The 700 Level - Home of the Ginger Jesus.

[Haffa]

The change in philosophy for the past 3 games has been a breath of fresh air. This team is finally accepting their identity as a run-first team and are running with it and things are starting to click everywhere. They are embracing this identity and seem to be accepting what they do best and working off of that.

Normally when this team falls behind, they abandon the run and go 4 verts nearly every snap.

Today? Stuck with the run and kept chipping away and grinding early on until the floodgates broke open after the defensive turnovers.

 

[Haffa]

The first qtr stuff is really weird, they're the worst offensive team in the league in the first two drives and they're 2nd over all after that

I'll take 10 play 52 yard drive resulting in a FG as progress. By the time we get to the superbowl it'll be a 90 yard bomb to open.

 

[nick87]

I'll take 10 play 52 yard drive resulting in a FG as progress. By the time we get to the superbowl it'll be a 90 yard bomb to open.

Of course we score points on our opening drive but its 40 seconds into the 2nd qtr because of some absurd 10 minute long drive to open the game
That's what i mean... its just weird haha

But yeah some progress at least... Eagles win and Dallas lost so at least my podcast feed is enjoyable this week

 

[Valheru]

I don't think it's a reach to say this was our best total performance since the 2022 NFC championship game.

As you guys mentioned we still didn't score in the first quarter but in this occassion it wasn't through lack of game plan or preparation. What we saw today from the offence is the best version of themselves and should be the game plan going forward. Run first with a top 5 RB behind an elite OT and open up the pass game behind that. Jalen went 16/20 today. That is the perfect amount of times to be throwing the ball. Some game situations will dictate we pass more at times but this should be the goal.

The defence continues to come along. They struggled a bit in the first half but crucially didn't give away big chunk plays and hung in there. They began to make plays in the 2nd half and I was particularly impressed by Cooper DeJean 4th down stop on Chase. It was refreshing to see the secondary anticipate a play and go for it opposed to waiting for it to develop in front of them. Even if Chase makes him miss there it's still a positive sign.

Sirriani has redeemed himself a little by starting out of the way the last 2 weeks. He needs to keep doing the things that work and stay the course and this team might go somewhere.

Big picture time....

I think we are the 2nd best team in the NFC behind Detroit as of right now. SF look battered and I would back us when it matters against MIN and GB. In our division, Washington are no joke with Daniels leading the way and will give us a run all the way until week 18

Lol@Dallas

JAX and DAL the next two before a crunch clash at home on a short week against WAS. There is absolutely no reason to not be 7-2 going in to that one.

 

[Valheru]

The change in philosophy for the past 3 games has been a breath of fresh air. This team is finally accepting their identity as a run-first team and are running with it and things are starting to click everywhere. They are embracing this identity and seem to be accepting what they do best and working off of that.

Normally when this team falls behind, they abandon the run and go 4 verts nearly every snap.

Today? Stuck with the run and kept chipping away and grinding early on until the floodgates broke open after the defensive turnovers.

I think being able to trust the defence to make some plays has helped with that.

 

[nick87]

The key to the improvement of defence has imo been Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell
The young lads are making plays every week

With Mitchell, we get to have two cbs that the defence can rely on to play soundly man to man or in zone and DeJean is an extremely good slot player already, who is comfortable playing in space or coming down hill, he's a great weapon for Fangio to deploy

I think we have two... not just good NFL starters... but two pro bowl level talents in the back end.
Nakobe Dean and Zach Baun have also given us LB play that im not used to seeing.

Feeling good about the defence and how it's tracking and the offence has some issues that it's working its way though but the talent there should carry the day

Shout out to Fred Johnson today too, going one on one vs Hendricksen and he did the damn thing. Not a lot of OLs go as deep as ours. Stoutland is the best OL coaching in the league and it shows up every time we have to get a back up in and they just do their job at an NFL level when most teams cant even field a competent starting 5

 

[nick87]

I don't think it's a reach to say this was our best total performance since the 2022 NFC championship game.

100% agree. Really encouraging signs. Aside from all i said on the defence above, and the OL, the last few weeks have been really clean stuff from Hurts, coming off a run of turnovers that was not sustainable.

If we get this Hurts, and this defence continues to ascend... I am starting to think we might not embarass ourselves in the play off race at least.