Comments on Today's Collapse.

[Cat'sGrowl]

My thoughts:

--People are antagonizing Rivera. They have every right too. I said it a few weeks ago, but people are starting to catch on. Rivera's team lacks discipline. We heard the murmurs during Training Camp about how lackadaisical it was-and it shows. People seem to have this perception that Rivera is a strong military man who will get in people's face and chew them out. It just isn't true. He isn't running a tight-ship. He has done a less than stellar job coaching. Stop giving cutesy names like "Mr. Mopeyhead" to our players. Stop pulling players who get emotionally invested in the game. Charles Johnson get's fired up-you pull him. Steve does-you pull him. Shockey saw next to no playing time today. You've already tempered Cam's enthusiasm for the game. Stop trying to spread your stoic apathy to the rest of the team. Crack down. 12 penalties today. In Week 10, we are still having trouble with flags.

--DeAngelo Williams should be on the bench. Stewart was running hard today. Running well. You benched him and placed D'lo on the field. Resigning Williams was a tragic mistake.

-Naanee needs to be benched. He didn't play poorly, but he has no future here. LaFell's ceiling is high, and he performs well. I don't care if Legedu is your bud from SD, and I don't care if you don't care for LaFell's excitement for the game. He is a second year player and we need to see what he can do.

--We need a ballhawk in the Secondary. Neither Sherrod or Captain are very good. Props to Godfrey for being the only true positive in today's game. Unlike almost everyone else, he came to play today.

--Speaking of, and this falls on Rivera as well-the lack of passion by this team today makes me sick. It was a crappy day from a weather standpoint, the fans were pretty terrible today, at least on the TV, but that is no excuse for the team as a whole to come out that flat. It's embarrassing. Our team was beaten today from a physicality standpoint. Tennessee out-manned them. Tennessee wanted to win, we did not. We expected it to be handed to us. We assumed we were better, and came out and did our thing. The Titans came to play-and they beat us up -literally. They were the stronger, more physical team-and that's Rivera's fault.

--Letting the clock run out at the end of regulation made me sick. I'm a firm believer in never throwing in the towel. We did just that. That said, the team-coaching staff included-quit way before that play.

--Olindo Mare needs to go. I understand people like to be hipsters and will say I'm overreacting-but if his performance isn't any different now than it has been at any time in his 15 year career-what makes you think he is going to get it right? Don't cut him because of what he did against Minnesota. Don't cut him because he missed that kick today. Cut him because he will do it again. He was a mistake. Cutting Kasay was a mistake. Man up, admit it, bite the bullet, whatever euphemism you like, accept that you made a mistake-and do what you can to fix it. It starts with sending Mare home. Special Teams as a whole is abysmal. We did sign the coordinator from the league's worst ST unit though last year..So at least we should have seen it coming. Everything from return coverage to return protection is fundamentally bad.

--I've worried that this team would be too much like the Chargers. Lots of talent-incapable of making it work because of fundamental problems. Chargers have been this way since the 70's. My greatest fear has been realized. Rivera has got to swallow his pride, line up in the I-formation and run the ball up the gut. We have got to play basic football before we can be successful doing creative things.

--Dear coaching staff, stop outhinking yourself. You know what I love about the Patriots? If they have a great player, they use him. If you have a great player-they scheme to stop him. I like their organization in the aspect that they don't care for all the excess crap-they do the obvious things-the things that even fans can see-and do them. This coaching staff tries to outhink themselves. Why are we scheming to get Naanee the ball? He isn't a good football player. Our focus shouldn't be on trying to force him into being one, and even more-why is Smitty on the bench when we are trying to do this. Feed Smith the ball. Feed Stewart the ball. Even Dan Henning understood this-why don't we?

Bottomline of all this? We can't do the simple things. We can't do the basic things, and the coaching staff doesn't seem to grasp the importance of basic concepts.

Simplicity, fundamentals. The one thing we lack, and if the Chargers are the team we reflect-then it is a scary possibility that we will never come to grips with that.

[Cat'sGrowl]

tl;dr

[OnlyPantherFaninMaine]

tl;dr

:ack2:

[FuzzyDuck13]

tl;dr

yup

[Wither]

You're overreacting.

The biggest problem is that Rivera has let this team give up because we were 2-6.

[Ruff]

I agree with pretty much all of it. The only thing you left out is the fact that the Special Teams needs to be evaluated, severely.

Everything from the schemes, the snapping, to the actual punting and kicking, things need to be looked over.

[rico6]

I read it.

[Cat'sGrowl]

You're overreacting.

The biggest problem is that Rivera has let this team give up because we were 2-6.

Hipster.

[tiger7_88]

My thoughts:

-- Stop pulling players who get emotionally invested in the game. Charles Johnson get's fired up-you pull him.

Charles Johnson did not get "fired up".

Charles Johnson developed a big case of "me" and "let me see what I can do to screw the team today when we can still theoretically win this game".

DIFFERENCE.

He's supposed to be a LEADER on this team, not just another screw-up.

[ickmule]

This team is junk.

[PiratePanther189]

Not gonna lie, I didn't read the whole post, but based on the first sentences of each of the bullet points, you are on the money.

This team is poorly coached, Naanee sucks, the Playcalling was stupid plain and simple, and DeAngelo and J-Stew need to switch roles for the time being

This season needs to be put down the tubes, we need to tank and go 2-14 at this point, and the entire team needs to be completely re-evaluated by a NEW GENERAL MANAGER next offseason. Not what will happen, but it's what needs to happen.

[SOJA]

very long did read

I agree, granted now is probably a bad time to be super critical over our team but some things in particular that are starting to worry me:

-fundamentals: penalties and missed tackles

-desire to win, our players have a losing mentality and its showing

agree on the one positive-Godfrey- had a really good game today

[Shlomo]

Overreacting? No way dude. I don't believe in Rivera. Panthers looked like dog poo all game. We come off the bye and look completely flat. No offense, no defense, no special teams. What did this team do the last 2 weeks?

[PantherBrew]

Hipster.