The tale of 2 halfs..... (1 Viewer)

birdog

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Why did we fell behind by 21 points in the first half?

To me it was the inability of both our O, & D to manage the 1 st down plays....on offense, it looked to me that we were stuffed on 1st down plays, and many times ended up in 2nd & long, when we had to throw.......usually that throw was mostly unsuccessful, which ended up in 3rd & long. That is the hardest to make on a consistent basis.

But not only on offense we had problems on 1st down plays....on D that was even worse....our D was regularly giving up 5-6 yds on 1st down plays....followed by 2-3 yds on 2nd downs, and we had no choice stopping them on 3rd & 1 plays!

It took both sides to figure it out, and beginning in the 2nd half our 1st down performance drastically changed......we started moving the ball on 1st downs, and more time than not we made another 1st downs on our 2nd down plays. That was the biggest reason for our offense's success in the 2nd half.

Same goes for our D.....we started bringing more & more pressure on them on 1st down plays....their wildcat failed them on multiple occasions......once they had 3rd & long....they were toast!
 
Why did we fell behind by 21 points in the first half?

To me it was the inability of both our O, & D to manage the 1 st down plays....on offense, it looked to me that we were stuffed on 1st down plays, and many times ended up in 2nd & long, when we had to throw.......usually that throw was mostly unsuccessful, which ended up in 3rd & long. That is the hardest to make on a consistent basis.

But not only on offense we had problems on 1st down plays....on D that was even worse....our D was regularly giving up 5-6 yds on 1st down plays....followed by 2-3 yds on 2nd downs, and we had no choice stopping them on 3rd & 1 plays!

It took both sides to figure it out, and beginning in the 2nd half our 1st down performance drastically changed......we started moving the ball on 1st downs, and more time than not we made another 1st downs on our 2nd down plays. That was the biggest reason for our offense's success in the 2nd half.

Same goes for our D.....we started bringing more & more pressure on them on 1st down plays....their wildcat failed them on multiple occasions......once they had 3rd & long....they were toast!

Saints had 33 to 27 min TOP edge (the first game this season Miami has been out-possessioned). We had 22 first downs to 17 for Miami, and 1 more rushing yard (138-137). And after the first 20 minutes of the game, the wildcat was a non-factor (RW's long run was a conventional play).

The BIG thing this game was the Saints' ability to overcome a large deficit (3TDs) on the road and win.
 
these huge road wins are very telling of how much this team has matured.
Just a year ago I guarantee you we would have lost against the Bills and Dolphins and probably the Jets. Those AFC teams have had our number and play a tough hardnosed style of football with some truly awe inspiring defense. Got to hand it to them. But this year, we have prevailed and its largely because we are no longer finesse. We can BE finesse, but the beauty is that when that isnt working we can man up and punch teams in the mouth. This team is so versatile, so talented, and so well executed that Im honestly not one bit shocked that they have been so far undefeated. It hasnt been due to lucky breaks or fluke plays, so much as it has been straight up execution on both sides of the ball. We WON these games, we werent given them.
 

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