Week 7 Recap

25 Oct 2006


week 7 recap
Category: Sports

I woke up on Sunday expecting the worst. A few series' into the game, I witnessed our inability to convert third and twos and began to brace for the departure of our offensive cordinator. By halftime it seemed our morale was in the toilet and we smelled like an 8-8 team.

Then something happened. I dont know what was said but we came out of that locker room a different team. That fourth and one call was indeed "ballsey" as Chad put it. Those are the kinda plays that can be traced back to a succesful season. It also kept Bratkowski's job safe for another couple of weeks, and he knew that when he called that play. Had it not worked out, w'ed be talking about how well Ken Zampeze can fill in as o-cordinator for the reaminder of the season.

I'm proud of our youngsters and backups, particularly on defense. The most ideal of situation is occuring with our young players gaining valuable experience and the team winning while they do. I think back to those New England teams who were decimated by injuries but won Super Bowls none the less. Brooks, Peko, and Joseph will become familiar names to the NFL by the playoffs, and next season will make a few select veterans sweat for their jobs. It was good to have Dex back but or guy Kasevaharn still came through (granted that Delhomme should never have made that pass).

Whitworth deserves mentioning as well. He too could very well replace a starter next season in the form of Steinbach. He's big and seems to get better every week as well. I think right now he's a better run blocker but his pass protection doesn't seem like it will be a big problem in the future. We should draft a lineman in the first three rounds every year. Rudi did his thing in the second half and it's proof more than ever that the line makes the runner. You can have anybody as a RB but without a decent line he gets nowhere. It sounds simple, but GM's and coaches still dont always get it right.

Carson finally opened up a bit. He still doesn;t quite look all the way normal but that drive in the fourth felt a lot like last year. And how about the tight end play? We still need to draft one but the two average guys played very well. Tony Stewert getting better? I guess so.

I'm now 2-4 predicting Bengals games and I'm riding a four game losing streak. I'd say I'm more of a player evaluator than a score prognosticator but that's just me making excuses for myself. Dont bet on me.

Mojokong - swingin for the fences