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My sentiments exactly, leaving it up to the experts

 

It's really funny to read some of you tap dancing around on who to blame for the loss (or all three for that matter) when just six short weeks ago you same people were dumping all 15 of last year's losses in Weinke's lap.

It's a team game as several of us tried to point out. Just as last year wasn't one player or coach's fault, the last three weeks aren't either. There's plenty of blame to go around. Play calling, blown assignments, stupid penalties, injuries, and lack of talent have all had a hand in them. They win as a team and they lose as a team.

I'm not saying Weinke's gonna set the world on fire, but at least give the guy a chance and keep in mind he doesn't play defense.

 

>> But the fact is that he thought he could make the play, and he got burned. That's not being a hotdog, that's playing aggressive. And when you play aggressive, sometimes you get burned. Del Rio and Fox have preached aggression and making plays on defense, not playing soft and passive.

i'm sure they are and have been also preaching to him about being smart and not losing containment. was just plain stupid to be overly aggressive at that time of the game.

>> That's based on last years play. They have been nothing but complimentary of him this season.

i think they have made reference to his play this season. i think in the GB game he lost containment on the HB option. so you could say that he contributed largely to that lost also.

>> only making the point that if you want to bench 1 player because he made just one mistake, then there are far more than only Grant that need to be benched...most of whom have made many more than just one mistake.

my thing is that i think it's been more than once and it's not something ya can cover up. i think he's the last line of defense on most plays. and when he is he has to make sure the ball can't get over his head. i'm pretty sure that the coaches have probably worked their asses off with him to get him to play it safe in that type of situation. i think at some point you might have to make more of an impression with the lad other than just glaring at him after the game or preaching to him during practice.

and actually i don't think he was coming up to try for the interception, i think he was coming up to stop Carter. the ball was underthrown and his athletic ability almost allowed him to make up for him dumbass mistake.

>> I don't agree, it was a simple mistake.

I don't agree, it was a monumentally stupid mistake and it cost us the game. Chad Cota doesn't make that mistake. If they don't bench him and he learns from that mistake and doesn't let it happen again -- well that would be the best situation. Richardson is not a good option. But I think it is a continuing problem that finally flat out cost us a game. It needs to get fixed somehow right away. I think benching him might work.

 

Never bet the devil your head - Edgar Allen Poe.

If their were multiple mistakes, you might have a case (other than your head).



But I've only seen one, only heard Fox speak of one made by him. His play has been a lot better this year, a great cover safety who has improved his tackling. I'd be suprised if Grant gets benched. He could do it for a game to send a message.

 

Playing FS and Nickle for 7 years taught me one thing. You don't take a step toward the line of scrimmage until that QB has broken that plain. Your main objective is to cover the pass. Covering the run is secondary! SS is the only exception and that is only in a short yardage situation.
Grant stayed back in coverage, he was hawking on the play and just misjudged the ball by half a step. He would probably get my vote for most improved if not for the impressive play of our collective D-line.

Where the problem lies the last three weeks is in philosophy. We can't have BOTH the offense and defense retreating like turtles into their colloctive shell in the last 5 min. of the game.

If the Offense is going into three and out mode, the D needs to stay aggressive.
If the D is going to change to the "Prevent...us from Winning", The O still needs to throw in throwing situations on third down. Gotta have first downs and keep the clock running.

Maintaining the philosophy of the first 55 min. would likely put us at 5-1 at the worst at this point. Still, 3-3 is impressive based on the expectations placed on this team early on...am I happy with that, NO! Content maybe, but still 4-2, 5-1, 6-0 all would be better.

 

>>Where the problem lies the last three weeks is in philosophy. We can't have BOTH the offense and defense retreating like turtles into their colloctive shell in the last 5 min. of the game.

You hit on one of my issues. This defense is predicated on aggressive defense, and in the Baltimore game it looked like we will play that way until the final gun. However, it seems just as we are playing offense not to lose, we are now playing the final minutes of the game on defense not to lose. The announcers showed how the Safeties were playing back to prevent a TD (a lot of good it did) on that last drive. My question is why??? Why not continue what worked the first 56 minutes? Our defense dominated them all game, so I just don't see the reasoning to go away from what was successful.

 

>> But I've only seen one, only heard Fox speak of one made by him. His play has been a lot better this year, a great cover safety who has improved his tackling.

So who blew the coverage on that HB option pass in te GB game? I was certain it was Grant. Grant-ed, his tackling has improved somewhat and I think he is a safety with loads of ability that should become an all-pro safety. But he is not there yet. Not when he is still pulling shit like he did yesterday.

>> Grant stayed back in coverage, he was hawking on the play and just misjudged the ball by half a step.

Looked to me like he broke on Carter not the ball. He was 15 yards in front of the receiver. In any case, if you're a good safety you don't take that chance when you're 13 points up with 4 minutes to go. You play safe and prevent what happend. That's your sole fucking job at that point in the game as a free safety. You make them work and take time off the clock to get a TD. You do not give up an 80 yard TD. We cannot lose without giving Dallas a play like that.

>> We can't have BOTH the offense and defense retreating like turtles into their colloctive shell in the last 5 min. of the game.

The game was won. It was over. At that point, all you need to do is not do something totally retarded like what Grant did. If only we had gone into the prevent defense before that 1st TD maybe we would have won. But we were beating them up for 56 minutes so why not continue with what was working? Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't.

