I think Whis is really on the hook for this L as much as any one individual can be. It's been 19 games and I'm still waiting for the smart, tough, disciplined Cardinals team that Whis promised me would be taking the field under his leadership. That should not only apply to the players but the coaches as well. We're tough, but we're not anywhere close to smart or disciplined and considering that was HIS mantra from the get go and he has failed to live up to it, he deserves to be called out for it.
Punting on 4th down was dumb and we know and have been over but one other thing I didn't like in particular Sunday that hasn't been talked about much was Whis winning the coin toss and again deferring to the 2nd half. Here's why:
There was a quote from Whis a few weeks ago where he said kind of with a smile on his face that if we win the toss we aren't just automatically going to defer every time- which IMO was coach speak that basically meant every time we do win the toss he is going to defer. I don't have a problem with that in itself HOWEVER, all week leading up to this road trip and game Whis preached getting off to a fast start. He even said one of the main reasons he was going to stay out on the east coast was to avoid the slow starts we typically had when we have to play away from home and particularly on the east coast. So we win the toss and a key objective to the game was to get off to a fast start. What does Whis do? He defers and then watches as WAS promptly drives the length of the field for a TD and we are once again behind the 8-ball right off the bat on the road.
If Whis was so keen on getting off to a fast start wouldn't it have made much more sense to not hesitate to put the ball in the hands of the guy that had the perfect rating and the two guys that posted 150+ receiving yardage days a week ago?? If for no other reason just do it to see if you maybe can parlay last week's magic into that fast start he harped on so much all week.
To take it even a step further- then at the end of the 1st half you know you are going to get that ball to start the 2nd half. We stop WAS on 3rd down just after the 2 min warning and we have a timeout yet Whis just lets the clock tick down as WAS brings out the punt team and runs the play clock down to 1 sec before they call a timeout. (Which by the way was dumb on their part because if they were going to let the game clock run and get the play clock down to 1 and call timeout anyway why not bring the offense out and try a hard count but whatever) Brooks booms an almost 60 yarder and we get yet another ST penalty and we at that point basically have no choice but to run the clock out and go into the half. After a WAS timeout and picking up a 1st running the ball he decides to let Warner air it out with about 30 secs left. Had he called the time out after we stopped them on 3rd down we could have saved ourselves a lot of time to make a legit effort to put points on the board before the half and then get the ball back to start the 2nd. I guess my point is Whis was way too passive with his game management and it cost us.
Punting on 4th down was dumb and we know and have been over but one other thing I didn't like in particular Sunday that hasn't been talked about much was Whis winning the coin toss and again deferring to the 2nd half. Here's why:
There was a quote from Whis a few weeks ago where he said kind of with a smile on his face that if we win the toss we aren't just automatically going to defer every time- which IMO was coach speak that basically meant every time we do win the toss he is going to defer. I don't have a problem with that in itself HOWEVER, all week leading up to this road trip and game Whis preached getting off to a fast start. He even said one of the main reasons he was going to stay out on the east coast was to avoid the slow starts we typically had when we have to play away from home and particularly on the east coast. So we win the toss and a key objective to the game was to get off to a fast start. What does Whis do? He defers and then watches as WAS promptly drives the length of the field for a TD and we are once again behind the 8-ball right off the bat on the road.
If Whis was so keen on getting off to a fast start wouldn't it have made much more sense to not hesitate to put the ball in the hands of the guy that had the perfect rating and the two guys that posted 150+ receiving yardage days a week ago?? If for no other reason just do it to see if you maybe can parlay last week's magic into that fast start he harped on so much all week.
To take it even a step further- then at the end of the 1st half you know you are going to get that ball to start the 2nd half. We stop WAS on 3rd down just after the 2 min warning and we have a timeout yet Whis just lets the clock tick down as WAS brings out the punt team and runs the play clock down to 1 sec before they call a timeout. (Which by the way was dumb on their part because if they were going to let the game clock run and get the play clock down to 1 and call timeout anyway why not bring the offense out and try a hard count but whatever) Brooks booms an almost 60 yarder and we get yet another ST penalty and we at that point basically have no choice but to run the clock out and go into the half. After a WAS timeout and picking up a 1st running the ball he decides to let Warner air it out with about 30 secs left. Had he called the time out after we stopped them on 3rd down we could have saved ourselves a lot of time to make a legit effort to put points on the board before the half and then get the ball back to start the 2nd. I guess my point is Whis was way too passive with his game management and it cost us.
