still frustrated with our 3rd down production, on both sides of the ball, but we made the plays we had to when it counted the most so I'd give us a strong grade overall.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done!

I'd like to see some things done better, too, but, as has been said before here and elsewhere, wins are hard to come by in the NFL, and they played good enough yesterday to get them another one. I'll take it.

A win is a win, no matter how close it is, and yes we took on a stout defense and still managed to put points on the board. Like Oly mentioned this is sort of a head scratcher for me as 70% of the game was sub par play from the Hawk's offense as they once again played below average and at times got two simple, with run run pass, 3 and out.

Few things stood out to me. First the referee's seems to let the players be physical and hand fight out there, and I quite enjoyed that and I felt it was pretty fair on both sides. However the hands to the face were called quite often, and really hurt our team both sides of the ball, and if you go back and watch the final drive the 2 to 3 plays before JSN scored the game sealing TD you can see Jason Peters throw his hands straight up into Myles Garret two plays in a row, and you can see his head get pushed back(however I would imagine he has a tree stump of a neck) and those weren't called, thankfully. They really could have called it twice in a row, and not sure why they didn't at that time.

Next I felt we rant he ball quite well, both ZC and K9 had excellent average yds per carry. However, Geno once again played quite poor. At times showed good accuracy, but other times put the ball in the dirt or at the feet of DK.

I do have a question, and since I watched this on replay it condenses the game and I miss quite a bit of the commercial commentary between breaks, but what was up with Pete on the sideline after Geno threw an INT. I mean it was a clearly a bad read, and perfect play on the DB, and a clean INT. However, Pete was going all "Karen" on the sideline with the Refs and anyone hear afterwards or know why?

I never found out about what set Pete off about that play. Maybe the play had another receiver who was primary and he was interfered with.

4XPIPS wrote:A win is a win, no matter how close it is, and yes we took on a stout defense and still managed to put points on the board. Like Oly mentioned this is sort of a head scratcher for me as 70% of the game was sub par play from the Hawk's offense as they once again played below average and at times got two simple, with run run pass, 3 and out.

Few things stood out to me. First the referee's seems to let the players be physical and hand fight out there, and I quite enjoyed that and I felt it was pretty fair on both sides. However the hands to the face were called quite often, and really hurt our team both sides of the ball, and if you go back and watch the final drive the 2 to 3 plays before JSN scored the game sealing TD you can see Jason Peters throw his hands straight up into Myles Garret two plays in a row, and you can see his head get pushed back(however I would imagine he has a tree stump of a neck) and those weren't called, thankfully. They really could have called it twice in a row, and not sure why they didn't at that time.

Next I felt we rant he ball quite well, both ZC and K9 had excellent average yds per carry. However, Geno once again played quite poor. At times showed good accuracy, but other times put the ball in the dirt or at the feet of DK.

I do have a question, and since I watched this on replay it condenses the game and I miss quite a bit of the commercial commentary between breaks, but what was up with Pete on the sideline after Geno threw an INT. I mean it was a clearly a bad read, and perfect play on the DB, and a clean INT. However, Pete was going all "Karen" on the sideline with the Refs and anyone hear afterwards or know why?

I was at the game in the nosebleed section, so I didn't get a good look at what Pete might have been bitching about after the Geno red zone pick. However, my buddy thought that one of the Browns lined up offside and it didn't get called and that Geno might have taken the chance because he thought he had a free play. I don't buy that as my friend is a Geno apologist. You don't take chances like that assuming that you have a free play, especially when you don't see a flag. I'll have to watch the replay.

The game was one of those glass half full/glass half empty propositions. The glass half full read is that it was a gutsy win, that despite getting shut down for most of the 2nd half, Geno and our offense played well when they had to. The glass half full look is that we got lucky, that had it not been for a poor decision by a substandard, backup quarterback, we would have at best only gotten the game into overtime.

Being the natural born pessimist, I tend to lean towards the latter. This was another poor performance by Geno. He got lucky by getting away with what should have been a pick 6. He's reverting back to the Geno who had more INT's than TD's prior to his comeback season last year.

