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After taking a season and half or so off from doing this (in part because of previous frustrations with the team) I decided to throw up one of these for old times sake.
First, like many I am extremely happy, as well as extremely surprised with how the season went. Realistically I expected them to miss the playoffs and I thought maybe a wildcard was the best case scenario, but the team far outpaced those expectation. The additions of Linehan and Marinelli (replacing Kiffin as DC instead of just being DL coach) were obviously huge. For the majority of the season this was a pretty well coached team with far better fundamentals than previous years.
In regards to yesterday:
1) I said it during both playoff games we had, but the offseason priority (beyond the obvious, Dez, couple other players, coaching staff) has to be to upgrade the physical talent of the defense. I think we need 2 legit DL's, maybe another LB and 1 or 2 new starters in the secondary. That seems like a lot for one offseason, but its doable with quality pro and college scouting. We just don't have the pass rush up front, nor do we have enough speed/range on the backend to make plays on the ball. Had a major impact on the game yesterday, especially in the 2nd half.
2) We did do some good things yesterday and clearly were in a position to win the game in the 4th quarter. Defensively despite the shortcomings we have, we held them to a season low tying 26 pts at home. They came in averaging around 40 pts a game at home. New England was the other team to hold them to 26, and they gave up around 480 yds of offense. We gave up 425. We outrushed them. We averaged about the same amount of yds per play as them.
3) We lost because we made some mistakes they didn't make, and didn't take advantage of a couple of things we should have. No doubt the clusterfuck before halftime changed the game a little. At the very least you should get out no worse than 14-7 with where we were. The Murray fumble was huge. He maybe scores 7 there or at the least puts us well into scoring territory. Instead we give them 3 pts. Not recovering that kickoff fumble by Cobb was possibly the biggest play of the game though. The ball flew out and Hanna had what appeared to be a perfectly clean attempt to recover the ball, and couldn't get on it. We were up 21-13 there and if we recover, probably get at least 3, if not 7 more and potentially put them away. We also had a couple of defensive penalties that extended drives for them and then of course had a slew of missed tackles that really hurt us. One other play that not many mentioned was on our opening series where Romo got hit as he was starting to throw on 3rd down. Appeared he was going to go to the outlet with Murray, who was wide open. Not sure how many yds he would have gotten in the end, but there didn't appear to be any GB player around him. At least we wouldn't have gone 3 and out.
4) On the Dez catch/non catch thing. Ultimately it probably wouldn't have mattered because I think our D probably wouldn't have held up, but I still think its b/s that they call that a catch, review it, see no clear "indisputable video evidence" to overturn it, but do overturn it. You cant start out your explanation of the overturn with "in our judgement". No, its ether clear or it isn't. However on Cobbs end of first half catch, they call it a catch, see crystal clear evidence that the ball hit the ground and was not a catch and don't overturn that. Why was that? Then they fail to review what ultimately was the game ending catch by Cobb, even though it looked close enough to take another look at. They had plenty of time to as a penalty flag was thrown that delayed the next snap and actually stopped the clock. To add further frustration to the Dez play is the fact they apparently botched the time on the clock by 30 seconds or so. Ultimately that didn't matter either (we didn't stop them) but its pretty amazing that they could screw up something like that in this big of a game.
5) Kudos to Romo for the way he played this postseason. He had not played all that well in his previous playoff games, but he was damn good this year. Didn't make any killer mistakes and performed at a high level. He also took a lot of tough shots in the postseason and several of those should have drawn flags, but didn't. I hope Jones and Garrett spend some time in the offseason putting pressure on the league to look at this, because Romo is not treated the same on the field as other QB's for some reason. Especially QB's like Manning, Brady, Brees and Rodgers.
5) A lot of people bemoaned moves for Jeremy Mincey and Anthony Hitchens, but these guys both had really solid years. We didn't pay much at all to get Mincey, and he was arguably the teams best DL this year. He also showed up pretty big in both playoff games. With Hitchens, for a rookie middle round pick to come in and learn to play all three 4-3 LB spots and contribute at a decent level at all of them is pretty amazing. Mincey at the least should be a really quality rotation DL next yr, and Hitchens looks like a potential solid starter at one of those LB spots. Mincey and Hitchens both played well yesterday, and Hitchens was probably playing on an ankle that was 75-80% at best.
