Eeep. Quick Hits

I am torn between the version of myself sitting through that painful game screaming at the TV (okay dull roar as I was at a friend's house) and being pissed off at the multitude of questionable play calling, clock management and so on, and the version of myself that knows fully well that the Rams are one tough opponent in their dingy dome and secretly I had a bad feeling about this game.

Quick Hits:

-- Not sure how the OL grades out. On one hand I thought they did an admirable job at times, and at others they looked atrocious like a greenhorn OL should look against the NFL's finest front 7.

-- Russell did not have his finest game. At times it was due to overthrowing and flat out missing (Bradshaw made a comment that Graham was wide open on a slant and he flat out missed him) and at other times it was due to poor pass protection. When I saw his happy feet in the 3rd quarter I was like, "uh oh." I know that the OL is a project under development and I am willing to give them time to gell.

-- Bailey had moments of greatness (undetected sack which forced a fumble and TD) and moments he would like to forget (tripping and underestimating the receiver's speed causing an easy TD to tie the game). I was so pissed off at him until I saw the camera focus on him sitting on the bench sulking. In that moment I realized nobody feels as bad as he does, knowing he likely caused us to lose the game.

-- Our D looked dominant at times and flat out beat, whiffing on tackles at other times. I will chalk it up to being the first game of the season against a tough division rival on the road.

-- Will someone please explain to me why we burned a precious 2nd time out with the clock going down to the 2 minute warning? For shit's sakes Pete! Come on!

-- Hey, let's do an onside kick in OT which gives the Rams a high percentage chance to start on the 50! WHOOO! :34853_doh:

-- I would have done a better job sustaining our chance to win on that 4th and 1. Let's see...Let's put Russ in shotgun formation...6 yards away from a first down. Let's put Lynch next to him and hand the ball off even though he now has to travel 6 yards for a first down knowing full well the pocket is going to crumble and his chance to convert the 4th down is 0.000345 percent. Sweet. If I get to call the play with that same formation (if I had to use that formation) I would have absolutely called a bootleg. Your chance of converting that 4th and 1 has now gone up exponentially. But what do I know? I'm just a stupid fan.

-- This is one of those classic games we will look back on and say we should have won, and could potentially be the game we look back on and say "Crap, had we won that game we would have been able to _______________ (fill in the blank)".

-- There is a very real possibility of coming home to our first home game 0-2. Sucks but if any team can pull them out of a slow start it's this one.

At what point do we admit that our ST is actually pretty terrible ? Fisher called the same trick punt as last year, and fooled us the same way. Adding a stud returner in Lockett doesn't make our ST better, or even capable.

At this point, we just need to chalk up a ST TD against the Rams every year. It's going to be a trick play, it will totally fool us, and Fisher won't do it against anyone else, because it won't work against anyone else. Just spot them the 7 points.

Does Bevell not know what a QB sneak is ? Like you Todd, I'm just a dumb fan, but seriously, we have a QB that's 5'10" and 220 lbs and strong as hell. That's built to put your head in someone's ass and get one freaking foot. We NEVER run that play.

Our defense won't be #1 in the league this year. WAAAAAY too many missed tackles to be considered an elite defense. This will likely be Foles' best game of the year.

How in the hell do you keep over throwing a guy that is 6'7" and can leap ? Seriously.

We were playing great in the quick passing game, so what do we do ? Go away from it totally and keep running the damn ball for losses EVERY 1st down.

Cary Williams got the strip sack and TD, not Bailey.

Seanhawk":2kfloubz said:

Cary Williams got the strip sack and TD, not Bailey.

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Ouch. Even worse day then for Bailey.

The play calling at times continues to baffle me. I understand the need to not become predictable, but we often become too balsy at the wrong time. Who OS kicks going into OT?

Petey does.

yeah im still looking for an explanation on that timeout before the half.

I thought Wilson looked incredibly sharp considering the circumstances.

It's interesting the Wilson had 41 pass attempts vs. 18 Lynch carries. Our run blocking wasn't great, but it was a far sight better than our pass pro.

Note to Bevell: empty backfield not working against STL blitz.

We dominated time of possession and were +2 in turnover margin. Not sure what the overall league stats are combining both of those but about 80% of the time when a team is +2 in turnovers they win. Add in the big time of possession advantage and I would guess that is a game that should be won 90-95% of the time???

I want to overreact and be a bit scared moving forward but I am chalking this up to a bit of a fluke.

drcool":2wfu2bj5 said:

We dominated time of possession and were +2 in turnover margin. Not sure what the overall league stats are combining both of those but about 80% of the time when a team is +2 in turnovers they win. Add in the big time of possession advantage and I would guess that is a game that should be won 90-95% of the time???

I want to overreact and be a bit scared moving forward but I am chalking this up to a bit of a fluke.

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Agreed. It was a strange game.

Per Pete, it wasn't intended to be onside. Pooch should have gone deep but didn't. Hausch said he didn't hit it right.

Danny O'Neil said he talked to an official and was told had the Hawks recovered and then scored a FG the game would have been over because the kick would have counted as the Rams try.

I suspect the plan was to pooch it deep in hopes of recovering and then quickly scoring to win, figuring if it went deep at least the D would still have field position in their favor if we didn't recover.

Oh well.

Cary indicated that the blitz play was meant for Dion but Dion gave it to him. I'd be interested to hear why. Maybe he saw something?

kearly":1lhw0qe7 said:

I thought Wilson looked incredibly sharp considering the circumstances.

It's interesting the Wilson had 41 pass attempts vs. 18 Lynch carries. Our run blocking wasn't great, but it was a far sight better than our pass pro.

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Pretty much all those 41 pass attempts were good throws too...its just half of them were short outs and bubble screens..throwing horizontal instead of vertical. No sexy deepball today