Nice win, some positives but......

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:
Nice win! We certainly did not dominate as the score would indicate and got some breaks but a solid W vs a 6-4 Jaguars team (Del-Rio deserves Head coach of the year consideration for getting 6 wins out of what he has).

Well, we opened up being aggressive on offense and spreading our opponents out and we stayed with it. I like the fact Singletary is willing to listen to players and make changes but man it took him and Raye way to long to figure out that this spread formation and Alex Smith out of the shotgun is our best bet at moving the ball. Now, the Jaguars have no pass rush and it showed today and for the first time all year our QB had good protection consistantly throughout the game. I thought Raye called a nice game and had some nice designed plays. Even though we had a lot of shotgun and 3-4 WR sets, it kind of reminded me a little bit of the WCO, esspecially with the bootlegs in the endzone and a few 3 step drops. Remember, Raye did coach under Paul Hackett for 7 years (5 in KC and 2 with the Jets) and Hackett ran the WCO and learned it from Bill Walsh coaching under him in San Francisco (82-85). I think Raye has shown he can open it up and be a decent play caller and design some nice plays (loved the fake to Coffee with Smith rolling out and finding a wide open Vernon Davis). I also liked the fact Manusky was more aggressive with the defense today. Patrick Willis blitzing up the middle is almost unstoppable. Still, The Jags did move the ball on us, we really have a big hole at safety, our safeties do not play the ball well at all and our cornerbacks have been shaky since Nate Clements went down. It was nice to have Takeo Spikes back today. He is solid as a rock and is great at snuffing out those screens.


Quick thoughts:

Alex Smith: Played pretty darn well and consistant for four quarters. See what happens when he gets good protection and a chance to make some plays.

Delaine Walker: Been saying this for two years, get Delaine Walker involved more! Everytime he touches the football he seems to get a first down. Just a very good football player.

Vernon Davis: Best all-around tight end in the NFL.

Michael Crabtree: Made two real nice catches but also dropped two balls. Kid is the real deal, you see the Jaguars double and triple teamming him? On his big reception there was 3 guys around him and he managed to break free and make a catch inside the 20. He is the real deal.

Josh Morgan: Very solid game from him.

O-Line: Still can't run block for crap but did a real nice job pass blocking, granted they were facing a unit that had the least amount of sacks in the NFL and whose DE's have no business starting in the NFL.

Frank Gore: Even though he did not have success running the ball still was a factor in the receiving game and continues to be a great blocker and security blanket in pass proection.


Defense: Like I said they played well but they got some breaks and did cause some turnovers but lets not hide the fact David Gerrard threw for nearly 300yds against us and thats with the Jaguars having sub-par WR's. We did do a nice job containing Jones-Drew but we have a big hole in our secondary. Our safeties really struggle playing the ball and we are getting beat over the middle of the field and Shawntae Spencer has been slumping the last few games. It seemed like Tarrell Brown played the whole game even though he was supposed to benched for Dre Bly? Brown really is weak and a liability vs the run. We miss Nate Clements a lot! Justin Smith had a nice game and finally got some hard deserved sacks. Manny Lawson made a heck of a play on his sack and to strip the ball. Parys Haralson...Wow, thank you for joining us, where have you been since week 1!?!? Takeo Spikes is more valuable than I thought he was and I appreciate him that much after the Green Bay game and this game. Patrick Willis is GREAT. Dashon Goldson is inconsistent. Balmer is starting to look like a player. Even D Briggs got on the field. I think Manusky is doing a good job with what he has but we have some big holes on our defense.


Solid win and I was happy to see Carolina lose and excited to see Arizona lose and I know Arizona plays Minnesota next Sunday night and then we got them at home for a Monday Nighter (I will be at that game) but lets no kid ourselves, we have a lot of holes and we matched up really well vs the Jaguars. Forget beating Arizona, Im not that confident going into Seattle. It will be much harder to run a shotgun spread type offense in that loud stadium and even though the Seahawks do not have a great pass rush, they do have a much better pass rush than Jacksonville and we just can't run the ball to save our lives and our defense is having big problems stopping the pass and I fear Hasselbeck-Housh-Carlson more than I do Gerrard-Sims-Walker-Holt.

So that being said, it was a nice win and it's good to see Sing and Raye smarten up and it's a step in the right direction but we are not doing any damage this year, I still we finish 8-8.

