Down But Not Out

Was this game disappointing? Yes. Was it unexpected? Debatable. It was disappointing to be there and watch it unfold right before me. After that first touchdown by Steven Jackson. I just had so much hope. I'm sure you did too. And there was reason to. We had forced them to punt, and capitalized right away. Just one question. Was anyone starting to believe Marshall Faulk? Well I don't know if I was going that far. But like I said, it was motivating. 

Then all of the sudden. Where is Steven Jackson? Oh wait apparently he is injured. So we have Cadillac Williams now. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing, but it is certainly a downgrade. But bottom line is that nothing much happened on offense after that. Yes, we had 150 something rushing yards, but our passing game was horrific. Which leads me to my next point.

We all know that it was going to be tough to succeed in this area of the game today. But we didn't help ourselves out. Way too many dropped balls. Lance Kendricks was by far the most upsetting person to see not come up big. He had his opportunities too. He should have caught a a ball that would've ended up being a first and goal or a touchdown. That would of changed momentum a little bit. Amendola did good, but we don't have him for a while now. So it looks like Salas needs to be the guy to fill that role. Gibson did okay and had one impressive catch by beating Nmamdi. Sims-Walker was not a factor though. 

Sam Bradford and the O-line didn't do to well. Sam missed some deep throws and almost got picked off near the goal line.  The o-line gave up some sacks. When we were running the ball the o-line didn't seem to do too bad though. That's about their only  bright spot for the day.

On the defensive side of the ball, We looked very decent considering how packed their offense is with weapons. We did especially well in the first quarter while we had some momentum to work with. We brought pressure, got a sack or two and kept us in the game. But as our offense continued to stall, the Eagles offense began to get in rhythm. If you think about it, we probably could have had 4 to 6 sacks today. We got great pressure. The problem was that we didn't contain Vick. Just know, it's not like their o-line did good, it's just that Micheal Vick did. 

Our secondary was a different story. We didn't do too good. Dahl didn't impress me, Bartel got burned a a couple of times. I would say Mikell had a pretty good game against his former team with the exception of a DeSean Jackson TD while Mikell was on him. But lets be honest, that was all speed and Mikell just wasn't fast enough. 

Our linebackers did impress me though. James Laurinaitis is back to his old self, Brady Poppinga and Ben Leber looked decent. 

What people have to realize is that this is our first game. And this is probably our toughest opponent besides maybe the Packers. And most likely the best secondary we will face all year. If we can clean up the injuries, I think we can fire out against New York next week and surprise them. So don't loose hope just yet. Because remember when everyone said that if we win just 3 games out of this tough first half schedule, we would be looking good. Basically what I'm saying is that we didn't necessarily think we were going to win every game. So just calm down, we have 15 games left.