Offense

FOLES IS GONE.

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/11/05
Posted in: Conspiracy Corner, Draft, NFL, Offense, Players. Tagged: , , , , . 20 Comments
Chip-Kelly-Marcus-Mariota

Chip Kelly and Marcus Mariota. Photo courtesy of the internet

 GIVE QB Nick Foles 15 or 16 starts in 2014 before pronouncing judgment on him.

That’s what I said I’d do.

Due to his broken collarbone, Foles won’t start 15 or 16 games this season. The injury will keep him out for 6-8 weeks, so it’s highly likely that his 2014 is over. Even if he comes back in 6, if we’re still playing for anything, he’ll likely be carrying a clipboard.

So to answer the question of whether or not Nick Foles is a franchise QB for the Eagles, the answer is: No.

If you disagree then you probably thought Michael Vick was also a franchise QB for the EAGLES. The knocks on Vick were that he couldn’t stay healthy and was a turnover machine.

Here are some cold hard facts:

  • Vick missed games every year with the EAGLES. But then so did Foles (broken wrist in 2012, concussion in ’13, collarbone in ’14.)
  • In 42 starts here, Vick turned the ball over 47 times, an average of 1.11 turnovers per game. Foles in 24 starts has 25, an average of 1.04 turnovers per game. (And he was clearly regressing).
  • In 54 games here Vick scored 72 TD’s for an average of 1.3 per game. In 28 games Foles scored 50 for an average of 1.7.

Foles has slightly better numbers in all areas, but none of those numbers say “Franchise”.

So no. Foles is not a Top 5 QB. Or a Top 10 QB. Or even a franchise QB. He will not see a huge pay day with this team, and he has likely started his last game in an EAGLES jersey. The “next 1,000 years” sure did go by fast!

Meanwhile Mark Sanchez is simply auditioning for his next team. We will be drafting a QB in 2015. Oh, and at least one Guard.

Hmmmmm. I wonder who’ll be our starting QB in 2015…

START JORDAN MATTHEWS NOW OR PAY FOR IT LATER.

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/30
Posted in: Coaching, Draft, NFL, Offense, Players. Tagged: , , , , . 16 Comments

player-jordanmatthews.500

RIGHT now our 2014 Draft looks awful. DE/OLB/ILB/ Marcus Smith had played in 4 straight games before being held out of the Arizona game. That has all the earmarks of regression. At this point the EAGLES have to hope he was a 1st round reach, and not a 1st round bust.

Despite clear athletic talent, WR/KR Josh Huff has shown some really questionable instincts so far. This only adds weight to notion of him having been a reach in the 3rd round.

WR Jordan Matthews on the other hand has been a consistent contributor so far, but it’s clear that he’s underachieving and is somewhat trapped in his role as a slot receiver. When Chip Kelly said on Draft night that Jordan would start in the slot, I had visions of him working intermediate along and in between the hash marks. Keeping both opposing Safeties playing closer to the middle, and away from being able to help their corners against our WR’s on Fly routes and Fade routes. I didn’t expect him to be a deep threat, but I did expect a guy who allowed the deep threats room to roam.

Instead what we have is a guy who runs WR middle screens, and Bubble screens.  That’s mostly because it’s what he’s asked to do. Seems to me that a WR selected in the 2nd round should be given more rope by now. It would certainly help the run game. Let me show you something:

shaded

That’s RB LeSean McCoy’s career. See that huge, across the board fall-off this year? That’s because up until this year he had 2 WR’s that could get vertical and be enough of a threat to open up room for him to create those long runs. Matthews and fellow WR Riley Cooper aren’t allowing for that. One on hand, routes called for Matthews keep him close to the line of scrimmage. On the other hand neither WR is doing much with yards after catch, as Matthews has 103 YAC, and Cooper has 75. So there is no room for McCoy to create long runs. Oh yeah! Then there’s the other thing. Let me show you something:

wrs

Combined Matthews and Cooper have fewer yards than WR Jeremy Maclin. Despite each having just 10 fewer catches than Maclin, neither man has even half his yards. Or TD’s. Maclin is also on a one year deal and will be an Unrestricted Free Agent after this season. He is clearly looking for a big contract and if someone offers him more money, he’s as good as gone. At that point our experienced WR’s are Cooper, Matthews and Huff.