Remember that Crabtree dropped his TD pass in the endzone, so the score should have been at least 24 -3. A few more catches and it might have been 31-3. So we still have some improvements to complete on the offense.

Defense got some pressures and 6 sacks. That is awesome for our team. Looks like Haralson is starting to get some life. Also getting Brooks and Briggs out on the field will be helpful to see what they can do. Lawson getting a sack on his own was a good sign as well. Seems like the Dline is steady and if Balmer develops we will have a solid Dline and all we need is our passrusher to be drafted, or Brooks and Briggs reveal that they are the real deal.

Lots of good signs, and I hope we play another total game next week and I hope that Minnesota wins against Arizona. That game will be a tight game on Monday. But at least we are playing for all of the marbles and we are not an afterthought. We have the potential to win all of the rest of our games. If we take care of business we will see if the West can be won.

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:
Even though I thought he played a very solid football game for 4 quarters, Alex Smith still has that dam "hitch" when he throws the ball. Mike Martz on the NFL network said a few weeks ago Smith has to get rid of that hitch if he is to become a good, consistant starting quarterback in the NFL.

F Mike Martz

Under the "but" portion of this thread, I noticed that the SD Chargers just announced signing Jon Runyon. Thoughts?

Originally posted by insanemike27:
I remember posting about getting Delanie Walker the ball more because of his yards per catch average and everyone was giving me crap about it. Now they finally start utilizing him and everyone thinks he is great. Yeah, I already knew he was a weapon.

and you are......

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:
Nice win! We certainly did not dominate as the score would indicate and got some breaks but a solid W vs a 6-4 Jaguars team (Del-Rio deserves Head coach of the year consideration for getting 6 wins out of what he has).

Well, we opened up being aggressive on offense and spreading our opponents out and we stayed with it. I like the fact Singletary is willing to listen to players and make changes but man it took him and Raye way to long to figure out that this spread formation and Alex Smith out of the shotgun is our best bet at moving the ball. Now, the Jaguars have no pass rush and it showed today and for the first time all year our QB had good protection consistantly throughout the game. I thought Raye called a nice game and had some nice designed plays. Even though we had a lot of shotgun and 3-4 WR sets, it kind of reminded me a little bit of the WCO, esspecially with the bootlegs in the endzone and a few 3 step drops. Remember, Raye did coach under Paul Hackett for 7 years (5 in KC and 2 with the Jets) and Hackett ran the WCO and learned it from Bill Walsh coaching under him in San Francisco (82-85). I think Raye has shown he can open it up and be a decent play caller and design some nice plays (loved the fake to Coffee with Smith rolling out and finding a wide open Vernon Davis). I also liked the fact Manusky was more aggressive with the defense today. Patrick Willis blitzing up the middle is almost unstoppable. Still, The Jags did move the ball on us, we really have a big hole at safety, our safeties do not play the ball well at all and our cornerbacks have been shaky since Nate Clements went down. It was nice to have Takeo Spikes back today. He is solid as a rock and is great at snuffing out those screens.


Quick thoughts:

Alex Smith: Played pretty darn well and consistant for four quarters. See what happens when he gets good protection and a chance to make some plays.

Delaine Walker: Been saying this for two years, get Delaine Walker involved more! Everytime he touches the football he seems to get a first down. Just a very good football player.

Vernon Davis: Best all-around tight end in the NFL.

Michael Crabtree: Made two real nice catches but also dropped two balls. Kid is the real deal, you see the Jaguars double and triple teamming him? On his big reception there was 3 guys around him and he managed to break free and make a catch inside the 20. He is the real deal.

Josh Morgan: Very solid game from him.

O-Line: Still can't run block for crap but did a real nice job pass blocking, granted they were facing a unit that had the least amount of sacks in the NFL and whose DE's have no business starting in the NFL.

Frank Gore: Even though he did not have success running the ball still was a factor in the receiving game and continues to be a great blocker and security blanket in pass proection.


