Unrealistic expectations and irrational pre conceived notions for 2009!

[Captain Lou]

This year hasn't started out the way we all had hoped for. Here somethings we were hearing around here before the start of the season!

1. Cameron Wake will be a beast. I would settle for productive at this point.

2. Davis and Smith will be the next Madison and Surtain. It still may happen but it is way too much to expect out the gate.

3. Jason Taylor will the Taylor of old. He is still good but not the same player. The JT of old take last weeks pass deflection to the house. Still a good player but his best days are clearly behind him.

4. My favorite Ginn will blow up in his 3rd season. The only thing he's proved is he is inconsistant at best. He plays soft and doesn't look natural when ATTEMPTING to catch the ball. Hopefully Henne will be able to exploit his speed. He may have the ability to do so but may not have the capacity to do so. Young Qbs don't always see the entire field.

As for preconceived notions:

The strength of schedule is overated. I think everyone can agree that the SCHEDULE does matter.

Having said that I will watch every second of every game and still enjoy watching the Fins play.

 

[3rdandinches]

Where I do agree with you I don't see any of it affecting our performance so far. We've played 3 games all which were winnable games but we found away to lose them, unlike last year where we found away to win those games. We have a stronger team this year but the difference seems to be in the way we prepare for teams.

Against Atlanta we decided we are all of a sudden a throwing team and abandoned the run. Defensively we played okay but because of the turnovers the defense was only defending a short field which puts them behind the eight ball.

Against Indy we had a great offensive game plan but out thought ourselves in some crucial situations resulting in FG tries instead of TD's. Defensively PP was clearly out coached and out matched by Manning. He allowed our weaknesses in defense to be exposed and we lost an easy win.

Against SD we had yet again a good start but penalties and that bad hand off at the goalline crushed us. Losing Penny ended that game right there, expecting Henne to walk in and save us wasn't gonna happen. Defensively we again dropped the ball allowing Rivers to smoke us deep play after play.

Over all we turned the ball over too much with not getting enough turnovers from our defense. Penalties have killed us this year, we do not have the players to over come 2nd/3rd and long plays over and over. The Lack of pass rush has been the biggest problem on this team so far, we've allowed Qb's to sit back and kill us. I believe that falls on PP our schemes are just not good enough and we're getting exposed because of it.

So of course expectations we're high for this year i just think the O/D co-ordinaters have let us down in different ways now for the first 3 games. If they can clean their act up I think we'll see more of what we thought we had before the season started even with Henne in there.