I like that attitude, but I was really disappointed in how they played today. Although it's early in the season, they would have been firmly in control of the division had they won. Of course, they knew this too, so it's hard to understand the lackluster effort.
Have to wonder if Payton's injury got in their heads. It shouldn't have; these guys are pros. But you never know.
I will say this, that defense is not championship caliber. We give up way too many big plays.
Comes from having no pass rush. Even when we sent 5 or 6 guys, we did not get to Freeman today.
Our run blocking sucks too. This is probably the most perplexing part of the whole team. With all the weapons we have at receiver, you'd think by spreading a defense out across the field would create natural running lanes for our backs. Sproles had had a few big runs, but that's about it. I'm still waiting on Ingram to have a breakout game. He's a hard, physical runner, but there's only so much you can do with no holes to run through.
+100. The really frustrating thing is that we consistently get stoned when we run between the guards...you know, Evans and Nicks, the highest paid guard tandem in the league? Now I'll add this, we ran the ball better against Jacksonville and Carolina. When De la Puente was playing center. Yesterday it looked like the way we ran against Green Bay. When Kreutz was at center. Anyone else see a pattern?
Lastly, I think we've become too predictable on offense. I'm not sure what impact Payton's injury had on his playcalling, but if you're to believe the broadcasters covering the game, several times TB audibled to a new defense at the line of scrimmage when seeing the formation the Saints were in. This happened most notably right before half time, when TB audibled from a blitz to zone and stopped a screen pass that held us to a FG. The play most likely would have worked, had they stayed in a blitz.
That's a hard one to digest, considering we haven't really changed up our philosophy of constantly changing personnel and looks, and Brees is still distributing the ball to more receivers than any QB in the league. But there's no denying that TB was very well prepared.
Good news is, we have to Colts and Rams the next 2 weeks. I don't anticipate either one of these being easy games, but they are games we should win.
After that is a rematch with the Bucs in the Dome; a place where they've beaten us 3 out of the last 4 years, so they better be ready. Lose that one and TB has all the tiebreaking edges on you, should it come down to that.
That is all...
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