I'm always surprised and the jubilation and consternation when a 40-50 yard bomb is picked off on 2nd or 3rd down. I mean, it's effectively just a high quality punt you made a down or two early assuming your WR is able to tackle the intercepting DB. What's the big deal?

So, the downside is minimal if you're launching bombs from near midfield. And with our defense that has allowed the fewest trips in the red zone in the country, we can usually survive giving teams a long field, who cares if it harms time of possession.

And the upside is anywhere from automatic field goal range to a touchdown.

If you can get a 50/50 opportunity (i.e. 1 on 1, no safety) and you have a player like Dakorien Moore where it's more like 75/25 I think you should be taking that shot basically every time that opportunity presents itself.

3rd and short is when the opportunity would most likely present itself with single high safety. And if the defenses start to pick up on it as a tendency, and adapt to it, it would only make getting a more modest conversion that much easier pulling a defender out of the box.

And last but not least, the most frequent outcome of an under thrown lofted bomb to a covered WR is pass interference.

I think Moore has this option available, but he doesn't want to thrown a 50/50 ball, he wants the receiver to have an advantage and throw a pinpoint pass rather than putting some extra air under it if the receiver isn't open.

He doesn't have it in him to throw to a covered receiver, he'd rather take an 80% chance of getting sacked vs. a 20% chance of getting intercepted every time. He's got too much Shadeur Sanders in him since Will Stein got ahold of him.

I said before the season we simply wouldn't be as efficient on a per down basis with Moore vs. Nix, or Gabriel, the only way Moore would be able to replicate their success is if he threw an extra explosive play for every pass play he wastes or takes a sack.

I wonder if it's been the wrong approach to try to turn Moore into Gabriel. Maybe it's the right approach if you're playing the long game, and I'm thinking it's about a 99% chance Moore is back next year.

Edited 9 hours ago9 hr by Solar

Interceptions?🫣

I completely agree with you, especially later when a certain receiver returns...

Certainly sounds reasonable...

And Charles agrees with you... 🤔

But I don't think I know enough to have an opinion.

I think OCs often Vizzini themselves and end up drinking their own poison when they try to double triple quadruple outsmart the opponents. No, genius, the bubble screen never works and it suddenly won't this time.