strato

How about those game winning drives!

And what round was he taken in?

This game has been a long slow descent and now we are finally slipping beneath the waves.

Behind him. Put it out front.

Momentum completely changed after the Icky flag.

Game has been changed.

Hell yes.

This thing with the Panthers right now, seems to be a nature of the beast situation. We honestly cannot outscore people by more than one score. One time out of 13. We can lose by more, no problem. We can keep it close and lose. We just don’t win big. Any time we win, almost, it is by just enough. It feels different to me than teams that have a particularly great year in one score games. Played a lot of them and won more than their share of them. And the next year can’t buy a tight win. (That seems to be the typical scenario) I don’t know why it just feels different than that.

True. They also have established dominance over us going back years. They fuged up these last two weeks though. They let us enter the picture.

I feel like they can analyze to their hearts’ content, they will continue to have a blind spot when looking at the QB position. So the kid better play well because we are probably stuck either way.

Bowles took a big risk calling out the players in his postgame. Maybe took his last chance to wake them up. Will it work or will they finish the fold? They got Mike Evans back and can do damage.

Well yeah. Last time vs NO if we had had good QB play and half ass pass pro it is a different game. And that is the story more often, in point of fact, than the two or three hero games everyone wants to use to define the player. That box was so stacked against the run it was basically impossible to break through it, you had to go over and around. It is what we knew was gonna be employed by teams and we were unable to stop them from doing it. I am real interested to see the first 3rd and 8 and see how NO defenses it in the back end. Because they can look at that Rams tape and learn, but will they have enough fear/respect that it can happen to them or will we need to prove it again before they do? Most people don’t learn from others’ mistakes and need to make their own.

I could have guessed that if we could get to 8 wins the division could be in play. But I didn’t expect it, I absolutely didn’t expect a win and in scenario - in week 16 - which is very possible at this point. That’s on TB. Still think 9 wins is probably the ceiling, but we don’t have them yet so talking about 11 is pure fantasy at this point.

The only thing that would surprise me is us blowing them out.

Hey if they could beat Seattle… tiebreaker head to head over GB, LARms, Seattle… win out the record is 11-6. Now rap my knuckles for suggesting we win out, but that would be some funny poo. Talk about sneaking up on people.

Off the top of my head I have one game that we were able to win by more than one score lol. edit: yeah that would get us to 7. Lol. hey it is nice to win however you do it. It’s just funny, a little. Like, we can’t get farther ahead of anybody than one score. So our wins, by default, are just gonna be one score wins.

And there are passing charts that would absolutely prove that.

Leaving us to shotgun draft cornerbacks out of need - that he created - one year, hard to top. He had some real low points.

Except other fans. Who wish they would not get ahead of themselves counting chickens before they are all in the coup. It seems like a lot of people already have this win in the books when they start the speculation. One more day to look at NO. I hear they are going to miss a starting ROT. If DB can disrupt and put that guy on an island without help maybe we can get some pressure on the QB.

Agree. And that is another factor in why we play the ground and pound. Easier to work with run blocking than pass blocking with no continuity on an OL. Things mostly worked out and we got a couple of ugly wins in weeks where we threw a patchwork OL out there. And agree they failed vs NO. It is a legit worry. Or concern.

You’re right. I will never get over the DT who was gonna be the LOT with one offseason, Byron Bell, stuff like that. I just have a negative opinion of him through that memory. Matt Khalil? Was that Gettleman too?

We deserved to win that SF game going by the defense being lucky. If the offense can step up a level then the defense will get some more scrutiny because the pass rush would likely be a bigger focus. People throwing to catch up, and being allowed to. Because of no pressure. We have quite a ways to go still.

If the Saints win two of their 4 wins will be over the Panthers. I would say getting swept by them would be proof we don’t deserve it. At least we have the games in front of us still. This is on track with the projected best case outcome back in August.

Let’s just play the Saints first. People are looking ahead big time. I surely hope the team isn’t - I don’t think they are because of being embarrassed the last game with the Saints.

Could we have a defensive breakdown and a good offensive day? Yes we could. Who knows what to expect from this team, but generally when you think about why we have lost games, it has been underperforming on offense more times than in the other phases. People should be shining the light on them. They are the unit that has another step to take. This game will probably hinge on them taking it or stumbling over it.