Review of Week 1 game

I enjoyed it, it was real, it was informative with no sugar coating.

Straight up facts and no BS or bias. Good job.

one area you could touch on is the coaching and playcalling. i thought there was a lot to be desired in the play calling. it did not avoid our weaknesses on offense very well, imo. too many runs where the d was stacked, and their was too much lame blocking.

ap made most of his yards on his own, again. mckinnie is a quitter and a pussy…and he got beat too much (just like last year). loadholt got spanked a lot as well. sullivan is not very good. even if he were healthy, he would have gotten plowed. albert young didn’t have any blocking, it wasn’t his fault….adrian peterson is so damn good, that he can make something out of nothing. imagine what he would be like if he had a decent line.

mr. barfve looked pretty sucky. he had no rhythm, he was hurried a lot, he was indecisive, and he threw some very questionable balls. this guy is getting paid $20 million this year….i expect a hell of a lot more (i hope you read this, bratt). it’s too bad that he had to play his off-season game and not get his lame ass into camp with everyone else….it sure would have paid off. he looked old and scared.

sidney rice…we could have used you. you had an mri the week after the nfccg last year that revealed your injury…you didn’t tell anyone until may mini-camp…now you are out until AT LEAST week 8…could be longer. and then you will be rusty and out of sync….thanks buddy.

bevell, chilly…wtf…camarillo and shank are the receivers….get them the damn ball. and, you don’t run berrian on sideline routes. he is not that kind of receiver, still. you run him deep, or cutting across the middle inbetween the zone coverage. he has to be wide open to be an effective target….and he just can’t do that on his own. you got to send him on routes that increase the probablility that he will be a low priority for the defense.

also, bevell, chilly….your play calling sucks. unimaginative, no rhythm, no guts.

d-backs were getting picked on as expected. if abdullah has been fasting and without water all day….you do not start him in an nfl game…even i know that.

credit the defense for holding the saints to 14 points (although those 2 shanked fg’s were quite pathetic…and not attributed to the viking defense). those scores would have changed the tenor of the game, possibly forcing our offense to open up more.

the d-line was getting sucked into the cut-back running scheme…it was very effective coaching by the saints. that is something that is waaaaay over the capabilities of our offensive coaching staff.

i am pissed. we can improve. but i wish the coaches would grow some balls and brains.
we got outcoached and outplayed. our defense is our hope. barfve better wake up.

Our third down efficiency was better than the Saints. No one really cares.

Is winning preferable to losing? No doubt about that, but then New Orleans got to play at home, where it is harder to change the plays, and the game ended just about like the bookmakers picked it. Anyone who hasn’t considered every football game starts with a coin flip and involves certain other elements of dumb luck can now go back to sleep.

No one should feel like they are rooting for the Washington Generals or that our team is condemned to play every game this season as the fall guys against the Harlem Globe Trotters. Another circus is over. Now take down the tent and move on. The NFL marketing guys have scored.

It is difficult to pass when they drop eight into coverage, just like it is difficult to run if they put eight into the box. It’s not about heroes with superpowers. Vilma got away with mugging Shiancoe, a man whom we now should all know only has two syllables in his first name, in addition to looking good in the shower. That’s just how things are.

Congratulations winners. (Or as Favre says, good game,) These details are mostly static on the radio. There’s not some encrypted secret message in there to use your decoder rings on. It’s time to watch the films, make a list of corrections required, and practice some more.

I wouldn’t argue with anyone who claims Favre might have looked sharper if he came to camp on time, but I also know that this thing called an NFL season is a distance race, where it’s what you have left at then end of the race that wins many such contests. Being elderly, Favre has to spread things thinner so he can make it to the end of the schedule with enough gas in his tank for the playoffs. Every blessing is a curse, and the bad part of having accumulated all his experience is that doing so has put a lot of mileage on all his parts. As they say, getting old is not all fun, but please consider the alternative.

Kleinsasser thinks he caught that pass, and no one could tell, despite all the TV cameras and video shots, whether he was wrong about that or not. It’s still a game of inches, were little things can be the difference in who has the football or in the outcome of the game.

Sean Payton practices everything, including watching the banner being unfurled before the came, but even that does not guarantee perfection or even victory. Offenses are normally less sharp at the start of the season, even if you are the defending World Champs. At the end of the day, the Saints ran that amazing offense whose goal is to move the ball backwards for three downs and thereby win. Some might call that cowardly, or gay, or whatever, but that’s how football is played.

We have three extra days to prep for Miami and enjoy not being the leaders, whom everyone else takes so seriously. Who knows. By Monday, the Detroit Lions might even be leading the NFC North, and I’m sure that would be truly profound and reveal the future as clearly as a crystal ball … or maybe not.

In a parallel universe, maybe the Vikings won, and it’s actually your own fault for picking the wrong cosmos to be in. It might not be proven quantum mechanics, but who can say? It’s my hunch the blame game is merely a convenient pasttime, unless you do some follow up work and improve your game before the next conest.

Judd Zulgad was wrong about them scoring 40 point on us. He was wrong about them somehow bringing Sherels up from the practice squad. He’s supposedly a professional, but I doubt that he’ll be fired. (At least not now.) He’s a beat writer and not a football coach, and perhaps for good reason.

The shape of the ball is still part of the game. It makes it easier to throw, easier to carry, but causes bounces that are hard to predict.

Al Michaels, Teddy Bruschi and Mark Schlereth want their scripts back.

The wind has been taken out of my sails for a couple of days.

I’m going to listen to music, rent a movie for tonight, and not think about football.

and look ahead towards the dolphins

Was not the most exciting game in the world, and it looks like you guys are taking it with a grain of salt and just the appropriate amount of bitterness. Maybe we’ll see you folks again in the playoffs. Just wanted to drop in and compliment you on handling the loss with class. Enjoy your season.