Conspiracy theory alert...

Any possibility Pete was looking ahead at the New England Patriots and wanting to "surprise" them by finally letting Russell unleash the full potential of the offense? Or was this just the week things "clicked" for the rookie?

It has to be gratifying to Pete to beat them Pats.

I think if anything, these last two weeks we played defenses that just weren't as good as ones we'd played previously. Also, with each week they'd naturally be able to open it up more. I noticed a lot of the Patriots playing the run and just begging Wilson to beat them. This has been a philosophy other teams have gotten away with, but today Wilson was right on most of the day....also, add in the fact that we didn't have the drive killing penalties that have hurt us in other games and it's the perfect combination for a good game

Prior to the game several people, myself included, said that Belichick would game plan to take Lynch out of the game and put the load on Wilson. To do this, however, would leave the deep routes open and for us to win, Wilson had to connect deep to Rice and Tate.

Wilson did that and we won.

The other key to the game was ET vs Brady. It was mostly Brady, then almost ET, then, with the game about to become out of reach ET won. How big was the interception and the halftime grounding?

I don't know if anything "clicked". For the 2nd and 3rd quarters, our offense was non-existent. Piss poor play calling and no rushing game. They need to play effectively for 4 quarters if we are going to be successful. I will gladly take the win. It's just that the offense needs to take some pressure off the defense. I am not bashing RW. I am a huge RW fan and I was elated when we drafted him.

Basically zero chance IMO. You don't sacrifice two games to win one. If he thought "unleashing Russell" would result in wins he would have done it earlier. People don't really want to acknowledge for some reason that Wilson really did not look great in the first few weeks. He's getting better in every game. It makes far more sense to think that Carroll is giving Wilson more as Wilson shows he can handle it.

Pete preaches not looking ahead. It would be antithetical for him to hold back the QB and risk losing a game just to get a win against a specific team.

He's said all along that he was holding things back to let Russell develop. We've seen exactly that, as Russell has shown improvement from game to to game.

Several of the players have indicated that the coaches told the offense to work better with Russell to allow the play to develop when he scrambles, etc. and that this was a point of focus in practice this week. The results speak for themselves.

Russell and the offense should continue to improve as Russ adjusts to the NFL and he and his receivers adjust to each other's style of play. And as that happens, Pete and Bevell will open the offense more.

Things are looking quite promising.

if anything i would say this is the result of being down 13 points in the fourth quarter and playing one of the worst passing defenses in the league

WmHBonney":rw8e2rlh said:

I don't know if anything "clicked". For the 2nd and 3rd quarters, our offense was non-existent. Piss poor play calling and no rushing game. They need to play effectively for 4 quarters if we are going to be successful. I will gladly take the win. It's just that the offense needs to take some pressure off the defense. I am not bashing RW. I am a huge RW fan and I was elated when we drafted him.

Click to expand...

:laugh:

I'm not sure I've actually seen that "play for a full 4 quarters" thing by many teams, ever.

Most games have ebb and flow where they seem to take a quarter or a half off. Usually that means that the other team makes an adjustment that takes part of your game away and it takes a while to find the groove again.

The offense is improving game to game as we watch. We just gave notice to the league that Lynch is no longer our only hope of winning. Now, they have to defend the whole field. We can go deep, we can run the ball, we have receivers that can catch and run.

#1 offense vs. #1 defense, it was going to be a wildcard game and played out that way pretty much. Wilson played freaking awesome, that's the truth no matter how you slice it up.