Our Defense looks amazing. Interesting that Spillane and Highsmith got work. Highsmith was so close to getting his first sack! Ola looked solid and TJ and Dupree were dominant. Most of the way through the game Barkley had -2 yards on 11 carries. That is ridiculous.
Banner could have been better, but without a preseason and his first year as a starter, I thought he looked better than average. I'm assuming he has a torn ACL or worse, so does that mean Chuks will be the RT? Or do we move Feiler back to RT and put someone else at LG, and hopefully Stefan is ok. Any idea when we get Decastro back? Would rather he waits to make sure the knee isn't at risk, but we could really use him so we could put Stefan at LG and Feiler at RT.
Claypool looked amazing. That sideline catch I was like, no way that was in bounds. Diontae started terrible, but really turned things around in the 2nd half. I'm worried he's going to fumble every time he catches the ball with it being wagged around all over the place while he runs and jukes.
Big Ben was holding on the ball too long, but I think that could/should get corrected as he gets back in the swing of things. With Juju, Diontae, James Washington Claypool all looking good, and Ebron and McDonald available, he should be able to find a target for a quick slant to get some pressure off the O-line. While Conner didn't look great at first, I put some of that blame on the O-line. They improved as the game went on, Conner was getting smashed in the backfield, while Snell at least had a few holes to run through.
That said, idk that Conner is 1 and Snell is 2 at this point, I think more like 1A/1B. Conner just can't seem to stay healthy, not sure why, bad luck?
Looking ahead to next week, Broncos have some serious injuries too. Von is done for the year, Chubb is on a pitch count due to tendonitis, two WRs were out last night but might be back by week 2 (sutton and hamler), and Lindsay suffered turf toe. Based on last night's performance I think we have a pretty good shot at a win in Week 2 as long as our Offense can overcome the offensive line injuries and protect Ben. With enough time and limiting mistakes, we'll definitely out score the Broncos.