Thursday Night Observations
Good game
The only thing that went wrong for me, aside from being aghast at all the times Kyle Pitts rugged me and wondering why it took five years for the Falcons to use him properly, was I took the Bucs -4.5 in my home picking pool. Otherwise it was pretty good. I had Mike Evans and Bijan Robinson going in the Steak League where I desperately need points, I used Evans on one team that has a shot in the consolation bracket of the NFFC (pathetic, but when you just miss the playoffs, your teams are live) and Pitts on the consolation Primetime team though that one is probably dead due to lack of personnel. I also have Bucky Irving on a team that’s got a first-round bye, so I didn’t care about that. The only other negative was I had the Bucs defense on a couple consolation teams but you never really care that much if those go bad.
Irving had a modest game, and there’s some concern seeing Sean Tucker get goal line work, but Irving looked fine. He just needs more passes thrown his way.
Evans had a big game on 12 targets and was targeted in the end zone. He’s all the way back, though he’s 728 yards short of 1,000 with three games to play, meaning he’d have to average 243 over the last three to keep the streak going.
Emeka Egbuka made a couple plays but he’s on the Zay Flowers track not the Justin Jefferson one.
Chris Godwin caught a touchdown and a two-point conversion to prove he still exists, but he’s the No. 3 now.
Baker Mayfield threw a soul-crushing pick to get the Falcons back in the game and took five sacks. He threw a decent ball most of the game though. The Buccaneers offensive line is not very good right now.
Kirk Cousins had a throwback game, without Drake London, which bodes well for his chances to land a job somewhere next year. He took only one sack, threw for 373 yards, three TDs and no picks.
Bijan Robinson is the league’s best glider — he reads his blocks so well and just seems to slide away from tacklers on every cut. He had another 175 YFS, eight catches and a TD.
Pitts put up a TE line for the ages with 12-11-166-3. Where was this for five years? At this rate he might be the third TE taken in drafts next year.
David Sills is 29 YO, so he’s not exactly a prospect, but he looks like a player.
The Falcons had so many penalties. I watched the edited version so I didn’t get the exact number, but it was insane how many times they got flagged. Okay, I just looked it up — 19 penalties for 125 yards! Apparently the record is held by the Raiders (no surprise) who once committed 23 in 2016.