Winning Ugly

[Schneed10]

Gibbs likes to say that the only thing that the past gets you is relationships and memories. That's so true.

The Dallas game, while great and fresh in our minds, is now in the past. You're only as good as your next game in the NFL. It's for that reason that I can't discount the need to limit turnovers, limit mistakes, and make good play-calls for 60 minutes, despite the fact that we overcame our deficiencies with heart and fight and a never-say-die attitude.

The thing is, if I told you that we were going to turn the ball over 2 more times than the Seahawks on Oct 2, that we'd get penalized for 50 yards more than the Seahawks, that Portis would rush for 60 yards, and that Brunell would get sacked 5 times; my guess is you wouldn't like our chances at winning very much. And that's the point. Heart and fight are great, and I agree that they can get you over the hump, and pull games out that you have no business winning. But we've got to improve our chances at winning games, because we can't expect heart to bail us out all season long. Can we really expect Brunell and Moss to connect twice like that in the last 5 minutes again?

To improve our chances at winning against the Seahawks, we need to limit turnovers, limit sacks, establish Ports, and throw aggressively downfield. Of course, heart can play a role in doing that. You gotta have heart to want to get better. You have to stay hungry. If you want to continue to find ways to win games, you have to continue to find ways to get better. And that takes heart and work ethic, plus smarts.

Without the will we won't go anywhere. But the stats don't lie, your chances of winning after playing like we did for 55 minutes are not very good. We have to get better.