With 4 minutes to go, our defense had flushed him and was chasing Carter all over the field when they scored the first TD. Yea Piper, Carter in the end beat us with his legs buy avoiding that sack -- something neither Peete nor Weinke would have a chance of doing. If we had only gone into the prevent and kept him in the pocket, things would have turned out better i do believe.

Following the first Dallas TD we did try to pass the ball on second down and failed miserably, which gave Dallas an extra 40-50 seconds and enough time to cause us to have to defend the entire field rather than just the endzone. I thought it was stupid to have passed the ball. Then to compound the poor decision on 2nd down to pass the ball (course henning would have been a genius if we had gained the first down) he follows with a running play on 3rd and long (but now time is not really a factor for Dallas cause we stopped the clock for them on the play before). Course with Weinke's history of throwing interceptions and knowing that they would probably blitz and the seemingly inability of our receivers to beat the blitz much less catch the ball, it was probably reasonable that henning would rather take his chances with our defense rather than on Weinke throwing an interception, fumbling or taking a big sack and giving them even better field position. It sucks whee you don't have a legit QB and WRs.

By the way, I am honored to have you guys quoting Poe to me. One of my favorites. He could have written the script for yesterday's game.

 

>>So who blew the coverage on that HB option pass in te GB game? I was certain it was Grant.

Don't know. Howard was the closest. Replays show Grant came up to stop Franks. Its a trick play vs an agressive defense. Not a blown coverage.

>>Looked to me like he broke on Carter not the ball.

30 yards downfield? No. He was in coverage and misjudged the ball.


>> thought it was stupid to have passed the ball.

Hoover dropped it. He catches it, we get a first down. Good call. However, as it turned out, we needed that time.

 

My two cents: Grant didn't break towards carter, he broke towards the line during the pass and tried to intercept it. He was off by literally 2 inches. It was a fluke. it bounced off his hands and right into Galloway's. If the pass had bounced off to the right, or out of bounds, we would have said "good play" - if he had intercepted it, we would have been seeing his praises.

Don't blame Grant for this, he got an unlucky bounce on a broken play - if you want to blame somebody, blame the offense, or hell, blame the kicker. He missed a FG, remember?

 

>> 30 yards downfield? No. He was in coverage and misjudged the ball.

you're being blind to the obvious. he broke in before Carter ever released the ball. the only thing he misjudged was staying in coverage when it looked to him like Carter was going to run. you don't misjudge and come back to far for the ball when the receiver is 15-20 yards further downfield. you particularly don't do that when you are up 13 points with 4 minutes to go. it was just plain stupid.

>> Its a trick play vs an agressive defense. Not a blown coverage.

somebody blew the coverage -- big time. somebody has responsibility to cover for that kinda play -- or we'd be giving up TDs all day long. my guess is that it was the free safety. i think GB saw on tape that Grant has a tendancy to be too aggressive and leave containment too early and they took advantage of it. usually trick plays are put in because coaches feel like they have found some lack of discipline on the part of the defense to keep containment either deep or on the backside. i'm sure that the our coaches preached at him long and hard after the GB game (and in training camp and preseason) about keeping his containment deep until the ball is past the line of scrimmage. that's why i found it particularly troublesome that he did it again and particurlarly considering the game situation. i'm sure too that he is going to see the tape several times this week and have it drilled over and over into his head how he lost the fucking game because he did not do his job on that play. trouble is that now even if he fixes the problem, he may have just blown our chances to get to the playoffs. i wouldn't bench a guy just cuz he made a mistake, cost us a game, or cost us a shot at the playoffs. but if his primary function is to defend anything deep and he continues to fuck that function up not because of a lack of physical ability but because of going fucking braindead time after time then they need to reserve him a spot on the bench until such time as it becomes crystal clear to him that his job is not to try and be a fucking hero but to prevent the other team from getting quick TDs.

>> Hoover dropped it. He catches it, we get a first down. Good call. However, as it turned out, we needed that time.

I didn't think Hoover dropped it. I thougt the pass had no chance of completion but you could be right. So make up your mind. Is Henning making good calls or bad calls? How is it a good call if the play doesn't work, whether of not the receiver dropped the ball? Isn't that one of the things that can happen on a pass play (particularly on this team) and doesn't that have to be taken into account? Just cause it's not a "scared" call and it shoulda worked doesn't make it a good call IMO. A good call accomplishes something positive. At that time, simply running 40-50 seconds off the clock would have been a huge positive IMO. The only "scared" in that call was that Henning was apparently scared that our defense would not hold if we gave the ball back to Dallas with 2 minutes left and no timeouts. So he tried to seal the game by going for a first down cuz he probably thought he would cross them up. So he gives them the ball with nearly 3 minutes left. Bad call, "scared" call, IMO.

We only needed the extra time cause they scored the second TD. My point was that if Henning had just run the time off the clock instead of trying the pass to Hoover, then it would have been much easier to defend Dallas on their last drive as we could have not concerned ourselves with having to defend a first down when they had 4th and 14. If they had completed a first down pass then the game would have been over if we had run the time off the clock earlier. We could have just flooded the endzone with defenders and I think our odds would have been much better of escaping with a win after Grant gave the game back to them.