It would be smart to sit Cooper and start developing (or trying to develop) Matthews into a starter ASAP. This offense was deadly with DeSean Jackson as our #1. It’s fallen to good with Maclin there. However if we lose Maclin too, we’re pretty much dead in the water.

Maclin settled for five million this just year (1.75 base, 3.5 signing bonus) , instead of signing for 5 per year on a longer deal. I’m guessing he’ll want the kind of money he saw DJax making, and will ask for something like 9 million per year. Odds are good there’ll be bidding and we’d have to overpay to keep him next year. Especially with what’s behind him, because as of right now the EAGLES have zero leverage. And oh, have I mentioned that there’s a salary cap crunch looming? Too much money paid for Maclin will, (not may) mean the difference between being able to afford someone and having to release or trade them.

If we don’t start developing Matthews soon, we’re going to be paying for the failings of this Draft through the nose.

 

 

TIME TO SHUT DOWN TODD HERREMANS

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/29
Posted in: Offense, Players, Roster. Tagged: , , . 1 Comment

players-o-line440px.philly

SCRATCH your nose. That simple movement has become decidedly more difficult for RG Todd Herremans. He suffered a torn bicep during in the loss against Arizona. Hard to say which arm he injured though. NJ.com  has it down as his right arm; CSN says it’s the left; and as usual the EAGLES (as of now, 3:39 a.m.) have yet to write a blessed word on the subject. In any case, he left the game, but came back and finished it basically with one arm. Now he’s going to attempt to continue playing despite the injury.

While it may only be a partial and not a complete tear, every medical professional worth their license, would say that continuing to play will likely only worsen his injury. If you have a desk job and you got this injury, your doctor would prescribe rest for it. Seriously. Don’t believe me? Call your doctor and ask. I’ll wait… The last things a doctor would prescribe for a torn bicep would be weightlifting or football. If it’s a complete tear, he needs to bag the year and get the surgery he needs. It all depends on which type of tear he has.

As a former O-lineman let me say that most of the job is pushing or re-directing, which involves you straightening your arms. That engages your tricep muscles. Herremans has no problem there. Unless you have a handful of jersey and are pulling on it; are “Hooking” a player (which is illegal anyway); or you’re pulling back to set up a hand punch, you don’t rely too much on your biceps. Which may be how Herremans got away with finishing the Cardinals game. (That and adrenaline.)

Here’s another one. Extend your arm out where you can see the back of your hand. Now turn it where you can see your palm. Feel that in your bicep? Herremans now has problems with a move that simple. With a just a partial tear he can do it, but not as quickly, or as strongly as he normally can. Now imagine that he has to block someone like oh, I don’t know…J.J. Watt on a stunt. Right behind Herremans sits a guy named Nick Foles. Am I being too direct?

Todd Herremans needs to take a few weeks off and let his arm heal. He’s no spring chicken, but if he’s smart (and if it is only a partial tear) he should heal fast enough, and we should get him back well before the playoffs.

GIANTS RB LESEAN MCCOY?

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/28
Posted in: Front Office (F.O.), NFL, Offense, Players. Tagged: , , , . 3 Comments
Image courtesy of newyork.cbslocal.com

Image courtesy of newyork.cbslocal.com

 

NEXT season you may be treated to the sight of our all-time leading rusher, LeSean McCoy, playing in a Giants jersey. I hope the EAGLES do a better job of replacing him than they did of replacing DeSean Jackson. That’s of course if there’s any fire to all this smoke, and the rumors of the EAGLES wanting to move him are true.

In any case, unless Darren Sproles is set to carry the load for us in 2015, or unless we draft someone, odds are we’ll be getting a Free Agent. Let’s get a look at who’ll be out there!