Defense: Like I said they played well but they got some breaks and did cause some turnovers but lets not hide the fact David Gerrard threw for nearly 300yds against us and thats with the Jaguars having sub-par WR's. We did do a nice job containing Jones-Drew but we have a big hole in our secondary. Our safeties really struggle playing the ball and we are getting beat over the middle of the field and Shawntae Spencer has been slumping the last few games. It seemed like Tarrell Brown played the whole game even though he was supposed to benched for Dre Bly? Brown really is weak and a liability vs the run. We miss Nate Clements a lot! Justin Smith had a nice game and finally got some hard deserved sacks. Manny Lawson made a heck of a play on his sack and to strip the ball. Parys Haralson...Wow, thank you for joining us, where have you been since week 1!?!? Takeo Spikes is more valuable than I thought he was and I appreciate him that much after the Green Bay game and this game. Patrick Willis is GREAT. Dashon Goldson is inconsistent. Balmer is starting to look like a player. Even D Briggs got on the field. I think Manusky is doing a good job with what he has but we have some big holes on our defense.


I only have a minor point to make about the 300 yard argument that seems to keep popping up in the zone. 50% of the time or more when quarterbacks throw for 300 yards it is in a losing effort, so it is basically a meaningless statistic.
Other than that I think it was a great post.

Originally posted by PatrickJira411:
Even though I thought he played a very solid football game for 4 quarters, Alex Smith still has that dam "hitch" when he throws the ball. Mike Martz on the NFL network said a few weeks ago Smith has to get rid of that hitch if he is to become a good, consistant starting quarterback in the NFL.

Yeah the same Martz who said JTO was the best QB he's ever coached.

I like how we didn't give up a sack or turn the ball over. I think more than anything that is what contributed to the win.

That being said I hope we can eliminate those 2-3 throws a game that get tipped or battled around and then fall off the finger tips of the other team to become just near interceptions.

Originally posted by excelsior:
Under the "but" portion of this thread, I noticed that the SD Chargers just announced signing Jon Runyon. Thoughts?

I thought he was running for office in New Jersey

Yes, there were some very positive signs in this game and I certainly feel a bit better about Smith, but let's temper our excitment a bit and realize who we just played. The Jags six wins coming in to today's game:

Houston 31-24
Tennessee when they were downright awful
Rams 23-20
Kansas City 24-21
NY Jets 24-22
Buffalo 18-15

They also lost to Seattle 41-0 and Tennesse 13-30.

Jags are struggling to find serviceable CB's on the waive wire and starting two rookie OT's.

Finally, it seems, reality about a suitable offense has sunk in. Not a Sing/Raye fan, but they have grudgingly switched over to what is working and they should get credit for that because you know they really didn't want to change.

It is pretty clear that the passing game is the team's best offensive asset, by far, with several excellent receivers, at least one adequate passer and an OL that is best suited for it. It is ironic that the coaches really don't like the passing game and were hoping to reduce its importance to the team.

I didn't like that they shut it down in the second half. A good team would have taken advantage of that. Their conservative approach is always going to be a problem, not an asset.

Screw the "buts", asterisks, qualifiers, the team won. Our team won. They beat a team with a better record than them.

It was nice to see them put their opponent into a bind by jumping up on them early and making the Jags easier to defend. That's how they used to do it back in the 80's and 90's

Alex haters can suck rocks this week he won the game with his arm today.

Glad we won and that the coaches opened up the offense. We run that O and we'll be in every game the rest of the way.

Today's win coupled with Arizona's loss potentially sets up a big showdown vs. AZ on MNF. Minnesota probably beats Zona next week. Seattle is probably better than their record indicates and Qwest is always a tough place to play. Still, we beat them earlier while running the Hill/vanilla O. If we can execute on O and get a consistent pass rush, we should beat Seattle. Then we have a must-win vs. AZ on MNF.

Originally posted by King49er:

Originally posted by insanemike27:
I remember posting about getting Delanie Walker the ball more because of his yards per catch average and everyone was giving me crap about it. Now they finally start utilizing him and everyone thinks he is great. Yeah, I already knew he was a weapon.

and you are......

Yeah Mike... for a D-Love homer (one that has been with the Zone for less than a year) you sure aren't going back that far.

Many Zoners have been on D-Love's jock since his infamous stiff arm returning a kickoff in a preseason game during his rookie year. You're a little late to the party IMO.

Originally posted by merm49:
Still, we beat them earlier while running the Hill/vanilla O.

You mean the "Vanhilla Offense"?

Nah, I still love you, Shaun Hill

What I like best about playing Seattle, Gore always seems to have a very big game.