6) Put me down as someone who thinks replacing Dwayne Harris, Chris Jones and Rich Bisaccia would all be positive moves. Harris proved to be pretty much a nothing as a return guy this year and struggled for a lot of the season to cleanly field punts. Jones is a jag punter and I don't know how a ST coach can (or should) survive a year in which 3 or 4 FG's and a punt were blocked. None of those blocks appeared to be amazing efforts or plays by the guys that blocked them either, it was just bad technique or positioning. We also had back to back games late in the season where a stupid punt block design could have cost the team dearly.
7) Many seem to be complaining about the timeout before halftime, but that's the way every good coach/team in the league plays that. The refs signaled first down and didn't even deem it close enough to measure, so I don't know how people could complain and say the coach should hurry the team to line to run the play. The only guy who really knew he was short was Witten, and he certainly didn't signal for them to hurry up and get the play off. At that point you are playing for the TD, so calling a TO to maintain time is crucial. I would say I didn't agree with the play call once they did mark it short, but ultimately the botched snap cost us more than the playcall itself. I would say that instead of trying a 45 yd FG from that spot, I probably would have went for it on 4th and 1 because you expect GB to score points. Getting the FG would have been nice, but ultimately 3 pts wasn't going to win the game there. A TD would have been a massive momentum boost going into halftime. Even running more time off and getting a gimmee FG would have obviously been better.
8) Sterling Moore had a pretty good year, but he had IMO by far his worst game of the year yesterday. It also seemed like a pretty bad game for Church, Wilcox and most of the DL too. It seemed like as the game wore on Rodgers really went after Moore hard, and he didn't respond. Missed some tackles badly and really looked like he blew a pretty good chance at an endzone pick on that Rodgers/Rodgers TD (or at least knocked it down). He just stopped and waited instead of undercutting the play.
9) I'm sure this wont be popular, but I do think keeping Garrett is the right thing now. Liked him a lot in the beginning and then soured on him to the point of believing he should be gone, but he has to get some of the credit for the teams success just as he got a lot of the blame when they didn't get it done the 3 previous years. Sounds like they are going to do everything we can to keep the staff in tact, which would be a good thing. We have a pretty good staff here. Callahan is the one I think is most likely to leave, but I think he can replaced with Frank Pollack or someone else from outside. After initial reports said Marinelli was leaving, turns out he may not be now. Like him and Linehan a lot and having them for at least one more year would be huge for us I think.
10) Keeping Dez is the #1 priority and getting a long term deal done giving us some cap flexibility for this yr would be huge. After him I think keeping either Free or Parnell so that our OL is in tact would be a big plus. Murray I think they will play hardball with a little, and we seem to be in a very favorable position because RB's are devalued anyway now, and the draft and even free agency have other quality options. I think keeping 1 or 2 of our LB's is likely, but I would not give Ro McClain a long term deal. If we could keep him on a 2-3 yr prove it type deal then fine, otherwise I'd focus on Durant. I think Carter will get some decent offers to leave. I think Carr will be released and don't believe his replacement is on the roster.
11) In terms of whats in place defensively, feel good about Crawford as one of the starting DT's. Like what Lawrence showed late in the season and the playoffs, and with a full offseason, training camp and preseason he should be a pretty big factor for us next year. If we had to have Mincey start at LDE it wouldn't be the worst thing, but moving him to a rotation/backup position would be ideal. Upgrade that position and the other DT spot. Maybe Lee can come back and stay healthy, but he shouldn't be counted on for the full season. Hitchens has the looks of being a quality starter at one of those LB spots. I'd try to at least upgrade one of the two between Church and Wilcox, but would prefer they move Wilcox to the true SS spot and try to get a real FS. Then need Carr's replacement. Terrell McClain and Boatright are interesting rotation guys. Bishop or Coleman may be rotation guys. Am interested in seeing what ben Gardner and Chris Whaley can bring to the table. But I'd definitely be using free agency and the draft to find a couple of quality starters up front.
