1. For those trying to cancel the season, let's remind ourselves that we played like hell at Minnesota and Green Bay last year early on and didn't look like we belonged on the same field/were not prepared, etc. Plenty of you wanted to quit the season and fire the coaches after those games. It felt similar last night. Everything went wrong. Field position was awful. The OL was awful. Eli was mostly not great. Receivers not open. It sucked. Gameplan sucked. Just a lousy, lousy game. Next week will tell us how McAdoo and staff can bounce back after getting embarrassed, and how the players can bounce back and realize that 1 game won't define the season. That includes the OL. Whatever changes are made if any, there's no time to sit and cry about it...get better players in there and if we can't, we have to work around it somehow. That's up to the coaches. If we're rolling with the guys we have, coaches have to gameplan so that it doesn't look like garbage week in and week out. And yes, I get that some of you will say "well that's just the point - they aren't good!" Our line sucked in 2011 too. We won the Super Bowl.
2. This is exactly the same team that went on to have a good year, and if not for a few drops, would have had Green Bay on their heels in the playoffs. I'm not saying that because all of that happened last year, we need to feel comfortable. But we looked just as bad last night as we did at times last year, and the team worked it out. Next week will tell us how the "team" responds to adversity. We are 0-1 in the division and 0-1 on the season. It's happened plenty of times and it will happen again.
3. Kim is right that changes need to be made, but let's be careful about doing all of this after 1 game. It's the same OL that played well at the end of the season last year. So let's not act like football is played on a week to week basis and that every single roster decision is made in a vacuum. If we change the OL, and then those guys suck, maybe it's the system, or maybe it's Eli because there's plenty of QBs in the league that can make a bad OL look OK. Eli isn't one of them. Except for maybe 2011, which I discussed above. Next week will tell us that if after all this dust settles, we still put the same product out there, that yes, there are big big issues for this season.
4. Goodson shined. Not ready to proclaim that we have found our MLB and defensive leader of the future, but we might have. He's fearless out there and doesn't plan with reckless abandon. That was a positive. And yes, the tackles are somewhat overblown because the defense was out there for 3836 plays, but he made them. And he's around the ball on every play, similar to Collins. Let's hope he can grow into this role and be a leader deep into the year.
5. Offensive gameplan simply has to be more creative. It just has to be. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of the West coast system, but it just doesn't seem like we wanted to attack Dallas with any type of creativity. And to have as many weeks as we did for that, and for that result to come out, that's pretty awful. Let's see what the coaches can dial up next Monday night.
6. If we don't have Odell out there, it is literally akin to not having Jordan out there on the Bulls. It just makes an enormous difference and for those that might dismiss that or think that football is a team game - which it is - but can't realize the effect of not having arguably the game's best difference maker not on the field, we simply aren't going to win games against a very good team - and Dallas is a good team. Can we win games against average to below average teams without Odell? Yes, we can. But against Dallas, no. It might not change the entire offense, but it changes the gameplan and the threat and all of that. It just sucks. If you took every team's offensive superstar off the field, well, that team probably wouldn't look that great for 1 game either.
7. Shake it off and get ready for Detroit, because 0-2 heading into Philly could get ugly.
Engram was supposed to open the field for us, but he just ran 3 yard drags all game.
Mcaddo really just needs to stop calling plays. It didn't work last year and it already looks like its working this year
That said, my frustration is the lack of progress on offense. What I was hoping to see this season was the same (if not slightly better) defense PLUS a better offense. That combo would mean this team would really start to look like a real contender. My disappointment right now is that I don't see any signs of that offensive progression. It's only one game, but that one game is part of a lengthening resume of offensive ineptitude under the current regime. And if that's what we're going to get from the offense, I think our ceiling is basically exactly what we got last year.