I’d be mad about the game if I were surprised by the outcome, but I’m not. Anyone that’s been following Robert closely knows that he’s been sounding the alarm on this team since he began watching fall practice. Not that it’s a 3-9 type team, just that it’s likely going to be a big step back from last year.
Here’s a quick recap of the past few years and how we got here:
> Over the past 2 years, we went 19-7. That was powered by an 8-1 record in one score games. The quarterback that lead the game winning drives to achieve that record now plays for the Detroit Lions.
> After last year’s 9 win season, we lost our entire offensive line (except one guy, who was out for this game), our 3-year starter quarterback, our top receiver, our entire defensive line, and a few linebackers. Which meant coming into this season, we ranked 75th in the country in returning production (returning production is heavily correlated with record).
> We had an average defense last year. Ranked in the 40s. But Bret and the fans want to be better than average on that side of the ball. So he cut the coordinator loose and hired a new coordinator to bring in an all new scheme. Honestly, I didn’t like this decision at the time and I like it even less now (not the decision to fire Henry, that needed to be done, but the decision to hire Hauck). But that’s a not the point of this post.
> When you have all new players learning an all new scheme, you can expect growing pains. And again, last year’s defense was average, yet likely had better personnel, especially up front, than this year’s defense. So that should tell you what this year’s defense is going to look like. Can the 3-3-5 work long term? No idea. But it‘ll likely work better later when the players are thinking less and reacting faster.
> Obviously today was awful. But not entirely unexpected. Robert predicted we’d lose 30-28 and called it being a sloppy game. 17 new starters can have that affect.
> Final thoughts: Football is a game of the weakest links. You can have a great QB, receivers, offensive line, defensive backs, etc, etc, etc, but if you’re bad up front in defense, opposing coaches will key in on that and it breaks everything. Outside of cleaning up the mistakes and miscues, we absolutely need the funding next year to not have such obvious holes in a position group or two on the roster. 1-2 bad position groups can kill a whole team.
