DJ Humphries was an embarrassment. Hopefully that’s the last time we bring in AZ Cardinals castoffs.
Our depth is not good enough. To some extent that's why you call it depth. But for all our complaints about Noteboob he at least was capable of masquerading as a legit OT in spot duty. Humphries all I can say is why not just pay a random cabbie or the hotdog vendor to come in there and do the job.
Not having Dotson on top of that, with 40% of the OL being new and not on the same page, means you're gonna have shaky protections. And it's not like our protections have been great this season. They really have been more along the lines of adequate with strong run game production.
But the biggest problem was the options in the pass game. Without Adams out there all a defense has to do is smother Nacua. Stafford was completely out of synch with the depth options and in fact played like dogshit overall, in a game where they needed him to be the difference. Stafford's value is his combination of big balls in key moments, ability to play through pain, and that arm he can lean on when necessary to make up for being late on a route or just forcing that ball in there. He's not a ball placement savant, which is why he does better with bigger receivers.
And defensively they have completely disintegrated in key moments. The rush has largely been ineffective in those moments, and the secondary predictably can't cover their own ass when that rush isn't there. So when you get into a game like this one, or some of the others they have dropped, where you are waiting for someone to make a goddamn play to reverse the momentum late, it basically means it has to be Stafford. And he's not gonna get it done every time, particularly when it's throwing to a group of depth options who are hit and miss at best, and somewhat overrated by the faithful.
Lastly if this sounds like I'm making excuses for 9, I'm not. He's the team leader. He's the best player who should be making the plays in those key moments and he fucked it up. But when you look at a title team what you have are multiple dudes who are capable of stepping up in those big moments, in each phase of the game, and they're all competing to be the one who does it. Teams who only have one or two they are relying on tend to not be title rosters.
This is where not having Adams really hurt us. And on defense we need dudes to step up and get the heat or sack or pick or force the fumble in the right moment. On teams we need the punt where we pin the fuckers back on their 1 yard line, or the kicker to nail that 50+ yarder. And so on.