Defense on the other hand... we have just about the same kind of defense right now as the cards have... a non-fearsome run of the mill defense but u know what... thats the price u pay for having as strong of an offense as we have and u know why a high powered offense doesn't fair well in the playoffs? look no further than our last game of the season to see why that model is unsuccessful, inconsistancy.
We need to improve our front 4 rush, our run d is fine, it had some holes in away games in the second half but that comes from our starters beeing gassed, something that has more to do with depth, conditioning, and the experience to not be consumed by mental errors. Mental errors should be less prolific next season, but depth and conditioning fall hand in hand, you can't condition your starters too much later in the season if you don't have adequate back ups and not to mention they will tire out later in the season anyways from all the time they are getting on the field.
This leaves me with one conclusion, we must improve our depth on the d-line, our secondary will be fine next year with marshall, gamble, and wilson, who knows we might actually even get Asomugha. Our linebackers will be fine as well with the depth Conner will provide among our other back-up linebackers. so back to what i said at first... our d-line, we know that johnson is a fine pass-rusher and that our starting defensive tackles are excellent as well, but its our depth behind them that will make us suffer the most. Brayton is a fine back-up defensive end but he provides little pressure from the other end and is above average at run support.
so in the first round of the playoffs if we get our picks in return for julius we need to go after a defensive end AND we need to give the money we intended to give peppers to haynesworth straight up. then we will have damione lewis as a great back-up and a first round defensive end to go with him and charles johnson. Boom our team is complete. Hell we can even go after a FA cornerback if we want to and we need to get a QB in the 3rd or later. there has never in the history of the NFL been a successful 2nd round QB thats y i say that 3rd.
Dont forget all the comebacks delhomo did mount this season: week 1, week 2, week 4(domination), week 5 (domination), week 7(domination), week 8 (domination), week 13, week 14(domination), and week 15 (domination)
He only tried to throw away one of our games we lost and that was against oakland. Against the Vikes it was coaches fault and the players fault for not stepping up. Against the Bucs is was us giving them short field position all day and Rosario Dawson and forcing Delhomo into bad situations that weren't his fault. Against Oakland... it was all his fault and it was after a bye week. Against the Falcons it was more the teams fault and a matter of luck running out. No QB in this league is perfect 100% of the time, just look at drew brees, eli manning, and payton manning. All them had so-so games and just lost it. We almost came back against the falcons thanks to delhomo but the defense fuged it up for us. and the giants game... once against defense fcked it up for us and the idea to not use deangelo to run the ball in overtime. Cards game... another bye week another time delhomo plays like complete crap... but it was more to do with the abandonment of the run so early more than it had to do with his INT's in the red zone he is known very well not to do.
Edited by thunderraiden, 21 January 2009 - 03:16 PM.
