Lather, Rinse, Repeat

I’m stewing right now, as I’m sure the rest of you are after last night’s monstrous let down. There isn’t a lot to say about what led us to that loss, but I’d like to make a couple of points.

First and foremost, Chuck Pagano runs a vanilla defense. People love Pagano because he makes the “right” calls, but I can see no evidence that he has taken his players into consideration when it comes to his schemes. Down and distance seem to be the only determining factors when it comes to defensive play-calling. That’s fine, though. You can have a serviceable defense doing that, but you’ll never have a dominating defense going that route. The great coordinators take chances. Does Denver take the pressure off because Jamaal Charles slips one by here and there? Hell no, they double down on that shit. And not with rote blitz packages, but with complex plays designed to overload offenses at varying points of attack that utilize the talents of their defensive playmakers. Melvin Ingram would be unstoppable in Denver. Wade Phillips is one of the great defensive coordinators because he knows what his players are best at and what they like to do and he turns them loose accordingly. It’s no coincidence that he coordinated San Diego’s last truly great defense. But fine, we’re not going to be dominant on that side of the ball. It’s cool. We don’t have to be as long as...

…this offense is and must be the dynamic driver of this football team. I realize we have issues on the line, but then explain that beautiful opening drive for us last night and then explain to me where that offense went for two and half quarters afterwards. There are ways to beat pressure and we exhibited those at times and abandoned them at others. The strange decision to pick last night to minimize Danny Woodhead and establish Melvin Gordon’s role in the offense had a lot to do with what went wrong there. I still believe Gordon will be a very good back in this league, but with the personnel we have, what’s the rush to prove it? We need to win games. We’re not going to do that if our offensive identity is to idle through three quarters and ask Rivers to pull it out of his ass in the fourth quarter every week! Mike McCoy and Frank Reich need to be creative, but instead they are every bit as vanilla as Pagano.

This boring offense and defense combo gets you perpetual 7-9 to 9-7 seasons and all but guarantees we’ll never see a championship in this town. This team certainly won’t do it unless somebody on that coaching staff grows a pair. This story is getting old.