All or Nothing
Pass or Fail
Right or Wrong
Good or Bad
Pass or Punt
Get it?
Good.
Gotta be honest, it's just nice to have Football to complain about. With everything else going on these days, it served it's purpose as a distraction from all the other news - unless you chose to not ignore the politics that are being brought into it. That's the first and the most important positive to extract from it.
The first quarter may have proved to be an aberration but the way that the offense dissected GB's defense was tantalizing. And it was by far the best part of the game by the Purple's defense.
Beyond that, Adam Thielen was his usual self. The closest thing to a negative from him that I can recall was him not being able to prevent the interception, but we'll get to that in the next section. Suffice it to say that that wasn't on him. As the undisputed leader of the group, it was a statement in production by 19.
It was entirely because of the situation but maybe, JUST MAYBE the success that the team had with 2-point conversions today will lead to them trying them more than they have over the years, even with a kicker as dependable as Dan Bailey. I won't hold my breath but that was also firmly a positive today!
Oh where to begin...
The big money guy, how about that. Cousins has had worse performances but not significantly worse. The apologists will point to offensive line struggles to partially excuse Cousins flat performance. It's not that they're wrong but the o-line only gave up two sacks to a group that will have many better days than that so let's not pin all the blame on them unnecessarily. The best parts of the day from Cousins came when they were playing fast. Which means that the coaches are as much on the hook for the way the game went as the QB. With such old guys in charge, it's hard to be optimistic that they'll let him call audibles, run no-huddle or generally just play fast, except for times when the hole is as deep as today's was.
That's a problem. A huge problem, in fact.
But it goes back to the fact that the stated identity of the offense is only kinda/sorta how the whole thing has been constructed. There's just been a backwards nature to things for a while and maybe it'll finally get sorted out. But again, won't be holding the co2 in.
One of my initial thoughts after the trade for YN was the resemblance to bringing Sheldon Richardson in. Without Hunter or Griffen the d-line could be even worse this year than that one was. I know it's only one game but it was one of the four most important ones and the young rusher was MIA on the field.
And as I alluded to in the "pass" zone, the throw that Jaire Alexander intercepted could have easily come from any number of scrub quarterbacks that have haunted these colors in recent years...NOT worth $100 million.
And then there were the Cornerbacks. Is it too late to return Mike Hughes to Central Florida for a refund? He wasn't even the worst one today but that dude just does not have it. They're young so it should get better, but this day it was awful!
Indianapolis could prove to be something of a cure-all next Sunday but unless the defense can tap into performances of old against Rivers, it may well be a 0-2 start... So yeah, it would be fantastic if there was a mulligan option and I could have gone to much better lengths to dig up negatives. Maybe I would have stumbled upon one or two indisputable positives that way too, but this is broad strokes reaction. The finer details in between good & bad are getting left on the cutting room floor.
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