I think another problem is that Tanner has not been good. Yes, Fields sucks too, but Tanner is no MILF either. MILF had no OL. His best guy was injured and washed up Duane Brown and rookie Max on the other side plus no one good on the interior. I think by all accounts our OL has a lot of talent. It didn't even look bad last year and we added more. And yet protection looked like total shit after the 1st game. Fields clearly hasn't taken a step forward, and we need to move on, but he did not look as bad in Pitt and not even in Chicago. Even Taylor looks worse. I think this is really good all 22 film and it kind of answers many questions IMO. Basically, Fields has a slow processor. He cannot throw with anticipation. He either needs time or he needs a quick read and use his legs. Watch the video. This is game 7, not that early in the season. The concepts we run are not great. What's even worse is the protection. It seems like guys don't know what they are supposed to do in pass pro time and time and time again. This is the absolute worse case scenario for a QB who cannot process well. But even if you have a good processors, it's still not good. That is why Fields looked better with Arthur Smith. Maybe the talent they had on OL was less, but they were better coached. They gave their QB just a little more time by not getting fooled every fucking time there is any sort of pressure package like the Jets are now. We are so dumb everywhere, and that includes the pass pro. This explains why Fields is playing the worst ball of his carrier. For a guy who needs time, this is the worst case scenario. Same thing but to a lesser extent applies to Tyrod. This is also why when the other teams had the lead we did better. When the teams run base defense without extra rush, we have talent to win one on one. It's not because it was garbage time and they let us have yards for time. Not at all, and i watched the all 22 film: they are playing regular defense, don't want to give up anything, but a bit more conservative with extra guys to pressure as this might cause a bigger play. And in base packages Tanner has been able to operate. As soon as there is any creative pressure package, we look like fools. So teams starting doing this all the time and we are just unable to pick that up most of the time. And this is not to defend him, Fields is the worst of all, because the guy cannot process quick to save his life. But Tanner is a huge problem too. Take a look at this film, I think all problems are well encapsulated there.
I find it hard to make a judgement on Engstrand before seeing him with at least an average QB. We all remember how the offense under MLF looked completely different with Wilson vs. other QBs. I would also push back on the notion that Fields has played especially poorly with us. This is who Fields has always been. There's actually an argument this has been the 2nd or 3rd best season of his career so far. He's just a bad QB and always has been. Thinking he'd make a leap this year was always wishful thinking backed by nothing. For every Darnold who improves later in his career, there are 10 QBs who fizzle out of the league or become permanent backups after starting as poorly as Fields has.
Taylor's injury was the most predictable thing that could ever be predicted by a predicting predictor.
Have you watched the protection breakdowns, the concepts illustrated on the video? Of course everything will look better with a better QB, but breakdowns happen all the time with Tanner, regardless of QB. I do not remember this with MILF. I remember many times we were losing 1 on 1 on OL due to poor talent. And Mike White was able to make a difference, because he was better than Zach, but he was still a pathetic scrub. Tanner has Tyrod Taylor, who is way better than White. I just don't think comparing Tanner to MILF is fair to MILF. With Tanner things are not as good. Unless he improves or we upgrade him we are fucked either way, and the new rookie QB will be fucked too. And he might still improve, but has not been great thus far, regardless of Fields or Tyrod, who is much better than Mike White. MILF was the reason why Mike White even got another contract. He was able to elevate every QB but Zach, until the line completely broke down because JD had no depth. Tanner cannot make it work with Tyrod (whom he had for a game and a half and things still looked bad) and very talented OL. Also, yes, Fields sucks, but him playing worse with us vs before is backed by every statistical and analytics metric, this cannot be logically debated.
It looks like the guys don't know what they are doing to be honest a lot of times. I think big part of it is on coaching.
