Post#10 » by Wade-A-Holic » Mon Nov 23, 2009 5:25 pm
Was at the game again. Things that stuck out for me:
1. Jarret Bush is still terrible at everything he does, special teams included. Tramon Williams sucks at punt returns. Not only does he not fair catch the ball, but when it's bouncing backwards, he runs alongside it. He's been doing that all year and it's possibly the dumbest thing I've seen a player do on a consistent basis all season. One of those is going to take a funny bounce, hit him, and get recovered by the other team. The huge return we gave up in the 2nd half was a clear case of losing gap discipline. Just a really frustrating, correctable mistake that's been happening all season long. I don't think I've ever seen a punter mis-hit the ball as frequently as Kapinos does.
2. Our defensive line (Pickett, Jenkins, Jolly, and Raji) is really good. Not only were they stout but they all are smart, react well, and make plays. They sniffed out screens and got off blocks to stop the run effectively all day. You can really tell that Raji is getting healthy and it's helping us keep the other guys fresh.
3. When Kampman went out, it looked like Brad Jones and Poppinga got a 50-50 split on playing time. I hope most of that goes to Jones going forward.
4. The offensive line showed improvement for the second straight week. They even got out properly on a screen pass or two. What I'm afraid of now is other teams knowing that when BJ is in the game, there's a good chance a screen is coming. I don't trust McCarthy to mix it up enough when he's in there that opposing defenses won't expect it.
5. What value has Donald Lee added to this team this year? He had a drive-killing drop in the second half on third down and that was the only time he even showed up in the game.
6. That was the best I've seen Ryan Grant run since we took apart the Bears at home last season.
7. The 2nd half can be attributed to three things: McCarthy coaching not to lose, the offense not executing properly (they still have to execute the plays he calls), and the defense didn't seem as aggressive in general, although it was McCarthy's play-calling in the first half that got us that lead. It's good to see we're not running the West Coast ass-backwards anymore. Now we might actually see the deep ball open up a bit.
