Golden Nuggets: Dominated?

The Chargers simply beat us. Niners are not as good as that fine team. Big deal. Who thought they were? They also clearly wanted to win the game more. I think we were trying not to get hurt and look at certain players; we did both it would appear.
1. Niners had a good end of the season last year and appointed Sing as Coach and S. Hill was an important factor for this: Hill deserves Sing’s support to see what he can do; so what if A. Smith sits on the bench for a while. A third QB has been found.
2. If Crabtree signs soon and can contribute at all, the draft was high quality due to the finds of Davis, McKillop, Coffee, and Sheets. Pass rusher is absent still, Marvel Davis was a botched experiment. Pascoe and Boone are big but is big better? TE is not a critical need, but RT; but Boone was note drafted, so can’t be viewed as a bust.
3. Preseason put in the run offense. Defense emerged moved up a notch in my view, and has more depth. Brown and Spencer can come in if Clements is truly failing.
4. A tackle and pass rusher are likely to be added from the wires if good ones can be found. If not, that doesn’t make the team bad.
5. The best players were protected or hurt during preseason: Smiley, Bruce, Gore, Willis, etc.
6. The team needs to come together during the season, with the players who actually make the team. This will take four games or so.
7. Suitable progress has been made to be optimistic.

Especially since over the course of the game shwn Hill will need that chemistry when the relief receivers come in. Hill is absolutely right about the reps

Is because Norv was committed to calling as many running plays as possible to make the game move quickly. Smart really; why risk injuries in a final meaningless game when your team is established? Normally our side would do the same but we called mostly pass plays to see the rook. Again, makes sense but this helped lead to the TOP discrepancy in the 2nd half, when WRs I forgot were on the roster played a great deal and ran some wrong routes.

My larger question would be: had we dominated we’d be hearing about how it doesn’t matter cause it’s preseason and backups’ backups. So when it happens to us, why not say the same?

Cause it’s the preseason. It wouldn’t have mattered and we would be saying, “show me in the games that count.” I certainly didn’t expect them to dominate and would’ve been shocked had they. New O-coordinator dealing with a QB competition, rookie Qb in the 2nd half of all games, two starting linemen missing time and the best player missing half the games. No way you could dominate if you tried. Hell, even Indy’s preseason offense has looked rather plain and they have the same system and Manning.

Perhaps it all comes down to expectations. I expect an offense that plays better in the 2nd half of the season due to familiarity but may struggle a bit in the first two or three games. I expect a run first philosophy that has much fewer turnovers and a reduction of 15+ sacks from last year. I expect better TOP and at least a slight improvement in the redzone now that we can run down there. This may equate to an improvement of 2-3 pts per game average. That would advance us in the top half of the league. I look forward to seeing Hill for a full game as well as Gore; example, the hit from Merriman last night was due to Coffee missing his blitz pickup. That does not happen with Gore in the backfield. There are plays to be made and certainly will be once we’re game planning for teams and Raye uses his full playbook. Some patience is involved but the season is 16 games and I’m not expecting 13-3 this year.

“Because I tired of wondering what kind of team shows up for the season.” – I would imagine that we’re all there, more or less. And we’ll continue to be there until there’s a winning season, cause until that happens everything is hope and speculation. The difference between most winning teams and most losing teams in the NFL is not that great, but until you’re one of the winning teams it always feels like a bridge too far to cross. I’m hoping we cross it this year and expect to but I’ve been let down before (in this decade).