Jacquizz Rodgers                                                       

Stevan Ridley                                                             

Bilal Powell                                                   

Cedric Peerman                                                                     

Chris Ogbonnaya                                                                  

DeMarco Murray                                                                  

Leon Washington                                                                   

Shane Vereen                                                             

Daniel Thomas                                                                      

Joe McKnight                                                            

Darren McFadden                                                                 

Knowshon Moreno                                                                

Antone Smith                                                             

Ryan Mathews                                                                       

Mark Ingram                                                             

Kendall Hunter                                                                      

DuJuan Harris                                                                       

Frank Gore                                                                

Roy Helu                                                                    

Justin Forsett                                                            

Jonathan Dwyer                                                                    

Shaun Draughn                                                                      

Ronnie Brown                                                            

Ahmad Bradshaw       

 

According to Spotrac.com this is the list of UFA (Unrestricted Free Agent) RB’s that will be available after this season. You can all but assume that guys like Murray and Forsett will re-sign with their current teams; but even if they don’t, do you see any names that you’d be happy to replace McCoy with? If we ran a different system and depending on what it was, sure I could pick a couple of those names. But for what we do, it’s almost like McCoy was cooked up in a lab just to play in this offense. Why fuck with what works?

You’re probably waiting for the part where I show you what hard evidence I have that McCoy is leaving.  Well I don’t have any. Right now all I have is a teaspoon of speculation, and a ton of history on how our Front Office operates. Here’s what I mean.

I’ve been making the rounds on-line, collecting and sifting news about the EAGLES to write about and share with you. Since last week I keep seeing stories about the EAGLES trading McCoy to Oakland. If you look it up you’ll find different versions of it, but they all have roots in this story here.

I found it interesting because I told my readers months ago (in June) that McCoy might be leaving after this season. I’m still hoping that it doesn’t happen, but anyone who’s been an EAGLES fan for at least the last quarter century can tell you, none of our greats finish as EAGLES. We don’t get to see our own go smiling into the sunset. And that’s been regardless of coach, GM, or owner. It’s part of what robs me of any optimism that there’s a happy ending to the coming crisis my other article mentioned.

I just hope that we at least get somebody good, because we’re almost certainly going to part with somebody great.

THE SCAPEGOAT (Here is why we lost)

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/27
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Fans, NFL, Offense, Rants. Tagged: , , , . 5 Comments

player-joshhuffduck.500

 (It should real easy to spot everyone who didn’t actually read this article.)

QB Nick Foles accounted for 2 of our 3 turnovers in the loss at Arizona. So it’s pretty clear that we should blame him for the loss, right? Sure, until you consider that he threw 62 passes and that 2 picks is just 3%. That number stacks up pretty well against most NFL QB’s. It doesn’t stack up to well against Top Ten QB’s like Peyton Manning, Steve Young and Tom Brady. Then again Nick Foles isn’t a Top 10 QB. He is most certainly NFL caliber, and given a weapon like say…DeSean Jackson, he’s capable of getting a team to the playoffs, but he is no Top 10 QB, and that level of play cannot be expected from him. The coach simply cannot put that sort of load on his shoulders.

And what about Chip Kelly? Isn’t it his job to know that Foles isn’t an elite QB? If he does know that, then why would he call 62 plays vs just 26 rushes!? The game should have never been in Foles hands to begin with, right? Sure, until you consider that all of our scoring came through the air, and with only 2 RB’s active you can lean only so hard on them. Especially against the NFL’s #2 run defense. With half an Offense, you need your Defense to keep you in the game.

So we’ll blame the Defense! They allowed not one, but TWO, long passes to happen with defenders in coverage, both times they were simply outrun after the catch by the receiver en route to a TD. So whether it was sloppy coverage, or not enough pass rush, it’s the Defense that let those scores happen, right? Sure it was. But wasn’t it the Offense’s turnovers that robbed us of points and gave extra possessions to the Cardinals, putting extra pressure on the Defense?

Wait. So now were back to blaming the Offense??

How about this? It was the EAGLES who lost the game. Kelly told Foles during the vagiants game that culture wins ballgames. Culture also loses them. We’ve been getting away with some less than fundamentally sound football since September 7th. This is the second time we faced a team above .500, and both times we ended up on the ground. That’s telling.

Our redzone percentage has been atrocious. We struggle to run the ball, in a run first offense. (O-line injuries you say? Okay. So our back-up O-linemen can’t run block? Then why are they on OUR roster?) Culture.

Our second round draft pick doesn’t even average 10 yards per catch. Our first round reach has been a healthy scratch for half of our games and despite playing in 4 straight games has yet to record a single stat. Any stat. Or the third round reach? Culture.

