Hey, the sun did rise this morning!

[freddyg12]

Why has NO ONE (on comcast or other media & the warpath - correct me if I'm wrong) mentioned that the poor play came after a tough week w/Buges' daughter & Gene Upshaw passing away on thursday?

Team can get blown out simply cause they're flat. Seems that aside from a few guys that had reason to play hard, the team spirit was not there. I'd rather see them flat in a preseason game.

I certainly am not discounting all those here that pointed out the problems w/the O, I am troubled by it as well. But one play stands out to me as an example of how this game might be a huge anomaly, Samuels getting bull rushed by Peppers. Sure Peppers can beat him in any game, but he's not likely to do it that way. Plays like that happen when you're not focused; Samuels didn't get low enough & allowed him to gain leverage. He's an all-pro tackle yet he had a bad game too. I think that play summed up the whole night.

JWSleep makes a good point, if Betts doesn't fumble that ball we were on a drive & only down 6-0. Even though carolina had dominated to that point they only had 6 points. If we'd have been able to finish that drive, the night might've gone differently. In a preseason game though, it's easy to see why the D would lose its intensity after being on the field for so long.

[mheisig]

I know I'm not usually positive beacon of light around here, but I submit that this could actually be good for the team in the long run.

First, it's preseason. Yeah, we looked awful in every aspect of the game, yeah we got our asses handed to us by the Carolina Panthers for a full 60 minutes. But, in the grand scheme of things, come the first week of the regular season we're all back to 0-0. This doesn't hurt our chances of the playoffs or a Super Bowl.

Second, I think this could really beneficial if you think about it. We were 3-0, feeling good, thinking we're hot stuff and ready to take over the league. What happened last night was that a LOT of our weaknesses were exposed in a big way. We now have a nice punchlist of items to address in practice with respect to the weak defense and offense.

Sure, ideally we'd be so good that there wouldn't be any problems to even address. If any of you really think we're on the brink of an undefeated season culminating in a Super Bowl, we won't have any injuries and every game we play will be flawless, you're in for a bit of a shock.

I know it's the silver lining on a dark cloud, but at least our weaknesses were exposed and we can now work on them.

Someone once said something along the lines of, "Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from screwing things up."

Sometimes it takes failing in a big way to recognize what you need to work on to succeed. I'd much rather have this revelation the fourth game of the preseason than figure it out five games into the regular season when it's really hard to right the ship.