Going into the bye week...

[The Don™]

1. The key is to get all of our guys healthy. This especially goes for Dunta, DeCoud, Spoon, and Ovie(which I didn't even realize that he went out in the first quarter and didn't return). I saw that Dunta was cleared to play today, but his knee didn't allow him to play. DeCoud was listed as questionable after he was evaluated, so he should be fine. Let's also hope that Spoon's knee and Ovie's hammy are gonna be good to go two weeks from today...

2. Another key is to keep working on the down field passing. I liked what I saw today from Mularkey's play calling, and the players executed too. The OL blocked fairly well whenever Ryan was looking to pass deep, and the WRs did what they had to do to catch the ball. I still would like to see more passes in the middle of the field...

3. A third key is to start getting Douglas involved in the pass game. Just from memory, I don't remember seeing Harry even thrown at today. We gotta use his speed to our advantage, and we gotta use him to take some heat off of White. We gotta use our weapons, but hey, Roddy had the hot hand today so I guess it's OK. But from now on, Harry's gotta get involved.

4. Going back to the first key, but focusing on Spoon and Dunta. IDK if you can tell, but I feel our defense is more up beat and has more swagger with Spoon in. I like what he brings to the table with his quickness off the edge and his overall speed. Also, he still hasn't shown his pass coverage skills yet. You can argue that he had the best pass coverage skills as a LB in this past draft. With Dunta, I feel that BVG and Smitty are a lot more comfortable blitzing with him in the game. We saw what happened to Chris Owens today, and I believe we missed Dunta. He also has that swagger and physicality to him that we all love.

[vel]

Good thoughts.

Think about this: So far we are only averaging one loss a quarter. If we continue this, we will end the season 12-4 and I think that would be good enough for 1st place in the NFC.

Also, I think Spoon should be fine as he would have had a month of rest bye our next game. Also, I think DeCoud and Ovie will be ok. We had the game in the bag when they went down (until the anomaly of a third quarter happened) so no point in putting them back in.

The BIG if that everybody on this board seems to worry about is DRob. Apparently he was cleared today (I didn't see it) but 3 weeks of rest will get him up to speed quickly as well.

And to all of those on the bandwagon of "Dunta is overpaid", you saw his impact today on defense with him missing. Period. Stop complaining. I wanted Owens to start over Grimes (yes I'll eat a little crow) but he is clearly not ready to be a full time L/RCB.

Mularkey called a GREAT game today and it was executed well by the players as well. Aired it out early and often against one of the better corner tandems (even though Joseph didn't play).

Even BVG called a good one. Before you harp on him about the unnecessary blitzing on that 3rd and 12 play that went for 64 yards, it was a great call, Moore just took an awful initial angle to the ball and the result was Shipley outrunning everybody. BVG had called that play earlier in the game and it worked so I wasn't mad about him calling it again.

All in all, outside of the rare 22-point third quarter, we played a great game. The 22 points came from: a FG, one of the only offensive drives they put together, an INT that led to the blitz breakdown, and a rare strip. It was basically their whole offensive output jammed into one qtr. No cause for panic.

Plenty are envious and wish they were 5-2 with a mid season bye and a home stretch coming up.

[The Don™]

The BIG if that everybody on this board seems to worry about is DRob. Apparently he was cleared today (I didn't see it) but 3 weeks of rest will get him up to speed quickly as well.

Dunta: Doesn't remember much about last week. Was cleared to play by ind. doc today, but his knee is not healthy enough to do so.

- Jay Adams tweet

There you go bro

[vel]

Dunta: Doesn't remember much about last week. Was cleared to play by ind. doc today, but his knee is not healthy enough to do so.

- Jay Adams tweet

There you go bro

Thanks. Had no clue his knee was injured. When did it happen? During "The Hit"?

CBS definitely didn't report it and I don't think ESPN (Pat Y.) posted it either.