10) Just guessing, but am betting Dallas at Green Bay is our season opener next yr, likely the NBC Sunday night game.
First, like many I am extremely happy, as well as extremely surprised with how the season went. Realistically I expected them to miss the playoffs and I thought maybe a wildcard was the best case scenario, but the team far outpaced those expectation. The additions of Linehan and Marinelli (replacing Kiffin as DC instead of just being DL coach) were obviously huge. For the majority of the season this was a pretty well coached team with far better fundamentals than previous years.
In regards to yesterday:
1) I said it during both playoff games we had, but the offseason priority (beyond the obvious, Dez, couple other players, coaching staff) has to be to upgrade the physical talent of the defense. I think we need 2 legit DL's, maybe another LB and 1 or 2 new starters in the secondary. That seems like a lot for one offseason, but its doable with quality pro and college scouting. We just don't have the pass rush up front, nor do we have enough speed/range on the backend to make plays on the ball. Had a major impact on the game yesterday, especially in the 2nd half.
2) We did do some good things yesterday and clearly were in a position to win the game in the 4th quarter. Defensively despite the shortcomings we have, we held them to a season low tying 26 pts at home. They came in averaging around 40 pts a game at home. New England was the other team to hold them to 26, and they gave up around 480 yds of offense. We gave up 425. We outrushed them. We averaged about the same amount of yds per play as them.
3) We lost because we made some mistakes they didn't make, and didn't take advantage of a couple of things we should have. No doubt the clusterfuck before halftime changed the game a little. At the very least you should get out no worse than 14-7 with where we were. The Murray fumble was huge. He maybe scores 7 there or at the least puts us well into scoring territory. Instead we give them 3 pts. Not recovering that kickoff fumble by Cobb was possibly the biggest play of the game though. The ball flew out and Hanna had what appeared to be a perfectly clean attempt to recover the ball, and couldn't get on it. We were up 21-13 there and if we recover, probably get at least 3, if not 7 more and potentially put them away. We also had a couple of defensive penalties that extended drives for them and then of course had a slew of missed tackles that really hurt us. One other play that not many mentioned was on our opening series where Romo got hit as he was starting to throw on 3rd down. Appeared he was going to go to the outlet with Murray, who was wide open. Not sure how many yds he would have gotten in the end, but there didn't appear to be any GB player around him. At least we wouldn't have gone 3 and out.
4) On the Dez catch/non catch thing. Ultimately it probably wouldn't have mattered because I think our D probably wouldn't have held up, but I still think its b/s that they call that a catch, review it, see no clear "indisputable video evidence" to overturn it, but do overturn it. You cant start out your explanation of the overturn with "in our judgement". No, its ether clear or it isn't. However on Cobbs end of first half catch, they call it a catch, see crystal clear evidence that the ball hit the ground and was not a catch and don't overturn that. Why was that? Then they fail to review what ultimately was the game ending catch by Cobb, even though it looked close enough to take another look at. They had plenty of time to as a penalty flag was thrown that delayed the next snap and actually stopped the clock. To add further frustration to the Dez play is the fact they apparently botched the time on the clock by 30 seconds or so. Ultimately that didn't matter either (we didn't stop them) but its pretty amazing that they could screw up something like that in this big of a game.
5) Kudos to Romo for the way he played this postseason. He had not played all that well in his previous playoff games, but he was damn good this year. Didn't make any killer mistakes and performed at a high level. He also took a lot of tough shots in the postseason and several of those should have drawn flags, but didn't. I hope Jones and Garrett spend some time in the offseason putting pressure on the league to look at this, because Romo is not treated the same on the field as other QB's for some reason. Especially QB's like Manning, Brady, Brees and Rodgers.
5) A lot of people bemoaned moves for Jeremy Mincey and Anthony Hitchens, but these guys both had really solid years. We didn't pay much at all to get Mincey, and he was arguably the teams best DL this year. He also showed up pretty big in both playoff games. With Hitchens, for a rookie middle round pick to come in and learn to play all three 4-3 LB spots and contribute at a decent level at all of them is pretty amazing. Mincey at the least should be a really quality rotation DL next yr, and Hitchens looks like a potential solid starter at one of those LB spots. Mincey and Hitchens both played well yesterday, and Hitchens was probably playing on an ankle that was 75-80% at best.
