And for our final magic trick.  We’re down 2.  They’re just out of FG range.  Under 11 minutes left in the 4th. 

3RD & 9 AT TB 42 |10:26

(10:26) (Shotgun) M.Ryan scrambles right end to TB 29 for 13 yards (K.Alexander). 

Stewart is coming on a NCB blitz off the slot.  Curry (LDE over RT) is coming hard inside on slot to get him to pause or chase for a second.  He does.  However he goes into a hard vertical set to try to get to the edge to stop Stewart.  He is oversetting ridiculously to the outside to try to recover and JPP is coming around the edge on the other side and is about to sack Ryan. 

For some unknown reason, Stewart doesn’t (or is athletically incapable) change direction hard to the inside as the RT is oversetting so hard vertically to recover after getting briefly baited by Curry’s inside rush.  Instead, Stewart just goes right into his chest and gets swallowed up.  Instead of JPP sacking Ryan because he has nowhere to escape (or Stewart combining), this allowed Ryan to easily escape the pocket where Stewart should have been. 

We’re man behind, guys (particularly Adams, the Safety with the 2 busts above, who was in position to potentially come off his man and make a tackle short of the sticks) are late getting there.  1st down. 

Mike Smith is awful and I’m EXTREMELY glad he’s gone. 

But our back 7 talent is AWFUL.  Some of the worst play I’ve ever seen on tape. 

Jason Licht was tasked with getting us better in 4 key places:

DL (we’re better)

Interior OL, especially the running game (we’re probably worse)

DB (we’re somehow worse)

RB (status quo-ish)

To date, the Ryan Jensen signing and the lack of addressing RG in any substantive way have been absolute train wrecks. 

We are utterly horrific in the defensive backfield specifically and the back 7 coverage generally (which includes utterly awful SAM play…which wasn’t addressed once Beckwith went down).  Guys don’t seem to understand conceptually what is trying to be accomplished in any given play (both their actual defense and what the offense is trying to do to them).  Guys are playing slow (either because they’re slow – Stewart – or because they don’t know what they’re doing). 

FA Jensen, FA Unrein, and every single 2018 draft pick have had no good impact on this team through 5 weeks.