Our defensive philosophy sucks. We allow too many easy completions. The culture has become to say that it’s Cary Williams and Bradley Fletcher. But remember when it was Nnamdi Asomugha and DRC before that? And Asante Samuel before that? And Sheldon Brown right before he was traded? DO you realize how many talented CB’s have sucked in Philadelphia since 2008? We haven’t had one we liked. Despite the EAGLES calling in Defensive gurus who focused on improving the pass rush, when it failed we always buried the CB’s. Culture.

You want a scapegoat, THERE is your scapegoat.

VIOLENCE IS THE ANSWER.

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/10
Posted in: Coaching, Offense, Players, Rants. Tagged: , , , , . 15 Comments
Image courtesy profootballspot.com

Image courtesy profootballspot.com

OUR opponents know that we’re a team that is largely dependent on finesse to run the ball, and you know what? That shouldn’t change. After all, that IS who we are now. It’s what this city (not so much this fan) fell in love with last year. Why overhaul what works? And yes, I still think it works, I just think it’s stuck at the moment.

So how do you get it unstuck? Simple, you run the ball.

Not a single offensive lineman on this roster (starter through 3rd string) played under Chip Kelly, or in a system similar to this in college. That means they all learned how to drive block for the run at some point. Most of the linemen we have were NFL veterans when Kelly was hired, which means they blocked for the run not just in college, but also at the pro level already. My point is they know how to do it. They may not be naturally gifted for it, and they may be rusty at it, but they do know how to do it.

What would help to get us ‘unstuck’ would be to mix in a basic dive here and there.  No pulling. No zone. No counter. Just a few basic “body on a body, and man on a man” type plays, where LeSean McCoy knows ahead of time that it’s a quick hitter, and that zero time to dance is built into the play.

On too many of these runs to the outside, McCoy is being greeted by 2 and 3 tacklers, because they flow straight to the edge since they know we don’t really attack the middle with McCoy. Hey, did anyone notice where Darren Sproles 2 longest runs of year were? They were right up the gut. If Sproles can make his way through grabs and arm-tackles, you can bet your ass that McCoy can. We just need to commit to doing it.

We’ve gotten so fancy now, that we’ve forgotten about the basics. That it’s your heart and not your 40 time that makes you great. We’re so smart now that we’ve even started outsmarting ourselves, and strayed from the truth that at its heart, this is a violent sport, and that violence is not just reserved for defensive players to dish out.

Let’s not overlook the physical toll it takes on a defender to fight off an offensive lineman, and then try to bring down a RB with a full head of steam. Some downhill running would take some of the wind out of defenders who’d later have to chase McCoy to the edge, or hustle over to help on a bubble screen. If they’re beat-up already, the likelihood that they can make a play goes down.

We don’t get much of that right now. At games end, opponents are starting to look fresher than we do. Near the end, did the Rams look at all tired to you last week? They seemed to be surging from where I sat.

I’m a throwback type. I believe if you cut off a man’s head, he can’t outsmart you. If you break your enemy’s body, he can’t break yours. It’s why the finesse style can’t appeal to me. That being said, the pace we play at, by itself, won’t break a team. We need to lay hands on and physically break a team. We need to run them down. Run them over. Back up. Do it again. You want to get the running game back on track? Get back to basics. THAT’S the way you do it.

How do you get unstuck? Simple. You run the goddamn ball.

PROBLEM #2: RUNNING ON EMPTY

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/09
Posted in: Coaching, Offense, Players, Rants. Tagged: , , . 11 Comments
Image courtesy of myfantasyopinions.sportsblog.com

Image courtesy of myfantasyopinions.sportsblog.com

OFFENSE:

  1. a violation or breaking of a social or moral rule; transgression; sin.
  2. a transgression of the law; misdemeanor.
  3. the act of offending or displeasing.
  4. the act of attacking; attack or assault

OUR run game is built largely on deception. We rely heavily on sweeps, and stretches, and cutbacks runs. What we don’t specialize in is attacking what is directly in front of us. We don’t employ our Offensive Line offensively enough. We’re relying on people chasing us to tire themselves out, instead of beating on them and THEN making them chase us to tire themselves out. Our O-line excels at moving the point of attack and playing in space, but doesn’t really do to well at re-establishing the line of scrimmage. This is by the way, not just true of our back-ups, but also our starters. We don’t have any maulers on our interior line.

