3rdandinches
Seasoned Veteran
The offense was 1000 times better then last week, not like that was too hard to do though but smart adjustments made the difference.
Play Calling
Many of us wanted to run the ball alot more and felt the lack of it was the reason we lost to Atlanta in week 1. Well we got our wish and with a great deal of success it certainly put us in position to win the game. I'm still alittle disappointed that we got away from the run when we reached the 30 yard line, the one that stings the most is the 2nd and five and we went pass, pass and settled on a FG try. That was if any, the perfect time to bring out the Wildcat again seeing that Indy couldn't even slow it down. Third and 6 and we run up the gut when our PA on that down was through the roof, settling instead of going for the throat.
Someone please explain to me how we run the ball the first two plays at the end of the game wasting almost minute and 1 TO. That was pathetic to say the least, yes running got us here but the hurry offense is to save time not waste it. If we we're on their 30 or so then fine but come on, what a joke.
The bottom line for me with this is when a defense can't stop something you continue to hit it until they make changes then you figure out what they have now given you and we continue to go away from what makes us successful, Indy saw early that we couldn't handle the TE so they used and abused the TE, that's great play calling.
T.Ginn
So close to being the hero last night, he put in a solid effort and should have come down with that TD at a crucial point of the game. Ginn had a great day on 3rd down conversions something we've struggled with for the last two years. T.Ginn is what he is and that's a #2 WR with loads of potential, people here are always bashing him for not living up to their standards when really he's doing well as a #2. I blame the FO for not getting a #1 to help this team last offseason when clearly we needed it, I can't blame T.Ginn for that.
C.Pennington
He must have loved how open the WR's were from running a truely effect run game. This made 3rd down conversions alot easier and played to Penny's strengths instead of exposing his weaknesses. I will still knock him that he goes from his 1st read to his 4th way to quickly and does not give the intermediate routes a look. Overall he had a stellar day for what Chad can do and clearly we must run the ball for him to continue with this success.
The Run Game
Ronnie was awesome last night and Ricky did what Ricky does best. Cobbs came in and looked good and Polite had a couple nice conversions himself. I hope that this has solved our game plan issues knowing that we're at our best running the football to set everything else up. We ate major time off the clock and never once turned the ball over giving ourselves a chance to win.
P.White
Please can we wait on this kid until he looks and feels alittle more comfortable out there. The few times he's been put on the field the play has resulted in no gain but has slowed down the momentum that we have been building. I'd rather just see R.Brown run the Wildcat especially when Indy couldn't stop it (why did they play their safety so deep when we went the Woldcat?) atleast we always got positive yards. I'm not down on the kid he just doesn't seem ready for it yet.
J.Long
He went against another great pass rusher and beat him consistently, well done. Nobody shuts out Freeney, he`s way to good for that but he was relatively quiete all night thanks to Jake. One of Freeny`s sacks was on a roll out play that Penny decided to become Big Ben on and held onto the ball for a lifetime (why, you would have dumped it off to a back anyways!!!! I couldn`t resist). Alot of this was also because of the run game which slowed Freeny down, but this is how we are suppose to do it. Jake is not a pass protecting LT, hopefully he`ll continue to get better at it but he run blocks really well and we let him do his thing this week.
The Defense
We held R.Wayne in check all night which was amazing or was it? Would you as an offensive co-ordinator force it to RW when the defense couldn't handle D.Clark? Our LB's suck at covering TE's and RB's running routes but yet we continue to do the same thing in coverage and pay the price for it. How can our defensive co-ordintor not make significant adjustments to stop DC, I hang this loss on PP. S.Smith looked wonderful out there as a rookie playing a pretty tough position to adjust to from college.
Where is this pass rush we all thought we had, it is certainly non existent. For all calling on what Henne can do we should be equally calling for C.Wake afterall in two games we've had no pass rush, consistently atleast.
Tackling or lack there of should I say, Y.Bell and G.Wilson this is your strength what the frig' is going on out there. Again the fans are crying about Ginn not catching a ball with someone drapped all over him but two games in a row Bell has missed open field crucial tackles costing us big time. Wilson is suppose to be a liability in the deep pass game but a sure tackler and we get nothing? Let's get C.Clemons in there if this is the end result of signing a huge contract, I wonder if Oakland new something afterall and aren't so stupid.
