My one not-so-random-thought
I've been saying for months that this offense has nothing resembling a legitimate drop back passing game and it was brutal today. Saying this usually just gets me labeled as a "Bevell hater" but all year long this team has lacked ability to drop and throw, and I think its the biggest problem facing this team going into the play offs. When was the last time you saw Russ just take the snap, make his drop, and find an open receiver - let alone one between the hashes? His numbers are a bit skewed in his favor because he's so damn good at scrambling and finding open guys, because we rarely see him find someone open quickly.
I've long thought Bevell has not put together a good drop back package and struggles mightily against good blitzing teams. Today we saw both of those bite the Hawks in the ass. IMO, there's a total lack of creativity we saw at the end of last year, and a REALLY poor blitz package. We struggle to move the ball against "tough" teams that punch us in the jaw and come after us. If you go back to week 1, and look at, Houston, STL, TB, SF, now Arizona, they all gave us fits in a similar manner. Fortunately, we were able to make a few big plays to get things turned into our favor against Houston and TB.
I think it's safe to say there's a blueprint out there to at least give our offense a lot of trouble. Our receivers aren't as good as we'd like to think when it comes to route running, and so far Russ isn't quite the passer that can "throw guys open." I hate that I have to qualify that statement by saying I love the kid and everything he does for this team, but right now that's my take on things as it has been all year. we're finally playing some better teams now though, instead of teams like Houston, TB and STL that weren't quite sure how to win games at that point in the season. The rest of the season is going to get a hell of a lot tougher than it was when we could come back against teams, so hopefully we see some creativity and not just "This is what we do on offense" the rest of the year.
Queue the snarky replies.