When you outgain your opponent you should win the game. Well at least the odds are better than 50/50. You look at this game and you notice a few things. Its been a while since I've done any analysis and I'm very short on time. So go easy on me with the bashing. 40/25 Their average starting field position vs ours 78/20 Our penalty yards compared to theirs 7/2 Our penalties compared to theirs 2/0 Turnovers The defense was by no means spectacular. But they were at least decent. In fact, twice they had the ball inside our 35. They got 10 points out of that. Not much you can do about that. Their average starting position, if you take out the last drive they had when we missed the FG and the drive before the half was their 40. You can't win a game like that. We started on average at our 25. We started ZERO times in their half. Coincidently from all of this.. the margin of the game? 10 points. I know its possible to spin stats... trust me I see it done every day in my line of work, but that's not what's going on here. Our defense didn't play great. I'll give you that. They had a hard time getting off the field. I will acknowledge that. But they wern't done any favors. Apperantly we did miss Mathis. I kept asking myself something while watching the game. WHY ARE WE STRIPPING THE BALL. ESPECIALLY ON 3RD AND SHORT. I saw 3 plays at least.. where we made contact behind the marker.. and tried to strip the ball on 3rd down. ON ALL THREE WE GAVE UP THE 1ST DOWN. I don't know who it was that was doing it, don't remember if it was the same player each time, but that is a coaching issue if you ask me. Greenwood did it once, but I coudln't tell you who it was the other times. No situational awarness. I mean would I like the ball before they punt? Sure. But Make sure you get them down. Turnovers is often pointed to as the key stat. One of the Mantra's of football is "if you win the turnover battle you win the game". And that's true to a certain point. But not entirely. We got caught up trying to win the turnover battle if you ask me... and let them stay on the field. The last stat? Penalties. They outgained us 78/20 on penalties. Granted I thought that was a bad call in the endzone... but we had drive killers, or drive extenders. You can't do that. We had 7 to their two. 7 isn't too bad, but historically we commit penalties at the worst possible time. I think this week we did it again. So, I guess I've learned something. I was quick to blame coaching. Its hard to blame a coach who gains 400 yards with the guys we're rolling out there. Its actually an accomplishment that we have 400 yards with no AJ and no AG. Was our clock management great? No. It was pretty pathetic. But its hard to control the clock, or manage it when you can't go into your gameplan thinking ok we can exploit this matchup. You know you can exploit AJ. You know you can count on AG in those situations. I still think we commited to a TD on that last drive when we went for it on 4th and 1. Maybe Kubes felt we didn't have the fire power to get that close again. I don't know. But looking back on it. Given the talent we have on this team... the healthy talent that is... and be honest. Davis has played well in two games but there is a reason that we are his 4th team. There is a reason he was behind several guys on this roster. Same thing with Dayne. If you told me that a Davis/Dayne led team was going to rack up 400 yards against anybody in the NFL.. I'd have said you were crazy. We have to cut down on mistakes (turnovers namely) and sure up our secondary (I didn't discuss that... just kinda figured it was a gimme).. Field position/3rd down conversions/Penaltes/Turnovers... wow, we lost those 4 facets of the game... we lost the game... As a side note. I think maybe we should stop trying to "establish the run" Instead, and I know its alot to put on the QB.. why not establish the pass. Our pass protection has been better than in the past. Stop running first. Pass first. I think at this point, we need our running game to feed off the success of the pass because all we're doing right now is establishing that we cannot run the ball. At least if you're having success occasionally they have to consider the run. Right now they don't even have to consider the run really. So what if Dayne breaks ONE run for 25 yards... if he's averaging 2.6 ypc besides that... they'll take their chances. Mike
