Brother the normal tendencies will probably be changed up for this game. Not only do we need Ingold for blitzes, but anyone that gets through the offensive line to give Tua the time he needs. I rather keep an extra person back there to help out then to see someone get a free shot at him.
Not that it matters if they thought he might start. The guy that practiced at LT all week will be starting there.
It definitely does matter, Armstead is a guy who has shut down the entire left side, and any other guy replacing him will need to have the whole gameplan structured to give him help. We've seen what happens when other guys enter the game at LT trying to do things the same way we do with Armstead - and it's a disaster.
Its a different thing entering the game un-prepared as opposed to having a whole week of practice to account for it...
I didn't say it doesn't matter that Armstead is out. I said it doesn't matter if the coaches "buy into their own bull that he could play."
I mean that's what I am saying - I hope they prepared for him being out and not the other way around based on false hope that Armstead would bea ble to go. I think we all detected a lot of gamesmanship in the possibility he could play this week, but dumb things happen. Nobody really thought we would go into Tennessee last year with the running game humming and decide to pass the ball 80 percent of the time in freezing rain when our QB couldn't even hold the ball. Dumb things happen in the NFL all the time so I don't make assumptions.
Well, we haven't seen that yet. Neither Bridgewater nor Skylar played much the week they practiced as the starter; both were injured.
