Well I guess we have our defensive scapegoat. Who do we blame for the disaster that was the MD offense down the stretch? Coach? Tua? Tyreek? Refs and injuries? Injuries and Refs?
Offense was by far the bigger disappointment to me. Started strong but were relatively helpless as things went on. For the 2nd year in McD’s system with a healthy Tua just did not see sub 20 point production coming for half the season and in every big spot. They better get that **** right first or it won’t matter what the defense is doing.
So, about that offense.....
Dallas - We didn't turn the ball over and Tua drove the field at the end to set us up for the win. The Cowboys have a very good defense, they average giving up 18.5 pts per game and we put up 22. However, we also turned the ball over on downs inside their 6 yard line early in the game.
Baltimore - We had 3 turnovers this game, two INT's and one Fumble. The Ravens have the leagues best defense and averaged 16.5 points per game. We put up 19, despite the 3 turnovers. We also turned the ball over on downs during the game. One late in the game which I discount, but earlier in the game we failed to convert a 4th down giving them a short field. Our defense gave up 56 points!
Buffalo - Also a pretty good defense who average giving up 18.8 points per game. We put up 14. Tua had two INT's in this game that hurt us. However it was a tie game late and it took a special teams TD by the Bills to win. Josh Allen was not good in this game and also had 2 INT's.
Kansas City - Another pretty good defense who averaged giving up 17.3 points per game. We put up just 7. In this game, Tua had one INT and we had an astonishing 3 turnover on downs. Neither QB was sharp with Mahomes completing just 56% of his passes and Tua completing 51%. The Chiefs were able to move the ball on the ground with 147 rushing yards to our 76
I didn't go back any further, but if you do look at the Tennessee game, we actually put up 17 points in the 4th quarter. We also turned the ball over on a fumble inside their 5 yard line early in the game and had a FG blocked.
Bottom line, when I look at all of this objectively, I see there are clearly some things that Tua needs to clean up, but we also have some play calling issues with the astonishing number of turnovers on downs we have had and you could argue that 2 of these game losses were a direct result of Special Teams failures (Tennessee and Buffalo). These are all things that can be improved upon and hopefully we will see that happen. This isn't just about one thing......it is a number of things that didn't work well against good defenses.