No Thompson, no Crowder, no Kelley, no Quinn (for heaven's sake), no Trent, no Lavauo, no Sherff, no Richardson ... with all the pieces in place, the offense had pace, precision, even a little dynamism. Down half the starting lineup we're fighting with one arm tied behind our backs.
OK, so let's take a look at the injury bug that has hit us again...many of those players are the same as last year.
Chris Thompson - oft injured, gets things done, Kapri Bibbs has very similar numbers except the first 2 games of the season against the Cardinals where Thompson rushed for 65 yards, and the Colts game where he caught 13 passes. Bibbs is not Thompson, but has filled in well, same number of TD's in same amount of play time. Definite effect on our offense with his absence. How much? I say not nearly as much as you guys suggest since we're getting so much production from our starting RB.
Crowder, I think we saw last year, w/out a
#1 or even a
#2 WR to keep some of the pressure off him he has trouble getting open. With that said, Harris has stepped up. Little to no effect on the performance of our offense. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if he's not even a Redskins' WR next year.
Richardson - really? Dude had a couple nice catches, but wreaks of bust. He never did anything here, why should this be another "critical injury"? No effect. It's made Doctson step up, and he's got better numbers than Richardson did.
Trent, Lavauo, and Scherff - OK, Scherff and Trent = no bueno, but the offense sputtered with them in there. Lavauo - his replacement did more in one game to suggest he is better.
I will go further on the OL...Except for a couple of mistakes, which you'd expect from a rag tag group, that OL played very well with our 3/5 of the starters out. While not a "push", this is not a major factor in the poor performance of our offense. That line did more than enough to give Smith a chance at success.
Kelley - Yeah, that injury gave us Peterson, so...I'm not so sure that injury should even be mentioned.
Quinn - This is another one of those, this guy could be the sleeper we've been looking for for years, based on a solid pre-season, but we really don't know. Guys...he has not proven anything in the NFL and we're calling this injury a factor in the offense's woes? I will go so far as to suggest the Cam Simms is a bigger absence on offense than Quinn.
Yes, there is going to be an effect when the starters on your team go down, and we've had a lot of injuries, but they have not been nearly as effective as they were last year yet Kirk still commanded that offense, and threw for over 4k yards, 27 TD's. Yes there were a lot of INT's, but I chalk that up to him trying too hard because he had nothing to work with. He is on pace to have more TD's and less INT's this year in MN.
As Ax always says, next man up. This year, in most cases, the next man has stepped up. I will state the injuries from last year had a major effect, probably 2 wins more? This year? I do not believe the injury bug is nearly as hurtful...we simply have a QB who is not as good at making things happen with his play/leadership.