Every Week

I definately thought the Arizona game would be a stark lesson. Thought we would come out crisp, and perhaps turn it around with a mistake free performance, and maybe a win bigger than a 3 point spread.


And....we did. The defense played phenominal. Our O played ok, except for Delhomme. Had he not made those grave errors, I think our game looks very impressive.

Then again, if Houston executes well, they arent 0-5, or whatever they are, so....


EDIT- I will also say while our OL isnt run blocking nearly as well as they should, Davis is some of that. Hes not all, but hes some. And also, weve been very good at picking up the blitz. Were a pretty damn solid pass blocking team, and its also not their fault that Delhomme has held onto the ball longer than he should this year, either.

 

I notice that the O-line is getting a lot of shit lately. I think some of that is akin to the criticism of the defense, meaning that people were expecting too much. We still had a second-year player playing for the first time at LT, an aging and now steroid-free center, a below average RG, and a constantly regressing RT (anyone who thought simply moving him across the line would solve all his problems was incredibly naive, and I told you so).

But I don't think they've really been bad, even when it comes to run blocking. Mitchell has visibly declined, Reyes is struggling, Wahle isn't dominant, and our tackles are inconsistent; but no one is really playing piss poor. Plus I think the fact that Foster is averaging 4.5 yards per carry says something in their favor. Personally I think our struggles have as much to do with Davis no longer cutting to an open hole as anything else. I've repeatedly noticed that he'll bull straight ahead into a crowd even if there's an obvious hole to his right or left. I don't want to be too hard on him because it's gutsy for him to even be on the field at this point, but I don't want all the blame to be on the O-line either.

 

I was guilty of thinking moving Gross back to the right side would solve his problems. While he doesnt false start as much, he hasnt been great there either.

But good points. Mitchell's in his last year, and apperently, steroids did mean something for him. Dont like it, because he was my favorite for years, and one of my favorite Panthers period. The fact that I was crying for us not to go for it on fourth because I had no faith that we could get a few inches on a quarterback sneak sucks. (even though if we DID go for it, we shouldve sweeped. It was just stupid to call that particular play, factoring the situations for that particular game every time we ran it up the middle...and got nothing.)

Wharton I do think will come around. Hes been solid as hell. Weve damn sure had worse there.