On Blache

[GusFrerotte]

Originally Posted by Joe Kidd

I'm not sure Blache is a big issue. The D was disappointing today but at the end of the day they gave up 17 points, a good offense should have been able to drop at least 28 on the Bengals today. Our offense has been slacking for years now and the D is the only thing that has kept us from being a total disaster.

I have seen this phenomena before(defense starting to breakdown late in the season due to lack of an offense). It was 1987 and my uncle's last stint as the Buckeye HC in Columbus. He lost Nate Harris, his starting flanker to flunking out, and was compelled to kick Chris Carter off the team for taking that agent's money and continuously lying about it to both my uncle and OSU AD Rick Bay. The defense lead by Chris Spielman was stellar, keeping the anemic Buckeye offense in game after game til they played Lorenzo White and MSU. The Spartans kicked their ass, and the D fell apart after that for the next few games giving up lots of points to the likes of Wisconsin and Iowa. Sad thing was the offense finally got their act together, but the D gave up more points than they could score. Thing is our D is very good, but it is not a killer D like the Ravens or Pittsburgh. You put enough pressure on a D that is only very good and they will break eventually if they are the ones keeping the team afloat. In short, I don't think you can heap too much blame on Blache for what he has to work with.