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Epigraph:  "Did anyone here, there,  or anywhere forsee this??? I mean THIS! Gawd, they are phenomenal!" 
Posted by RAM-BLE on 10/10

When Green went down and they hung in there, I thought we would have a nice season. I said 9-7 with the schedule.  At that time, I had no idea Warner would have THE BEST 4 GAMES IN NFL HISTORY! No one could have forseen that!

This week, though, yes I did see this coming. That O has been too good and the Whiners did not match up with us! Yes, I saw this as a comfortable win, very likely a blowout. During the game I was unbelievably calm. The whole time. When we scored early, I nodded and said to myself, "Yes, that is what I expected!" I kept saying "I am honestly not surprised at this!"

We are witnessing something of rare historic proportions. Long term, no one could honestly or realistically have said they could see its dimensions. Yet the essence of this outpouring of talent WAS visible. You could see it becoming special. But you just thought, well, it will take a year or two to come together fully. What is astonishing is the maturity of the thing. It has fallen together all at once, without growing pains.

The thing has been there to see, but its dimensions have been more than one could realistically consider plausible.

MISTAKES DON'T MATTER. Indeed, I think what is so amazing is the fact that we make so many mistakes and then just step over them as if they are nothing. We fiddled around some today and STILL blew them away. We CAN be much better. We made a TON of mistakes.   We made enough mistakes to lose!

Yet we won. BIG!

What is so unbelievably impressive about this team is that we are doing all this and we are not playing error-free games. Far from it. The mark of champion teams is to get up from a mistake and win anyway. Tim McDonald has quotations in today's PD about this--Sf priding itself on finding ways to win games even when they are close.

This O of ours is playing with an incredible arrogance. It makes mistakes and says, "So what? You can't touch us!"

THE DEFENSE: And it's the D, too! After Warner's INT, the D immediately came up with the stop! (They didn't get a chance after the fumble ---probably would have made a goal line stand!)

We have really improved on stopping the run.  SF caught us twice on sweeps for yards. The 3rd time we shut it down. Otherwise--nada! Very tough against the run.

In the zine, D.K. Cox said that Agnew is always good for one stuff of the run where he stands up the OG and makes a tackle at the LOS. I noted at least one of these, and I think there were more.

Yes, that D is VERY solid!

Some more points---

MLB. Fletcher is winning me over!  I had not SEEN the team since the BALT game. And Fletch stank in that one. Today [in the SF game], he showed me something. An ENTIRELY different intensity from the BALT game. He filled holes and stuck it in there really tough.

My favorite Fletcher play: SF ran a swing pass left. 2 Ram LBs were in the area, Fletch with inside/out pursuit. Fletch ACCELERATED incredibly, closing off the angle so fast the other LB (Collins?) couldn't get there. Fletch crowded the back out and off his line and the play gained like 1 yard. Fabulous play!

CBs. And we have four legitimate CBs! That is an enormous luxury, unheard of strength and depth. Along with a premier safety and other quality DBs, we have the personnel to play with the most challenging of today's formations.  I am convinced that multiple CBs is the key to the future in the NFL.  Not many teams have TWO good CBs. Very few have three. We have 4.

The offenses of the present and future are moving more and more toward multiple WRs who are threats. MN, St. Louis, Wash., SF, etc.--all can overwhelm a D with 2 or fewer CBs.

We have built the foundation for exactly the sort of D you need to deal with the modern offense. We essentially took away the outside against SF all day. All they could do was throw underneath. A few times a game, a really good pass O can put together enough throws underneath to score. But if this is all you can do, you cannot keep up with a potent offesnse like ours. And on many drives you eventually make a mistake. Furthermore, throwing into the middle is where more people are and more chance of interceptions. Hence Jones and Bly's interceptions.

If we are able to re-sign Lyght this year, we will have the formula for success for years to come!