Adding to that is our constant rapid-fire approach. The result is that RB LeSean McCoy looks so tired out there that people are asking if he’s injured. One long-time EAGLES fan and frequent poster on this website, joked that McCoy must have stopped using his steroids. Keep in mind: While our opponents have to deal with our rapid pace only once or twice a year, our players have to do it EVERY WEEK. And it’s plainly and obviously taking a toll.

Lastly, and here’s the most important one folks: In this Spread, QB Nick Foles is not an Option. Last year the system was still new and Michael Vick showed teams just how dangerous a running QB could be under Chip Kelly’s system.

Even after Vick went down, because of what the EAGLES had shown, opponents were fearful of Foles now coming out the back door. At least at first. Consider that in 10 starts and on 57 carries last year, Foles only produced 6 double-digit runs (12, 14, 16, 20, 21, and 10 yards), each in a separate game. Worse yet those 6 runs represented 93 of his 221 total rushing yards, (leaving a remaining 51 carries for 128 yards and 2.5 per carry).

Seeing Foles was no threat as a runner, teams stopped guarding the back door, to pay more attention to McCoy coming out the front door. Since then it seems that teams have made the decision to “Just let Foles run” and so far he hasn’t made anyone pay. (His longest run of the year so far was 14 yards, on a day where he finished with only 13.) The upshot here is the extra attention paid to McCoy has effectively shut down this team’s run game. We can’t rely on deception at this point, because Foles as a runner is a poor hand to bluff with.

It’s a three-headed monster, but it’s essentially ONE problem: We rely on smoke and mirrors too much. Running the ball isn’t easy, but it is simple. 

Tomorrow I’ll get into how we could fix this, and get it done as soon as Sunday.

FIXING THE DJAX PROBLEM

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/07
Posted in: Coaching, Offense, Players, Rants. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 Comments

New York Jets v Philadelphia Eagles

 

IN my last article I showed you the hidden culprit behind why our Offense isn’t nearly as lethal or as machine-like as it was last year. Most fans want to chalk it up to injuries on the Offensive Line and look no further than that. That is a mistake.

It’s true that the Offensive Line being beat-up affects what kind of holes RB LeSean McCoy gets to run through, and the time that QB Nick Foles gets in the pocket. However when McCoy breaks the line of scrimmage and STILL can’t get himself free like he could last year, that’s not the O-line. When Foles steps into a pass that sails too high, or too long, that’s not the O-line. In fact who do you “blame” for Foles holding the ball too long? And the O-line has nothing to do with WR Riley Cooper going off a cliff.

What all these things have in common is the absence of DeSean Jackson. He was shown the door and no one bothered to replace him. By replacing him I don’t just mean getting a fast WR. We don’t need to replace what he could do, we needed to replace what he caused to happen.

Teams didn’t line up their FS 15-20 yards deep just because of his 4.4 speed. He also could change direction in a flash, has fairly reliable hands, and unlike a lot of 4.4 guys, can run the NFL route tree. As a result, teams warped their defenses to try to compensate and not make scoring TD’s too easy for Jackson

While we don’t have anyone on the roster with Jackson’s individual abilities, we do have a guy who can warp a defense: RB Darren Sproles. He’s every bit as dangerous in space a Jackson was, break tackles better, and can run most NFL routes from the WR position.

Put in motion to the slot, you can bet your ass a Safety would follow him out there. It’s not like you can cover Sproles with a Linebacker. Instead of a Safety playing extra deep, you have one playing extra shallow. And it’s still a warped defense isn’t it? And you know…when that Safety comes down, someone on the outside has a 1-on-1. That leaves a lot of options for Foles to place a ball.

You could do this in multiple formations, with multiple packages…It doesn’t have to be a restrictive number of plays at all.

So that’s it. You motion Sproles out like he used to do in New Orleans. (Man do they miss HIM!) That’s how you create space for McCoy and Cooper. That’s how you give Foles wider windows to throw to. That’s how you solve the DeSean Jackson problem.

Tomorrow I’ll talk about problem #2.

