What a Jekyll and Hyde performance. Was good to see them continue to fight and give themselves a chance despite digging a huge hole for themselves.
Going back to my keys for the season:
Kicking game: It's crap. Narveson missed both of his field goal attempts. Can't say it cost them the game, but when you lose by 2 you also can't just dismiss the misses as not being the reason they lost. What is annoying is that he misses every one of them to the right. He's got some technical flaw and either RichB can't coach him to get it corrected, or Narveson just can't/won't make the needed corrections. They might just need to pull the plug on this guy.
Run defense: Was okay today. Jones had his moments but really wasn't a game changer running the ball at just over 4ypc.
Inexperience at QB: JLove was rusty at the start and seemed tentative with his throws. It was nice to see him turn that around and give his team a shot to win. For me the lone real black mark was the dumb pass with 6 min left. Just about as dumb as the one against SF in the playoffs. A total prayer, than harkens back to his college days when he'd make the occasional really ill advised throw when it's just not there. Overall a really positive game other than that.
There were some other things that stood out today. First off, they were getting little to no pressure just bringing 4 guys and Gary was at the top of the list in terms of being ineffective. Wish Hafley had brought a little more pressure earlier, but that's a gamble when you're a little thin in the secondary.
Second issue was the WR/TE drops. Wicks had a nice stat line but had at least 3 drops and maybe more. The thing is, even when he makes the catch, he's double clutching them and letting them into his body. Other than Heath everyone contibuted a drop, I think. There's also the Kraft fumble that hurt big time.
Lastly, the penalties just keep coming. Don't know the final numbers but suspect it was double digits again. The positive is that I believe there were fewer offensive holding penalties and I think Walker was clean for once, but I might have missed something while yelling obscenities at the TV in the first half.
