Assuming all other major players stay healthy, whether or not Watson comes back will determine my confidence in getting the 3 peat going into the playoffs.

Yep. When he went down, I thought that would be the injury that would be the killer.

My eye test tells me Nazeeh has been a good bit worse.

Something I wanted to mention about the game yesterday: Nazeeh got beat on a long Meyers pass. Kirk said he was not on the same page and expecting safety help over the top.

I was watching Johnson just before the snap on the very next play (he was on the far side of the field for that play) and the Raiders motioned. Looking at Nazeeh’s body language, I thought to myself “he doesn’t know what his responsibility is now”. You could see he was raising his hands low-key like he was confused.

The very next drive he was benched. I bet those two plays had a lot to do with it. Can’t be out there if you don’t know the plays.

George brings so much more to the table. And Im not sure he is underperforming, when you consider where he was picked. He was never considered to be a consistent double-digit sack guy, 10 sacks was considered to be his ceiling. He was expected to be a "high motor guy" and thats what he is. He plays the run well, he bats balls down and he's a factor out there.
On the other hand, FAU does none of that.

Damn. I keyed on the same thing yesterday— not quite as acutely as you articulated above, but it often seems like he’s in over his head. I have zero understanding of how complex Spag’s system may be (or any defensive scheme for that matter) but Johnson doesn’t have the athletic ability, or maybe the intuition of someone like Marcus Peters to know where to be that can mask his mistakes. Probably a poor example, but Nazeeh can’t solve complex problems on the fly; he’s not terrible in run support, though.

George now has 5 sacks in 12 games.

He probably finishes the year with 7-10.

He isn’t the problem.

Exactly.

Yup. Holthus said at half that he noticed Dave Merritt was a “raging inferno”.

He doesn’t play with that shit. You don’t know your responsibility then you’re out.

While watching the replay of the Raiders game I caught that the announcers said the Chiefs are hoping to get Watson back for the playoffs.

That’s the first I’ve heard of that and it was said as if they were told that directly.

Should we be excited?

I'll wait till I hear it from a broadcast team that isn't at commercial break during actual plays.

At what point did that happen?

I remember them saying it too. They didn't give any sources on it though. Not sure when.

A while back it was my understanding when all these guys were going down that we would have everybody back by the end of the season and at least by the playoffs.

Jaylen Watson just posted "Never count me out" on his twitter ya'll o:-)

Looks like he's following in Omenihu's footsteps with the cryptic tweets.

All the smoke seems to be that he's coming back at some point!!..just have to wait and pray. Would be so epic if he comes back in time for the playoffs.

Every time this gets bumped and its not actual news it makes me want to tag team someone at the George Brett statue with The Guardian.