Mistakes. Of them there were many. The secondary played well and truly awful in the first half. In the moment much wasn't made of Laserface's first pick due to it's wobbly flight and distance resembling a punt, though, the coverage unit was poor, and the first play from scrimmage went for a touchdown against the aforementioned poor secondary. So yeah, while it might have resembled a punt in the moment, it wasn't the good kind of punt. It was actually a turnover that was quickly converted to the maximum amount of points allowed.
The Royal fumble. I'm not going to get too down on Eddie because he has contributed much to this team in a very unexpected way in 2013. But, hot damned Eddie. That sucked. And also was quickly converted to the again, maximum allowable points in the form of another touchdown. Gah.
The Ryan Mathews Experiment. It's really time for this to end. They say it takes three years to evaluate a draft class. Well, considering this is year four, the longest run from scrimmage he's ever had is 39 yards, he's fumbled 13 times and lost 8 of them in 43 games played out of a possible 53, and he's likely to miss this week due to head injury, the grade on this one turned in. It's time to move on. The guy has proven to be exactly what he is. Not dynamic, not terrible, worried about fumbling constantly that his vision is shortsighted in that he must focus solely on not dropping the ball into the opponents bread basket. And yes, still injury prone. I know, a concussion is a concussion and I personally don't believe that this is a fragile moment that we've seen in the past, but the kid is hurt again. Unfortunately, he's not a very smart ballplayer and a brain contusion won't help his football IQ. The main issue I have here is that McCoy finally went with the guy in the way that Norv should have last year to see what we actually had in the draft pick that we traded fairly significant assets to move up and grab early. Norvy didn't do that so McCoy rightfully had to. Had Norv accomplished this last year, like both Max and I implored him to do, we could have already moved on. Better late than never I guess? Boo.
There is some rumor mongering at PFT that we're looking at making a move, or should be towards MJD in Jacksonville. Please let this come true. Please. Who do I need to beg for this to occur? Woodhead, while shifty and effective as a pass catcher out of the backfield, is not a feature back and that's where the Sproles comparisons should really parallel. He's a change of pace back that should not be handed delayed inside handoffs in critical fourth down situations inside the five yard line when a touchdown is needed. Good. We got that out of the way.
Laserface. Three interceptions. Bad day on the gridiron. What the hell is a gridiron anyway? I know he was pressing as we were down late, but the interception in the end zone was a pass that was thrown WAY too late, as Allen was open right off the line of scrimmage and PR held the ball about two seconds too long staring at an open receiver as if he couldn't believe how open he actually was, then delivered the ball far too late and the final nail was hammered home with intense malice. Gah. This was almost as egregious as the only other time I swore audibly at a volume my neighbors probably heard, when PR missed gates on the wide open bubble screen from inside the 10 yard line. The throw was so off line right from the start I swore before Gates awkwardly tried to adjust to a pass that should have hit him in the chest, but nearly killed someone else instead. I'm not going to harp on Laserface too much, but dammit, he left some plays out there that change the outcome of a must win game. GAH! It's so hard for me to suppress my desire to pepper the hell out of this paragraph with expletives.
The positives. There are some. First, there is a lot of fight in this team. They didn't give up which is something that the old culture was devoid of. They simply ran out of time. Granted, they might have needed another week's worth of quarters to finally put it together but they never gave up. Vincent Brown and Keenan Allen are pretty awesome guys to have on this team. Allen could be a star. No whammies. Finally, this may sound weird, but the second half defense deserves some credit. They gave up only three points, granted, they were three pretty big points but Pagano turned them loose and the finally started to get to Pryor. They were running fantastic blitzes and stunts and really righted the ship for the offense to get back in the game. However, once we were within the one score territory, Pagano called off the dogs and went back to the safe, conservative style and the winning field goal was born. Hey Pags, I feel like we're close enough to address you as Pags now, just turn the guys free. It's effective and certainly no worse to get burned being aggressive than sitting back and getting torched anyway. That was the most effective play you've coaxed out of these guys. They finally didn't look way in over their heads. Let her rip Pags. Nothing to lose.
Up next, the Colts. This is not a good opportunity for a win and mercifully we may be spared the violation of our eyesight by blackout. However, I'm confident that the game will be put on television though not sell out. You don't allow blackouts on nationally televised games. It's just not good for business. Seeing how we're supposed to get completely shredded by Andrew Luck anyway, we'll probably put up a 50 spot on them and win by 21. Don't hold me to that though, I'm not predicting that, I'm merely going against my gut that says we'll lose by the same margin. How's that for OPTIMISM suckers?! As always, things aren't as bad as they seem. We're on the right track. Go Bolts!
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