I respect that POV but could not disagree more. Yeah - the defense crapped the bed. But the bottom line is, going back to what I said earlier, it takes a total team effort to beat good teams. The offense gave up points, turned the ball over, and failed to close the deal in key opportunities. I am not going to give them a pass.
I get that Boone, and I agree that the day we are a TOTAL team on both sides of the ball will be the day that we are something special again.
But personally I feel that to blame the Offense in anyway for last night's loss is wrong when you look at the big picture..
Every time a team steps on the field, any team at all.... they leave points on the table and have bad plays. No team ever pitches the complete game (to mix my metaphors!)
Put it this way... against the Vikings who had the number 5 ranked Defense in the league, our offense scored:
More points on them than any other opponent so far this season.
Scored more points in this game than in that win over the Raiders we all loved earlier in the year.
Indeed we scored out highest points total of the year so far
League AVERAGE points scored by teams is 22 points, so we exceeded the league average by 8 points.
Was it a pretty game? No. Did they leave points on the field? Yes, undoubtedly.
But only 2 teams in the league are averaging more than 30 points per game, so are we just being extremely harsh and critical putting blame on an offense that exceeded it's best output from the season so far and kept us in the game after the Defense undoubtedly messed the bed?
I'd love an offense that score 40+ every week but this isn't the 1991 Skins. This is the 2017 Skins and we aren't Championship ready yet. But in reality what we have is an Offense which is beset with injury and a work in progress in many areas. This week flattered to deceive as we had out O-line pretty much active, but I can't imagine any of them are close to 100%.
We're also throwing alot of shade at Kirk lately which is justified in the moment, but I don't think it is in the big picture. I feel like we judge in isolation sometimes without taking a view of what else is going on around the league.
The Viking game is a prime example.
This morning the world and it's wife is proclaiming Keenum the second coming... But lets take a look at his numbers.
He threw for 304 yards.... 100 of which came of 2 throws, where our Secondary looked the worse it's been all season.
He was also passing from behind a generally healthy O-line .
He also had the help of a run game that generated over 100 yards.
And on top of that he threw 2 interceptions.
It was, IMHO, our Defense that made him look good, not vice versa.
On the flip side Kirk had to play one of the top Defenses in the league, that looked like it.
Behind an O-line that might be back, but I'd wager is still a long way from 100%
Pryor disappeared totally, Doctson fell over, Reed and Niles are broken and his two best targets are a guy just off the practice squad and a guy who we'd all written off as the worst WR on the roster six months ago.
Plus our running game is spotty at best and doesn't scare anyone even when Kelly is healthy.
For me it's all a matter of perspective.
Maybe it's an ethos that goes hand in hand with my F1 obsession. There are lots of great drivers capable of winning a championship, but sometimes they're not in the right car at the right time. Hamilton and Alonso are considered two of the best drivers in modern F1. Both are more than capable of raising a car beyond it's limits, but Alonso has been hamstrung this year by a truly terrible car with an engine down on power and prone to breakdowns. Meanwhile Hamilton has been sitting in one of the best cars in the field.
Now I'm not saying Kirk is a world champion, or the best QB in the league. But sometimes I think you need to look at what he's doing with what he has at his disposal. I have never seen a season for injuries across the board like this year. Never. The team is decimated and even when we get players back on the field you get the impression that we're getting them back out of necessity rather than because they're truly ready. We couldn't even dress a full team a couple of weeks ago.
LOL So that's my two cents.
Let's discuss!