Other takeaways:
Gunter hit the QB as he was throwing that caused the 1st INT that was batted in the air by Scooby Wright & intercepted by Haason Reddick. Budda Baker also helped create this play by coming down across the WRs arms so the ball popped up to where Scooby could get a hand on it.
Mason Cole had 3 bad plays... but overall he held his own.
1) He got bullrushed & dumped on his butt on the 1st passing play. Bradford still had enough time to get the ball off to Fitz on a crossing route for a short gain.
2) He got pushed back badly on the play where Rosen's pass got batted up in the air (by Cole's guy) and Rosen volleyball spiked it down.
3) On Rosen's pass play that should've been called intentional grounding, there was major confusion along the right side of the line & a hurried snap that I'm assuming was to avoid another delay of game penalty. Cole passed his guy to Pugh, who was already tied up with a block, so he had a free run at Rosen & Andre Smith completely whiffed on his man too so he also had a free run at Rosen. Coaches probably should've called a timeout before the snap. The next play was a delay of game & then came the TD strike to Kirk that Rosen threw from the 19 yd line. The 2nd unit OL came in after this (2nd qtr 6 min to halftime) and Boehm played well at C, shotgun snaps were good. Munyer played LG.
DJ's 9 yd TD was made possible by DJ Humphries, a pulling Justin Pugh & TE Seals-Jones. Wolf kept saying it was Iupati, but he was behind the play still at the LOS because he sealed his man to help create the big hole for Pugh & DJ to run through.
Reddick was involved in a lot of tackles on running plays. The Saints ran the ball pretty easily up the middle in the 1st half & the front 4 couldn't stop it so the RB kept getting to the 2nd level where Reddick did a decent job of stopping them (although usually 5 yards downfield already). Hopefully this gets better once we have our starting LBs (Buc & Bynes) playing. Hodges came in later and did a solid job hitting the gaps & meeting the RBs at the line of scrimmage. Reddick did have a pretty good tackle for loss in the 2nd qtr blitzing off the edge, but it was negated by a weak "lowering the helmet" penalty against Dora. Bene Benwikere intercepted the deep pass on the next play so Dora's penalty didn't hurt us.
Bright spots: Bradford, Rosen, Kirk, Chad Williams, TE Gabe Holmes (2 nice catches & drew a PI/Illegal Touching penalty), Gerald Hodges, Dora (recovered 2 fumbles), Benwikere INT
Honorable mentions: JJ Nelson caught 2 short passes & drew a long pass interference. Reddick INT & made some 1-on-1 tackles in space.
