Timmahawk":3c46auak said:
You guys blaming the offense are way off base. Sure, there were a few plays that were irritating, but the offense really had no shot to create momentum the entire game.
A: the kickoff fumble is a killer and kept the D on the field way too long.
B: the D couldn't stop anything on 3rd down, that also kept them on the field for too long.
C: Irvin's boneheaded penalty cost us 4 points, also kept the D on the field.
D: the 4th and 2 punt was absolutely the RIGHT call. The D got us the ball back with 3 mins, more than enough time to march downfield to win the game. If we go for it and don't get the first (less than 50%) chance, the game is essentially over since they would have basically been in field goal range.
E: The D had it's chances to make a number of plays and get the O the ball, they didn't and Rivers/Gates made the plays. It's as simple as that.
F: scoring quick is a great thing, it's not every week you play in 110 deg temp and none of the bounces go your way.
G: If we avg 7.2 yards per play all season, we go 15-1
I agree with most of that except that I think 10 drives is a chance for our Offense to gain momentum. Also these two points:
D: We were unlikely to even get the ball back without them getting at least a FG the way the game was going up until that point. Even if we did get the ball back we would be crunched for time and their crowd at that point would be going absolutely nuts. It's a lot harder to execute an offense when the home field crowd can smell the victory and their Defense smells blood with our struggling Offensive Line and a "Finesse" like game plan mixed with some bad calls. Plus their defense was barely on the field the whole game they were fresh while our offense did not have any chance to develop a strong rhythm offensively.
We saw how ugly that last drive was when we were pinned back at the 11 yard line. It's really not that surprising that we would have terrible field position even if we did get the ball back.
It was pretty clear to me that the 4th and 2 at the 36 yard line was our best shot to win the game. It is incorrect to say that we would have less than a 50% chance to convert the 4th and 2. We converted over 54% last season even with all our backup Offensive Linemen and no Harvin. Good Teams like Denver can convert nearly 90% over the course of the season.
Our Offense was kicking some serious booty out there from a Yards Per Attempt standpoint, I think we had at least an 80% chance to pick up that first down. If we can't pick up 2 yards with arguably the 3 best play-makers in the game (Wilson, Lynch, Harvin) then it was probably a bad play call to begin with.
Wilson is so clutch he must of been crushed to not get that chance to win the game even though he's played so well for his entire career and already won us a Super Bowl... it was a bad choice to punt that ball.
F: Scoring quickly is not actually that great of a game plan for a team that prioritizes protecting the ball and playing solid defense. Ideally you want to win the time of possession game so your defense is fresh, especially when it's like 100 degrees on the field.
Obviously our coaches had no idea how bad our Defense would play but they did not appear to have any intention of using our dominant run game to eat up the clock.
When you're playing on the road against one of the best offenses in the league in sweltering heat you should prioritize winning the time of possession. Unless they expected our Defense to get non-stop 3 and outs all day (which is unrealistic IMO, I had the Chargers scoring 20 points in my official prediction but I was honestly bordering on giving them 23 or 27 but that seemed like I was just being paranoid at the time...), well then our offensive game plan was pretty awful.
But punting on 4th and 2 in that situation was really the nail in the coffin for us.