6) Put me down as someone who thinks replacing Dwayne Harris, Chris Jones and Rich Bisaccia would all be positive moves. Harris proved to be pretty much a nothing as a return guy this year and struggled for a lot of the season to cleanly field punts. Jones is a jag punter and I don't know how a ST coach can (or should) survive a year in which 3 or 4 FG's and a punt were blocked. None of those blocks appeared to be amazing efforts or plays by the guys that blocked them either, it was just bad technique or positioning. We also had back to back games late in the season where a stupid punt block design could have cost the team dearly.
7) Many seem to be complaining about the timeout before halftime, but that's the way every good coach/team in the league plays that. The refs signaled first down and didn't even deem it close enough to measure, so I don't know how people could complain and say the coach should hurry the team to line to run the play. The only guy who really knew he was short was Witten, and he certainly didn't signal for them to hurry up and get the play off. At that point you are playing for the TD, so calling a TO to maintain time is crucial. I would say I didn't agree with the play call once they did mark it short, but ultimately the botched snap cost us more than the playcall itself. I would say that instead of trying a 45 yd FG from that spot, I probably would have went for it on 4th and 1 because you expect GB to score points. Getting the FG would have been nice, but ultimately 3 pts wasn't going to win the game there. A TD would have been a massive momentum boost going into halftime. Even running more time off and getting a gimmee FG would have obviously been better.
8) Sterling Moore had a pretty good year, but he had IMO by far his worst game of the year yesterday. It also seemed like a pretty bad game for Church, Wilcox and most of the DL too. It seemed like as the game wore on Rodgers really went after Moore hard, and he didn't respond. Missed some tackles badly and really looked like he blew a pretty good chance at an endzone pick on that Rodgers/Rodgers TD (or at least knocked it down). He just stopped and waited instead of undercutting the play.
9) I'm sure this wont be popular, but I do think keeping Garrett is the right thing now. Liked him a lot in the beginning and then soured on him to the point of believing he should be gone, but he has to get some of the credit for the teams success just as he got a lot of the blame when they didn't get it done the 3 previous years. Sounds like they are going to do everything we can to keep the staff in tact, which would be a good thing. We have a pretty good staff here. Callahan is the one I think is most likely to leave, but I think he can replaced with Frank Pollack or someone else from outside. After initial reports said Marinelli was leaving, turns out he may not be now. Like him and Linehan a lot and having them for at least one more year would be huge for us I think.
10) Keeping Dez is the #1 priority and getting a long term deal done giving us some cap flexibility for this yr would be huge. After him I think keeping either Free or Parnell so that our OL is in tact would be a big plus. Murray I think they will play hardball with a little, and we seem to be in a very favorable position because RB's are devalued anyway now, and the draft and even free agency have other quality options. I think keeping 1 or 2 of our LB's is likely, but I would not give Ro McClain a long term deal. If we could keep him on a 2-3 yr prove it type deal then fine, otherwise I'd focus on Durant. I think Carter will get some decent offers to leave. I think Carr will be released and don't believe his replacement is on the roster.
11) In terms of whats in place defensively, feel good about Crawford as one of the starting DT's. Like what Lawrence showed late in the season and the playoffs, and with a full offseason, training camp and preseason he should be a pretty big factor for us next year. If we had to have Mincey start at LDE it wouldn't be the worst thing, but moving him to a rotation/backup position would be ideal. Upgrade that position and the other DT spot. Maybe Lee can come back and stay healthy, but he shouldn't be counted on for the full season. Hitchens has the looks of being a quality starter at one of those LB spots. I'd try to at least upgrade one of the two between Church and Wilcox, but would prefer they move Wilcox to the true SS spot and try to get a real FS. Then need Carr's replacement. Terrell McClain and Boatright are interesting rotation guys. Bishop or Coleman may be rotation guys. Am interested in seeing what ben Gardner and Chris Whaley can bring to the table. But I'd definitely be using free agency and the draft to find a couple of quality starters up front.
10) Just guessing, but am betting Dallas at Green Bay is our season opener next yr, likely the NBC Sunday night game.
