I genuinely don't understand how anyone who watched that game can come away being anything but encouraged by how stroud played today with the bad taste of his playoff performance hanging over his head. The only way I can make sense out of it is if you already had your mind made up and what happened today didn't matter to you regardless of the outcome.
Was he perfect? obviously not, he had a few plays that he'd like to have back I'm sure and he needs to work on securing the ball, but tearing into him for that 3rd and goal on the 18 on what would have been a miraculous drive had it succeeded at all seems a little bit much. Of course I would have loved to see him not fumble there, but it's not as if you can really throw it away there, and the protection did fail him at the worst time. The game was all but over, and it was only because of his play that we were even in a situation that we had a chance to come back at all. It didn't work out but the game was lost long before that play.
Stroud played well enough to win today. And I say this as someone who had completely written the guy off and had very little hope for him this year. We did not lose this game because of CJ Stroud. I know some people want a scapegoat to take all their frustration out on, but it wasn't on him this time.
Lassiter had easily his worst game as a pro, and even when he wasn't making a mistake he couldn't catch a break for anything. Even when he had a gift thrown right at him that could have ended the game and made up for how he has played up to that point, it just wasn't his day. If nothing else, I am confident he will get it together, he's too good a player not to. Bad games happen.
Blankenship was a bit of a disaster from what I could tell watching live, though I'll have to rewatch and focus more on him to verify what I believe to be the case. It certainly seemed like he was struggling to catch on to the scheme in a big way though. It appeared that he had issues with picking up or passing the right player at times, and he seemed to be slow to react over and over again. His coverage seemed piss poor from when I had a good view of it- definitely wasn't good enough that he should have had the confidence to start trying to jump on routes like he did. But again, this is just from watching casually, so I could find that I'm wrong when I watch again more attentively. Maybe he wasn't as bad as it appeared initially. I'm not real optimistic that will be the case though.
The whole secondary seemed off today, even Stingley was uncharacteristically average from what I saw. He wasn't bad necessarily but he wasn't playing like he's shown he's capable of. Nobody really stood out in a good way in the secondary. There's too much talent in that group to not get better.
Of course it wasn't as if they were helped by a pass rush today either… I loved the Clowney signing and thought (and obviously still do think) it was a much bigger deal than was being made of it, and that he can and will prove to be a difference maker this year. That said, Clowney cannot be the only player on the line getting in the backfield and disrupting plays for much of the game. Not when WAJ and Hunter are on the line. They have to play better, there's no way around it. I would really like to see what this group looks like with macdonald so let's hope he gets healthy enough to be ready for game 5.
In short, the defense sucked out loud. The offense, while not perfect, played surprisingly well imo. And because I feel like the defense is much closer to a known commodity that's likely to play much better, I actually feel better about this teams prospects moving forward than I did before the game as weird as that sounds to admit.
Stroud may fall apart and ruin the whole season yet, but that's not what I saw today. If you hate the guy or are so done with him that there's nothing he could do to redeem himself in your eyes, that's fair after the way he imploded in the playoffs after a bad season last year. But if that's the case just say that, we dont need to pretend he had a bad day for that.
Sorry this turned out a lot longer than I intended.
