Was planning on watching some all-22 either way to watch Revel, Booker and Quinnen, but the Thomas talk had me focusing on him too. General thoughts:
-No clue what the Twitter jokers were talking about but Thomas was very solid in the run game, there was one play that Jones knifed between him and Smith for a TFL but that was more on Smith than Thomas in my opinion. Not many LT's in this league are going to reach block Jones with their LG putting up minimal to no resistance and leaving a gap for Jones to shoot.
-Mostly neutral in the run game aside from that play and the first play of the last drive where I think he let a LB run free into the backfield because of what I believe was a missed assignment. He did root out Karlaftis nicely a few times though, who is their best DE, and I certainly didn't see anything that made me think he was a liability overall. Everybody aside from the truly elite guys lose a few reps and have a few fuck up's each game.
-Pass pro was similar, got worked a few times by Karlaftis but nothing catastrophic and overall he was fine, certainly nothing worse than I've seen from Guyton for two years. I do think Guyton is better when he's firing on all cylinders but he has too many ugly losses and too many stupid penalties (two false starts inside the 5 in just a four game stretch). Basically I think Thomas has a higher floor but a lower ceiling, and sometimes that's what you need out of an OL, consistency with no catastrophic mistakes even if it isn't always pretty.
-Booker was similar, got worked a few times by Jones but overall very solid and he won more than his fair share of 1-on-1 reps like he did with Carter last week. Almost never lost a rep clean when matched up with anybody else, either stalemates or wins. He still has some rough spots to clean up in the run game but the guy is special in pass pro and held firm against arguably the two best DT's in the league in back to back weeks (excluding Williams, of course), while maintaining key blocks singled up against those guys on critical plays (Dak TD run against Philly to tie it up and the 3rd down TD to Javonte to go up 26-21 this week).
-Steele has quietly improved since they benched him against Arizona, which is to say he looks like an average starting RT at the moment, but that's a massive improvement over the slop shit he's been for basically 2 years now.
-Revel did a very nice job a few times when he ended up in what was effectively 1-on-1 man vs. Rice, even though some of it started as zone. Far exceeding expectations, I'd consider CB in the first if it's a clear BPA situation, but I'm very comfortable with what we have between him, Bland, Carson and Steward as a utility guy.
-The biggest difference I've felt as of late with the defense is that the coverage is more coordinated, the pass rush and LB play is better of course, but the biggest issue early on was that the coverage was just busting every drive with guys wide open 15, 20, 30+ yards downfield. What I'm noticing now is that guys have a much better feel in zone for when to stick to guys in their area and not just float around in space, whereas early on it seemed the DB's had no idea how to manage their zones and would just kind of float in space aimlessly for too long.
-Trikweze did relatively well given how many snaps he had to play, but he was the guy who gave up the big 40 yard pass or whatever it was when it was 31-21 and Mahomes somehow got away from 2 would-be sacks and launched a bomb while stumbling around/falling down. Trikweze basically tripped over his own two feet around midfield and that's why the WR was wide open with nobody within about 15 yards.
-Starting to see some of Ezeiruaku's pass rush moves work that were so awesome in college, it's usually against lesser competition (the no-call hold on the last KC TD was against their backup LT) but it's a good sign that they're starting to show up against NFL competition. I'm guessing we'll see those moves working consistently against starters in year 2.
-Not going to belabor the point on Quinnen but if he was playing basically any other QB he'd have had 1-2 sacks and probably 3-4 QB hits while also dominating in the run game. Probably our best defensive player in the last 25-30 years outside of Ware and Parsons, and I guess our best DT since Randy White or some such.
), Browns and 49ers.
