Less About Playoffs, More About Progress

Playoffs are fun to think about and we can make a run if all things line up at the right time, but we also need to fully expect frustration from a young, rebuilding team with a handful of future stars. They are developing and need to be more excited about it. Stroud and the Texans got us a bit over-excited with all this winning and clutch performances, but let's put more focus on appreciating progress, looking for further progression, and just doing things better that will lead to more wins.

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1. A post of "What does Stroud do poorly?" got me thinking. Let's temper the playoff expectations and see how CJ develops.
   1. 2 things Stroud does not do exceptionally well is throw perfect out routes or deep balls. Early on he was always throwing way out of bounds. Now it's just off by inches, where receivers are just barely toe-tapping out. In time, he'll nail these and we'll see the chains move more consistently. Secondly, his deep balls tend to be overthrown. Recently he's been slightly overthrowing but atleast giving his receivers a chance unlike a few other games. I hope next season, these will be more on point and he can get them in stride. We also don't see alot of balls for contested catches. Whether it's play style or lack of trust, we'll see in time.
   2. CJ is in-between figuring out when to run it and when to stand in the pocket longer. He's not that quick, so I'd prefer Slowik develop more of a short game, or more open RB dump offs. Like maybe a game where CJ gets more on slants, dump offs, and see what our players can do, instead of constant stick routes. Let CJ develop!
   3. The short game in the middle seems prone to interceptions. Keep an eye out for better decision making or play design there. Please Slowik! Show us more creativity!
2. WAJ is becoming a much more noticeable force. In the earlier half, his stats said he was doing great, but he wasn't catching some of our eyes, like mine. Recently though, he's been an absolute stud and it makes me super happy. I think over the next few games and next season, we'll continue to see more development in his pass rush moves and ways for him to get to the QB. I'd like to see someone who can create opportunities for him in the future instead of him having to do it for the rest of the DLine. We'd get a monster pass rush.
3. Our secondary is healthy, particularly Stingley. From recent memory, Pitre did not give up any deep plays, so let's chalk that up as a win. Our LB's were atrocious, but it's been mentioned to death that we need a few years to develop positions and this is a major one. There was some busted coverage or something, because Wilson and company were wide open way too often, but maybe we just need to let the team gel more and see where we go from there? I don't think the entire defense was awful yesterday, but we had some massive holes absolutely exposed. Was Cashman that big of a safety blanket? If so, let's compare performance and depth next year.
4. WE'RE 7-6!! with a team practically starting from scratch!! We beat the Bengals, Steelers, Bucs, Broncos. They're not the Eagles or 9'ers but they're still solid teams. I have barely watched the last 3 years ever since the team imploded and during that time, felt like I was watching a bunch of backups play. Was real excited with Meco coming in as coach and the energy with the new squad. We actually have a team worth watching, but we're going to have rough patches. Give it time!
5. Something to look out for in the future would be how well we play in conditions like these again. Lacking receivers and no run game today, will we have a better game plan or depth next year or following years? Or a top tier defense to create turnovers?
6. What else you want call out that has made progress?

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