4XPIPS wrote:A win is a win, no matter how close it is, and yes we took on a stout defense and still managed to put points on the board. Like Oly mentioned this is sort of a head scratcher for me as 70% of the game was sub par play from the Hawk's offense as they once again played below average and at times got two simple, with run run pass, 3 and out.

Few things stood out to me. First the referee's seems to let the players be physical and hand fight out there, and I quite enjoyed that and I felt it was pretty fair on both sides. However the hands to the face were called quite often, and really hurt our team both sides of the ball, and if you go back and watch the final drive the 2 to 3 plays before JSN scored the game sealing TD you can see Jason Peters throw his hands straight up into Myles Garret two plays in a row, and you can see his head get pushed back(however I would imagine he has a tree stump of a neck) and those weren't called, thankfully. They really could have called it twice in a row, and not sure why they didn't at that time.

Next I felt we rant he ball quite well, both ZC and K9 had excellent average yds per carry. However, Geno once again played quite poor. At times showed good accuracy, but other times put the ball in the dirt or at the feet of DK.

I do have a question, and since I watched this on replay it condenses the game and I miss quite a bit of the commercial commentary between breaks, but what was up with Pete on the sideline after Geno threw an INT. I mean it was a clearly a bad read, and perfect play on the DB, and a clean INT. However, Pete was going all "Karen" on the sideline with the Refs and anyone hear afterwards or know why?

RD is right: Pete thought Garrett lined up in the neutral zone. Here's a Field Gulls article with a screenshot. https://www.fieldgulls.com/2023/10/29/2 ... wns-week-8

The thing is that the screenshot in that story wasn't the last frame before the snap. This tweet shows that it might have been much closer to a clean play from Garrett when the ball was snapped: https://twitter.com/johhay/status/1718749082917990489

Oly wrote:
RD is right: Pete thought Garrett lined up in the neutral zone. Here's a Field Gulls article with a screenshot. https://www.fieldgulls.com/2023/10/29/2 ... wns-week-8

The thing is that the screenshot in that story wasn't the last frame before the snap. This tweet shows that it might have been much closer to a clean play from Garrett when the ball was snapped: https://twitter.com/johhay/status/1718749082917990489

Thank you to both of you. I was starting to think Pete is going off on his rocker there.

Is it just me or do they seem to be giving players on both sides of the LOS a break when lining up this season?

A few years ago, I was at a game where Michael Bennett got called for lining up offside twice on two consecutive plays.

RiverDog wrote:Is it just me or do they seem to be giving players on both sides of the LOS a break when lining up this season?

A few years ago, I was at a game where Michael Bennett got called for lining up offside twice on two consecutive plays.

I don't think it's just you. We also see more Tackles lining up too deep according to the rules and getting away with it. Maybe for OT's it's a suggestion from the Head Office to help protect the QBs, but it isn't technically within the rules.

RiverDog wrote:Is it just me or do they seem to be giving players on both sides of the LOS a break when lining up this season?

A few years ago, I was at a game where Michael Bennett got called for lining up offside twice on two consecutive plays.

NorthHawk wrote:I don't think it's just you. We also see more Tackles lining up too deep according to the rules and getting away with it. Maybe for OT's it's a suggestion from the Head Office to help protect the QBs, but it isn't technically within the rules.

Yeah, the season opener, Chiefs vs. Lions, featured the Chiefs' starting RT lining up way off the LOS consistently, prompting Terry McCauley to say that he thought that it was a penalty. It was so blatant that it almost had to be by design that the league had decided to cut them some slack. Although I can't name any instances, it seems like they've been more liberal with defensive linemen lining up in the neutral zone as well.

The other dynamic that might have been in play with Pete arguing like he did is that he might have been trying to take some psychological pressure off his quarterback, who had thrown a really bad interception on that play. Earl Weaver used to do that in baseball as manager of the Baltimore Orioles, pick a fight with an umpire in order to motivate his players, make them think that he had their backs.

I don't think in the midst of a game Pete thinks that far ahead. His always compete mantra makes him throw challenge flags for what seem to be questionable gambles, so my guess is it was just him expressing himself about what he considered to be an infraction and not much more.