Anyone see a defensive lineman make a single play last night, I didn't and that was against a average Oline overall.
Let's give credit where credit is due the defense sucked big time, made zero plays when it mattered and has no excuses for it. The offense finally shows up and our defense layed an egg. Overall alot of thing contributed to the loss we all can pick one play or another and try to blame that one guy but the bottom line is our offense played to it's potential, we don't have D.Brees at QB or A.Johnson at WR but we did well for what we have and gave our team the best chance to win unfortunately the defense as a unit made way to many mistakes from the Coaches to the players and we let one slip away.
It would be nice if some of these fans that no less about football and more about tailgating if they could realize a few things....
1. J.Long is a run blocker that is improving every day as a pass protecter. He`s not the supreme LT you think he should be from day one, maybe one day he will but not now.
2. T.Ginn is not a number 1 WR, that`s not his fault. He`s a speedy number two being forced to be a number 1. He will never become C.Johnson,A.Johnson,R.Moss etc.... he doesn`t have the tools to do so but he is still a solid contributer that needs a number 1 across from him. That is the FO`s fault for not doing something about it.
3. C.Pennington is not D.Marino, D.Brees, P.Manning he is a game manager that has to have a solid run game for him to do his thing, he can not carry a football team, we will never comeback from being down 17. We do not have the offensive players to do that. He is check down Chad because it works for him, does it piss me off, sometimes but we all know that Henne will not get a chance unless Penny goes down.
4. Everyone calling for Penny`s head and Henne to start, we all new when BP was hired his MO is to build the lines out and he loves a veteran QB to run the show. He waited forever to give Romo his shot and still had his list of rules for young QB`s because he doesn`t believe they can handle the poisition and what comes with it outside of football. So that means no matter how much you want Henne (and I do) or some other young QB to get in it will take a major injkury to Penny for that to happen.
Next Game vs SD
We certainly can expect more of the same game planning from SD this week. We`ll see alot of Gates up the seams and Sproles out of the backfield, I hope we`re making adjustments to solve that. The offense made their adjustments now it`s the defenses turn and maybe we can steal one from SD and right the ship.
Play Calling
Many of us wanted to run the ball alot more and felt the lack of it was the reason we lost to Atlanta in week 1. Well we got our wish and with a great deal of success it certainly put us in position to win the game. I'm still alittle disappointed that we got away from the run when we reached the 30 yard line, the one that stings the most is the 2nd and five and we went pass, pass and settled on a FG try. That was if any, the perfect time to bring out the Wildcat again seeing that Indy couldn't even slow it down. Third and 6 and we run up the gut when our PA on that down was through the roof, settling instead of going for the throat.
Someone please explain to me how we run the ball the first two plays at the end of the game wasting almost minute and 1 TO. That was pathetic to say the least, yes running got us here but the hurry offense is to save time not waste it. If we we're on their 30 or so then fine but come on, what a joke.
The bottom line for me with this is when a defense can't stop something you continue to hit it until they make changes then you figure out what they have now given you and we continue to go away from what makes us successful, Indy saw early that we couldn't handle the TE so they used and abused the TE, that's great play calling.
T.Ginn
So close to being the hero last night, he put in a solid effort and should have come down with that TD at a crucial point of the game. Ginn had a great day on 3rd down conversions something we've struggled with for the last two years. T.Ginn is what he is and that's a #2 WR with loads of potential, people here are always bashing him for not living up to their standards when really he's doing well as a #2. I blame the FO for not getting a #1 to help this team last offseason when clearly we needed it, I can't blame T.Ginn for that.
C.Pennington
He must have loved how open the WR's were from running a truely effect run game. This made 3rd down conversions alot easier and played to Penny's strengths instead of exposing his weaknesses. I will still knock him that he goes from his 1st read to his 4th way to quickly and does not give the intermediate routes a look. Overall he had a stellar day for what Chad can do and clearly we must run the ball for him to continue with this success.
The Run Game
Ronnie was awesome last night and Ricky did what Ricky does best. Cobbs came in and looked good and Polite had a couple nice conversions himself. I hope that this has solved our game plan issues knowing that we're at our best running the football to set everything else up. We ate major time off the clock and never once turned the ball over giving ourselves a chance to win.
