Rugby Saint II

.500??? We suck! Lol

mutineer10

Hey, we're 5-5. Best we can do is win the games in front of us, the rest will have to take care of itself. Things seem to be falling into place, we just gotta hope it's not too late!

Vrillon82

I fear some of those earlier games like Washington and KC hurt us.

Hartley is the reason we 5-5 and not 7-3 right now.

D_it_up

And our piss poor defense and horrible running game those first four had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Crusader

You sir are correct! The great Bill Parcells always expected 7 points for every 100yds gained. 400yds of offence and 100 return yards would be 5 scores in his book. Our D isn't letting people do that right now and that is the difference between our 4 first games and our 4 last.

burningmetal

The difference is we've been more aggressive on defense. That creates more pressure and more turnovers. If we had a dominant pass rush, we'd have a dominant D. But we don't, so right now we're getting just enough, and that's cool considering where we were. But all you guys talking about stats not mattering is kind of understating what's really happening. Giving up a lot of yards will more often than not lead to giving up a ton of points. We can't simply rely on turnovers all the time, so let's not act like all the missed tackles aren't a problem.

I'm simply happy that the defense is competent, lately, so don't misunderstand this to mean that I don't think we should be happy about the improvement. But I'm not kissing any butts about it. It was apparent early on that these players weren't going to work in spags' system, and we'd have to go back to blitzing everyone in order to at least create the possibility for turnovers. So far, it's working. And so far that's all that matters, but I wouldn't mind seeing a few more three and outs.

Oh, and people are also forgetting that our revived running game is keeping the defense off the field. In '09 and last year, we finished 4th and 6th in rushing. Both seasons we won 13 games (not including the playoffs) despite having defenses that finished ranked 25th and 24th in those years. In '10 we couldn't run, and though we managed 11 wins, it was very ugly, and then of course we suffered the most embarrassing opening round loss in League history. This year we were 2-5 at the point where we finally started running, and have now won 3 straight. We also created a lot of turnovers in '09, but you see the dropoff in that department when we're not eating clock and keeping those guys fresh. Just some food for thought.

They don't call it a team game for nothing. It's been a good collective turnaround.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

Jamessr

I'm by no means a Hartley fan but its pretty ignorant to pin 2 loses solely on him...

TheOak

TWO? You should go back...

Budsdrinker

The loss to KC can be attributed to replacement refs. PT's TD should have never been overturned and Pierra said as much during the game. We did not score on that drive after the overturned TD after Hartley missed the FG which gave life and momentum swing to KC. Just another thing to look back on and say what if!

Budsdrinker

How do you figure that? The only potential game winning FG was against Green Bay and he made the first one, it was David Thomas who held to take it off of the board. He is just as much to blame or Sproles for dropping the 3rd down pass. It's not all on Hartley.