49 and 83

We had 49 offensive snaps, they had 83.

 

We can't be held back but so far by our offensive philosophy.

I know, "what got us there", but what got us there got us one first down, on a penalty, in five first drives. We threw away almost the entire first half waiting for magical holes to open up.

 

yeah, it was obvious that the pats' table of contents page i their playbook was lomger than our ENTIRE playbook. would have used foster earlier, and gone to the pass to establish some blocking lanes for rushing sooner. but hey, hell of a game, and hell of a season. better than 1-15 by a longshot.

 

I think the team played poor offensively that half, morso than poor playcalling. There were dropped, missed blocks, and Delhomme looked frantic.

They adjusted in the second half - and so did the Pats. Too bad our defense never showed up.

We strung up 29 points (4 TD's and a field goal) against a terrific defense. I put the stat up because it speaks as much about our defense's inability to stop the pats as it does our inconsistent offense.

 

I wouldn't say play was that good. We picked it up with playcalling before we did with play.
But we still wasted a lot of time wondering whether Washington could clog the middle, and it wasn't hard to tell it was true. You can't just beat something to death if it doesn't work, no matter what they're playing like.

 

Dude, we threw the ball 9 times and got 1 yard. And 3 sacks. That didn't work either.

Anyway, I disagree.

 

SO you wouldn't say we stayed with things that didn't work for a good part of the first half? It was all execution?

 

It was mostly execution, particularly with Delhomme. We took some shots downfield that were just out of reach, and had some passes dropped. I can think of three big plays that were there and were missed, and I know there were more:

A 12 yarder to Mangum.
A deep pass to muhammed that he just barely came back late for.
A deep pass to Smitty right off his fingertips.

At this point, Delhomme was 1 of 9 for 1 yard. After this point, he went 15 of 24 for 322. Execution.

 

I'd disagree. Jake had the jitters and that was obvious. The line wasn't playing well, and that was obvious as well.
You adjust. Not once was there a dumpoff handy, not once was there an easy, low percentage play. It was "let's run into this wall" or "let's throw a lot" alternately. Nothing to get a rhythm going.
I gotta put about half of that on decision making.

 

Our D did show up. They stopped them cold the 1st half. But they were on the field almost all the first half, and the great majority of the second too. They absolutely ran out of gas. Plus NE schemed great to take advantage of them.

During the season, we thought our D had major holes, mostly in the secondary. Then during the playoffs, we thought they had gotten much better. They just were up against poor QBs. Against a great QB, they couldnt hold up.

I agree with you on the 1st half O. I don't think they should have gone to a shootout mentality without knowing that nothing else would work. Not even trying to sustain drives kills the D. We had no choice, but we had to know that by trying everything else.