Simply put, Monday’s passing game was terrible. According to ESPN, Jordan Love was 14-of-20 on pass attempts of less than five yards, but just 2-of-10 on passes of five or more yards and had three interceptions. Everything about the passing game looked disjointed. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason behind the calls or executions.
This has been an offense that has pushed the ball downfield frequently this season, but by the third quarter it looked like the game plan was taking away most of those opportunities from Love. And in the fourth quarter, those deep attempts felt like they were forced by a young quarterback who was getting impatient. The play-action concept could not be built from the run game, with Christian Watson and Romeo Doubes not being a factor through more than two quarters of football.
What we saw was an unidentified crime. When the going gets tough, this group doesn’t have a single player or concept they can rely on. They are left behind, grasping at straws, and face major challenges on all fronts.
“There’s some things we’ll look at, there’s some things we can improve on, there’s some things we need to do a better job of in terms of what we’re asking him to do,” LaFleur said. I’ll probably throw those picks.
“The second interception was a situation where we were back on track, so we’ve got to do a better job offensively. We seemed to be in that situation quite a bit in the first five games of the season, and that was tough. Especially with the ball. You have to overcome that when you have a lot of young players on the other side. We have to do better at avoiding such situations and not putting ourselves in them. ”
Everything needs to be evaluated and scrutinized, from the game plan and what Matt LaFleur wants from this offense, to the accuracy of love, to the more detailed and precise setup of pass catchers’ routes. The defense really has nothing to fear as the run game struggles and the passing game is ineffective.