Game Day #6: Conquer the Night or Be Conquered

[calia]

I think last night was revealing in a number of ways. First, our defense has some real issues, particularly on the back end, and the only way to mask it is to generate pressure. When we don't do that, we lose -- ATL and CHI are very good examples of that. It isn't surprising when one considers we've lost one starting safety and that Quan Martin has been inconsistent (badly whiffed on a Swift TD run -- in a game decided by 1 point). And it doesn't help that our LBs just aren't that fast; we're getting killed when guys bounce outside (Robinson and Swift were most effective that way). Second, we're showing sloppiness that we didn't show last year -- guys don't seem consistently dialed in, and I cannot understand why that is. Third, I like that JD5 plays loose, but last night I didn't see any real sense of urgency (from him or anyone else) until half-way through the second quarter. We are not a good enough team to spot our opponents 10 points to start every game. We fell behind quickly against the Packers, Falcons, Chicago, and the Chargers -- 4 of 6 games -- and only pulled out a win against the Chargers. Not a path to a winning season.

Since our team seems to show up every other week, maybe we'll see a better effort this weekend against Dallas. They'll be pretty desperate to win at home after losing a close one to the Panthers. But our squad needs to wake up to the fact that no one gives two shits that they went to the NFC Championship last year. And fast.