Philosophy

That's just the thing, Chip. We are good. We are stacked with individual talent all across the board.

Our QB is a playmaker. Our receivers are average, at worst. We have a stable of backs. We have a good o-line, a good d-line, good lb's, good corners, and good safeties. Good kicker, decent punter.

We are 1-2. In Fox's words: It is what it is.

I guaran--damn--tee ya that Fox isn't thinking that. He's thinking "Jesus, we have all this sick talent, and we're 1-2. Fuck!"

 

Washington was loaded with talant several years back and they weren't very good.

 

I mentioned something similar in an earlier thread. The keep it close philosophy does not work well with a qb like Jake. Jake is going to play on the edge and make a few mistakes. Let him play his game for the entire game and he will win more than he loses. And they won't be close.

 

Yep.

I think the pundits put way too much in the second half surge last year. Truth is, a ton of those wins down the stretch were against some bad teams. San Fran, Arizona, Tampa, New Orleans, St. Louis, Tampa again. No winning teams there.

I won't deny that it was a gutty comeback. But, still....we were doing it against bad teams.

The natural tendency coming into the season was "14 players returning from IR, and a team that closed at 6-2 down the stretch. They will win the South in 2005."

Well, the fact is that we are not an efficient team. We don't run the ball very well. We don't get teams off the field on 3rd down, which is the most annoying aspect of this football team.

Take Atlanta....talk all you want about Vick, but I swear every time I look at an Atlanta stat line, they are 175+ yards rushing. This game is about two things offensively: 1. Moving the chains....and, 2. Scoring points. Atlants does those two things very well. We do not.

Bottom damn line.

 

Who says we have talent?

Are you talking about the media?

 

I am saying that we have talent. We more than one home-run hitter on each side of the ball. But we aren't hitting the home runs. We aren't swinging for the fences.

The media got hot and bothered about us in the summer, based on Peppers, Smith, Jenkins, and the 6-2 finish.

I really am starting to think that Moose is missed. Having a reliable 6'2" target over the middle is something we do not have right now. He was a team captain, and an exceptional blocker. I think we will eventually get into a rhythm, but it's going to take some time.

 

One of our problems, imo:

We play games close to the vest, not "swinging for the fence" as has been said, with a supposed philosophy of "Mistake Free Football"

Problem is, when you are behind from the start, or when you do manage to get ahead it's by 7 points or less, you can't just play it so conservative because we are NOT a misstake-free team. Jake's gonna make them (int or fumble), Foster or somebody's gonna fumble. It's innevitable we will make mistakes. If we had of played mistake free football all year, we'd be 3-0.

We can't play the game (all the other facets of the game) of misstake-free football, because we will lose when we aren't mistake-free.

That and we have a habit of leaving too much time on the clock at the end of the game after a heroic comeback- tieing or going ahead by 2, than our d lets us down and the other team scores in the last seconds and get victories. It's happened way too many times.

Somehow, we have to shut the other team down on their first coupla drives, and go ahead with gutsy scores, and keep playing like that all game and not take our foot off the other team's necks.

We need to always play like we do in the two minute O, until the very end when we can run out the clock, preferably ahead by more than one score.

And our d needs to get into better shape. Cause they suck wind badly at the end of games.

Edit: when I mean 2 minute O, I'm not talking on-huddle all game. I'm talking more in playcalling and intensity.

 

Which is making me in all honesty question the amount of talent we really have. Our defense has been crap at best this year.

The only person out of that group performing up to standard is Smith. Jenkins looked decent before the injury, Peppers has been invisible. Say what you want about him taking double teams or whatever. If they block him with five guys and the rest of the defense cant get pressure than it doesnt matter.

A second target is definitely missed right now. Proehl catches everything thrown his way and Colbert drops about everything. Obviously Proehl is to old to be the #2 guy. Here's to hoping Gardner steps it up in practice this week and gets a shot.

 

and Colbert drops about everything

Actually Colbert has had a few really nice catches - the ones when he can't get both feet down in bounds................... :banginghe