[Bobbuttons]

My thoughts on game 1:

Let's look at the positives, and there were some. First, the running game looked pretty good considering they were up against one of the best run defenses in the league. They had some pretty good run blocking at times. The run defense was also solid for the most part. Much better than anticipated by most, I'd imagine, but I expected it to at least be a little bit better this year. They held the best running back in the league, with one of the best run blocking lines in the league to not a whole lot for 2 and a half quarters. Had the offensive kept the ball enough in the 2nd half to give the D a little rest from time to time, I think they could have kept Peterson to under 130 yards. Special teams, which started out very poorly, turned in TD and got a couple of punts inside the 20.

The bad....

The offense was pathetic. I don't blame Quinn. He threw a few bad passes, yes. He also had a number of passes that were dropped or off the hands of the receivers that should have been caught in the 2nd half. The O line has to do a better job of pass protection. We had the best success we've had in years with screens in the preseason, yet we ran a running back screen once in this game. Why? With Minnesota's blitzing, it would have been a smart way to counter it. Davis was in the game FAR too much. Why the hell was he in the game in the 3rd quarter on 3rd down and 8 inside the 50? He got whistled for a false start and put us in third and a mile. NO reason to not have a veteran in there on a definite passing down. The playcalling was horrible. And who in their right mind runs a wildcat play on 3rd and goal from the half yard line? You can't stretch that out, you have to power it through for a half yard. And, finally, there were WAY too many stupid penalties, like false starts. Those are bonehead plays that Mangini is going to really be ticked about and he needs to get this team out of those kinds of penalties.