 

THE OFFENSE’S UNSPOKEN PROBLEM

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/06
Posted in: Coaching, Offense, Rants. Tagged: , , , . 9 Comments

players-foles+mccoy550px eagledelphia

IT’S easy to blame the Offensive Line for the mess that our Offense has become, and while they shoulder part of the responsibility, the Offensive Line isn’t overthrowing WR’s, or dropping passes. The Offensive Line isn’t holding onto the ball too long, or dancing around before it hits the hole. We have other problems.

Of course, the first step to fixing any problem is correctly identifying it.

The first problem (nope, no foreplay), is that we’re missing DeSean Jackson. Or more accurately, Nick Foles is missing DeSean Jackson. And Riley Cooper is missing DeSean Jackson. And so is LeSean McCoy.

Last year in 10 starts Nick Foles got to just lay the ball out there, knowing Jackson has the speed to get under it. In case after case this year, we’ve seen that Foles no longer has a WR who can do that. That’s where all those rainbow shots are coming from, as Foles tries to put enough air under the ball to allow who he has left, to run under the ball. The result has been more than twice the interceptions in half the starts, compared to last year. You may say you don’t miss Jackson, but the numbers don’t lie. Nick Foles misses DeSean Jackson.

Let’s take drops out of the equation. Last year Riley Cooper averaged 17.8 yards per catch, and generally caught balls with lots of space around him. This year the coverage is tighter and he’s averaging a meager 8.3 yard per catch. I had a laugh when Chip Kelly said that aside from Calvin Johnson, no WR in the NFL sees double coverage. I’ll give Kelly the benefit of the doubt and say that instead of lying to make the loss of Jackson more palatable for fans, he merely doesn’t recognize bracket coverage when he sees it. Regardless of which one it is, Cooper is no longer the beneficiary of loose coverage. At this rate by season’s end, his new, over-inflated, NON-GUARANTEED contract won’t be commensurate with his play and will be expendable. I promise you, right about now DeSean Jackson is one n***** Cooper misses.

When the Free Safeties of most defenses you face, line up almost in the parking lot on most downs, it makes turning short runs into long runs much easier. On runs when LeSean McCoy can make it out of the backfield, he has plenty of those short runs to his credit. Problem is, there isn’t much space for him to create now. Now all the dancing around people loved about him last year, is getting him hemmed in most of the time this year. LeSean McCoy misses DeSean Jackson.

Getting rid of Jackson was one thing, but assuming that you didn’t have to replace his effect as a catalyst was outright foolish. But again, this is just to identify the problem. We don’t have a player on the roster who can do what Jackson did (try as Jeremy Maclin might). But there are things we can do to get us back on track, and what’s more, we can do it with guys we already have under contract.

And I’ll get into that, starting tomorrow.

LANE JOHNSON TO THE RESCUE

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/10/01
Posted in: Offense, Players, Roster. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

card-lanejohnson

 

RIGHT Tackle Lane Johnson is coming back today. Everywhere I look people are reaching for bananas and dildos in celebration of the return of the EAGLES 2013 run game.

Hold up! Steady on! Pump the brakes. Chillax big homie. Lane Johnson plays on the right. The EAGLES do most of their damage rushing, on the left.

Dig if you will, the picture:

clutch

Notice that “PWR” category. It’s the percentage of times a team picks up either the first down or a touchdown on 3rd or 4th down. Think of it as a clutch meter. Notice how it decreases going from left to right? Again Johnson plays on the right. That lower percentage was without Johnson missing time. Though he was a rookie, so you cut him some slack on that.

Instead of expecting 2013’s LeSean McCoy to emerge because Johnson is back, the biggest improvement might be that instead of having to play multiple second stringers by default, back-ups have to beat each other out for that LG spot. Competition returns.

Where we have really been atrocious has been running the ball inside. Aside from sealing off DE’s and LB’s crashing down the line, I’m doubting that Johnson’s return will aid us on much besides runs off the RG and further right.

Perhaps the EAGLES will need to give less TE help in pass pro and Foles can get the ball out of his hands sooner on a few short routes to say…Brent Celek with just a Safety in front of him. (You can already see the tire tracks on the Safety’s chest can’t you?)

Make no mistake, I think Lane Johnson’s return will help, but this is by no means a rescue mission. One man will not return this team to the circus act you’ve all come to expect (I told you it was going to be very different), from last season.

I think it’s very important (especially while he gets back up to game speed), to temper expectations for Johnson, and/or what his return is supposed to mean for the O-line.