Well we weren’t and aren’t going to win many games score 18 pts average a game either.
Going into this season I believed the onus was on our offense. They would have to carry the team because of our defense. We did just that in the first half of the season.
The big thing now is why this offense TOTALLY crapped the bed.
Why did the offense crap the bed? I don’t see that as a difficult question to answer:
1. Lost Hopkins in game 7. With Hop, we were 7-0. Without him, we went 4-6. Moore missed 4-5 games. In the supposed lead role, Green dropped passes & was useless at times. Kirk went invisible & dropped passes at the most critical time. Ertz was good, but I don‘t believe he ever had a full grasp of the offense. You cannot lose one of the top receivers in the NFL, have NO ONE step up in his absence, and not expect the offense to have a significant drop off.
2. The OL was musical chairs the ENTIRE season. Hudson was very good, but he missed 4-5 games. Pretty sure we lost almost every game he was out. DJ was average at best. Probably his worst season. Pugh was always hurt, Garcia was pathetic when he had to fill in for Hudson. And the RG position was horrible all season.
3. After the first Rams game that we won, our RB group was never healthy again. I like Edmonds, but his body breaks down EVERY year. Our running game was only a threat when both Conners & Edmonds were BOTH healthy. So after week 4, Conners & Edmonds too turns being out. Last year, outside of Murray’s legs, we had no ability to convert 3rd & 4th down short yardage situations. Well, we had the same problem this year the last 6 weeks of the season.
4. As critical as some on this board have been of Murray of late, the kid still had some great numbers considering he missed 3 games & lost his ONLY real receiver in game 8. Hop had 8 touchdowns in 7 games.
Threw for 3800 yards
Completed 69.2% of his passes
Averaged 301 yards passing per game.
24 touchdown passes & 10 int
Ran for 425 yards & 5 touchdowns
Sacked 31 times
Passer rating over 100
And let’s not forget what a crap defense does to an offense. When Watt was healthy, our D definitely put our offense in short field situation. Once our D stopped creating turnovers, and it was awful the last 6 weeks of the season, our crippled offense had nothing but long fields to deal with. As teams ran through us, even when we stopped a team from scoring, they were still punting from midfield & leaving our O to start inside our own 10. In that dreadful 1st half against the Rams, we had 3 drives start inside our 5. If our D even remotely resembled what we saw with the Niners yesterday, we could have stayed in that game & flipped field position.
