Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. You did well to read between the lines there ... ummmm ... no. I wasn't questioning Pierre Thomas, which I had hoped was indicated by the rest of the context around it. I was saying that based on the logic we have crucified Mark Ingram on, we should also hold up Pierre Thomas. And because I don't think Pierre is to blame, I was using that to demonstrate the real problem definitely lies with the O-line. Having said that, the stats do not lie, on the ground we are very poor indeed.

Look at those down-and-1 conversions. They were worrying. You should be able to plough through them and carry on but we were at 4th down far too many times.

We are definitely managing the clock very well but let's understand why we are doing that. That's largely because we are getting the opposition offence off the field so damn quickly. That is our defence doing that great work. And yes Brees throwing the ball about with so much accuracy obviously helps a great deal but I would rather see a balanced game and an improved running game.

Referring to the OP comment that we kept coming up short because of the running game, I blame the turf. That ground at Chicago is ass crap.


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Did you watch the same game I did? We were not at 4th and 1 because of our running game. We had at least 3 4th and 1s because Jimmy Graham caught the ball on the wrong side of the 1st down line.

Brees was throwing to Jimmy believing Jimmy could drag the pile a yard... he didn't.

What lecture is Jimmy getting today? Know where the damned first down is and dont turn around to catch it unless you are on top of it or past it.

We could have Adrien Peterson running for us gaining 7 YPC... If we are throwing to Jimmy Graham on 3rd down and he is a yard inside of the 1st down, catching and going down you end up with 4th -1 all day... Those has zero to do with our running game.