These are just stills, so there could be more to this, but the first pic is pretty damning. 3rd and 3. Johnson beginning his cut with plenty of room at the first down marker. That ball has to be essentially on its way already.
If you look at the next still which is at 8:49, Johnson is 6 yards down field behind the defender. So it makes me wonder what route was Nykiem running, yes if he was supposed to run a 3 yard route and expect the ball on the break for the 1st down then that is on Tommy, but if he isn't looking back yet because the route was supposed to be 6 yards not 3 or he fails to look for the ball for some reason and then the defender is now on him then we have a serious problem with our routes based on down and distance which we seem to have many time anyways. One of the things I wonder about DeVito is he afraid to throw interceptions. He threw a few inexplicable ones last year early in the year when he either was trying to throw it away or tried to force it. Then ended with only 5 ints for the year, but quite often didn't throw the ball on deeper throws where it was catchable by anyone, either overthrown and/or thrown out of bounds, or hesitant to throw short when the receiver hasn't come out of his break. This has the look of not wanting to throw before the receiver has come out of his break, even after that, he is now looking away and Hackett is open this is all puzzling, this isn't an isolated instance. I would have thought in film work this would have been pointed out and would be a focus in practice. Maybe it is and it is a game time thing where there is hesitation, but this has to be corrected, we are not as bad as we have shown last year and this game on offense, I refuse to believe that some how there are more than a few non-P5 teams have better offensive talent than we do.
Now again the Wrs have issues also, Tommy did make some good throws, Taj has a step on his man on one of the few middle down field throws and it hits him in the helmet!!!!! Did he not expect a pass at that point, could he not locate the ball, I don't know, an aggressive receiver adjusts and goes up and gets the ball, its as if he never saw it. It's plays like that where there was no safety help, it's one on one and should be a catch or PI if he locates the ball adjusts his speed and turns to go up and aggressively go after the ball.
Tommy for his part needs to be better overall with his touch and placement on some of the throws down field, but on the sideline routes where there is tight coverage why not any back shoulder throws? Those are tailor made for a receiver like Taj who after the catch can slip some tackles.
We can't afford to miss on the few plays where the ball is there and should be caught. We have a small margin for error.
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