P.White
Please can we wait on this kid until he looks and feels alittle more comfortable out there. The few times he's been put on the field the play has resulted in no gain but has slowed down the momentum that we have been building. I'd rather just see R.Brown run the Wildcat especially when Indy couldn't stop it (why did they play their safety so deep when we went the Woldcat?) atleast we always got positive yards. I'm not down on the kid he just doesn't seem ready for it yet.
J.Long
He went against another great pass rusher and beat him consistently, well done. Nobody shuts out Freeney, he`s way to good for that but he was relatively quiete all night thanks to Jake. One of Freeny`s sacks was on a roll out play that Penny decided to become Big Ben on and held onto the ball for a lifetime (why, you would have dumped it off to a back anyways!!!! I couldn`t resist). Alot of this was also because of the run game which slowed Freeny down, but this is how we are suppose to do it. Jake is not a pass protecting LT, hopefully he`ll continue to get better at it but he run blocks really well and we let him do his thing this week.
The Defense
We held R.Wayne in check all night which was amazing or was it? Would you as an offensive co-ordinator force it to RW when the defense couldn't handle D.Clark? Our LB's suck at covering TE's and RB's running routes but yet we continue to do the same thing in coverage and pay the price for it. How can our defensive co-ordintor not make significant adjustments to stop DC, I hang this loss on PP. S.Smith looked wonderful out there as a rookie playing a pretty tough position to adjust to from college.
Where is this pass rush we all thought we had, it is certainly non existent. For all calling on what Henne can do we should be equally calling for C.Wake afterall in two games we've had no pass rush, consistently atleast.
Tackling or lack there of should I say, Y.Bell and G.Wilson this is your strength what the frig' is going on out there. Again the fans are crying about Ginn not catching a ball with someone drapped all over him but two games in a row Bell has missed open field crucial tackles costing us big time. Wilson is suppose to be a liability in the deep pass game but a sure tackler and we get nothing? Let's get C.Clemons in there if this is the end result of signing a huge contract, I wonder if Oakland new something afterall and aren't so stupid.
Anyone see a defensive lineman make a single play last night, I didn't and that was against a average Oline overall.
Let's give credit where credit is due the defense sucked big time, made zero plays when it mattered and has no excuses for it. The offense finally shows up and our defense layed an egg. Overall alot of thing contributed to the loss we all can pick one play or another and try to blame that one guy but the bottom line is our offense played to it's potential, we don't have D.Brees at QB or A.Johnson at WR but we did well for what we have and gave our team the best chance to win unfortunately the defense as a unit made way to many mistakes from the Coaches to the players and we let one slip away.
It would be nice if some of these fans that no less about football and more about tailgating if they could realize a few things....
1. J.Long is a run blocker that is improving every day as a pass protecter. He`s not the supreme LT you think he should be from day one, maybe one day he will but not now.
2. T.Ginn is not a number 1 WR, that`s not his fault. He`s a speedy number two being forced to be a number 1. He will never become C.Johnson,A.Johnson,R.Moss etc.... he doesn`t have the tools to do so but he is still a solid contributer that needs a number 1 across from him. That is the FO`s fault for not doing something about it.
3. C.Pennington is not D.Marino, D.Brees, P.Manning he is a game manager that has to have a solid run game for him to do his thing, he can not carry a football team, we will never comeback from being down 17. We do not have the offensive players to do that. He is check down Chad because it works for him, does it piss me off, sometimes but we all know that Henne will not get a chance unless Penny goes down.
4. Everyone calling for Penny`s head and Henne to start, we all new when BP was hired his MO is to build the lines out and he loves a veteran QB to run the show. He waited forever to give Romo his shot and still had his list of rules for young QB`s because he doesn`t believe they can handle the poisition and what comes with it outside of football. So that means no matter how much you want Henne (and I do) or some other young QB to get in it will take a major injkury to Penny for that to happen.
Next Game vs SD
We certainly can expect more of the same game planning from SD this week. We`ll see alot of Gates up the seams and Sproles out of the backfield, I hope we`re making adjustments to solve that. The offense made their adjustments now it`s the defenses turn and maybe we can steal one from SD and right the ship.