Khyber53

The interesting thing, I thought, was that Derrick Brown was only on the field in three of the 10 sacks we've done. Not as in "not involved in", but "not on the field" at all. Of the three sack plays he was on the field, he made the sack in the second and in the other two just tied up o-linemen. Not knocking Brown at all here, but just pointing out that he might be a defensive tempo indicator. I believe Brown is mainly playing rushing downs or spelling some of our faster d-linemen. He's being substituted out for faster guys on likely passing plays to add more dimension to the four man rush we're using most of the time and maybe to clear some square-footage to squeeze in a blitzing backer or safety (since we seem to send them up the middle more). Really would like to see some of the plays where we shut down the opponents' run games to see what kind of impact he's having there. Truth be told, whatever is going on here with him, it's certainly not broke and it doesn't need fixing.

I don't think the outcome is in doubt at all. I just hope we come out of it free of injuries. The Injury Bug really seems to be hitting the league hard to start the season.

I didn't believe in Coach Snow. I said his defense played like a bunch of old ladies last year and that he called a soft game because he wasn't up to the pro level. It looks like he's proving me wrong this season so far. Hope he keeps making me eat my words because this defense looks great.

Third and eight as the average? Wow! The percentage of conversion on 3rd and 8 for pro teams can't be very high, even for the best teams. Still, we're at a heck of a pace for defensive efficiency right now. It's hard to tell if it is the quality of the competition (or lack thereof) or if we're just really killing it out there. Time will tell but with the schedule ahead of us, it's going to be very hard to win over the sceptics until the last fourth of the season.

Man, ain't that the truth?

Dang, I really appreciate seeing these! And yeah, it's great to see so many different players making the stops. I think that everyone got used to Luke making the majority of them (followed by Shaq and Thomas Davis) back in the day. After he was gone, we had a lot of soft effort players that we've had to get rid of or retrain.

I agree but this went beyond the pale.

Poor kid. He's got the intangibles, but doesn't have any experience. Only 11 games total in college and half a game in the pros. Tough way to enter the NFL, but his team is just the next one on our carousel.

We haven't won many games yet and we haven't won many people over yet. They'll be loving us in three weeks.

Ehh, them's the breaks.

We should be better people than this.

Give 'em hell!

I agree that turning points are a big, big deal. Yesterday's win, though, had too many excuses for the Saints (I think it was still a heck of a win) for anyone outside the fanbase to think it was a turning point game. If we beat Houston, everyone will ho-hum it. Now Dallas, who I think is severely over-valued, is a turning point game. If we can bring down the big star, then the rest of the league begins to believe we're something. Me, I think Dallas' o-line is crumbling fast and they cannot play defense. A win in that game, in their house, and we get real momentum and a nice slate of games against teams going under. This is going to be fun.

One game at a time. In this craziest part of the season we still have to get past (and take seriously) Thursday night's game vs. the Texans.

This was what really worries me. Even when his kick offs reached the end zone, it was just by a hair. We apparently don't have the coverage team to risk the run backs. I'd feel a lot better if he was booming them past the end line like Slye did. It's hard to march 75 yards down the field on this defense.

So, are we keeping Zane Gonzalez after yesterday's performance, or is he shown the door like Santos and Slye before him? FG's 2/3 (long of 42) and PAT's 2/3. Will he get a pass because of the short week ahead of us or will Rhule make another move?

In the preseason I suggested that Morgan Fox might be the biggest surprise on this defense. Not a bad outing yesterday, but there's better to come!

Is a graduation gift appropriate then? What? Fountain pens?

13, superstitious... now that's a side-armed attempt at triggering folks.

We'll see the Saints again. Just wanted to make sure they remembered the ass whoopin' they received.

The reputation is good. Living up to it will see him on the field. If he doesn't quite reach the mark, he may find himself with stiff competition to hold down the spot. Our pass coverage across the board has grown by leaps and bounds already over the last two games.

Nah, man. Don't do that.

This defense is night and day different from what we fielded last year. It's not just the additional personnel, but we're playing defense like we did against Detroit last year in the shutout... we're unleashing the defensive line and letting them feast. They aren't making it home every down, but they are breaking through and causing havoc on enough plays to put some fear into the opponents. That fear leads to a lot of opportunities.

Okay, that cracked me up!

Ah forget it, everyone laughs at snow in the Carolinas. Let's just play football.