Greg - I really hate to say this, but it goes to show that D is more important than O. Chris has shown with his stats that our D rocks when defending against the pass. And pass > run (by far).

We may have a shot with our O continuing to be average and our D continuing to be dominant. It's a team game.

I love O and find watching good defensive battles as about exciting as watch 2 old men play frisbee, but to win games, D is the most important thing. With exceptions of course (like last year's Saints for example). But our D is elite. I don't think there's a question about it. Even with all our injuries we've sustained, we're shutting people down consistently.

So we may finish off this year well and still won't have the stats. That may happen.

"zombieslayer" wrote:

You're missing a HUGE one that's been the primary problem of our offense...3rd Down Conversions. Mike talks about it all the time. Aaron talks about it all the time. Greg and Donald have both mentioned it. I've noticed it every game we play. We're pathetic this year on 3rd downs.

We're converting only 35.1% of our 3rd downs which is good for 25th in the league this year. Last year we converted 47.0%, which was good for 3rd in the league. In 2008 we were at 44.2%, or 5th in the league. 2007: 42.6% or 8th in the league. In 2006 we were converting 39.2% and ranked 12th in the league. As you can see, the numbers on 3rd downs this year are PATHETIC for a McCarthy-coached team and our offense has only become more talented since 2006. There's no reason for us to be converting below 40% and if we can bring our season average past this mark, it will probably add at least a couple points to our scoring total per game.

"chrisbozzonerocks" wrote:

Zombie, we were in a lot of 3rd and long situations last year. We might have had more this year but I'm not sure we have. I also believe I heard during the jets game that we were one of the best this year in 3rd and 6+. If I heard correctly then the problem could be just how shit we've been in third and short. We have been awful in trying to run in short situations and it might be the biggest problem in our third down conversions. I'd like to see stats on this too but I don't have the time to look them up right now.

"mi_keys" wrote:

If I remember correctly, we were actually the BEST team in the NFL in 3rd and 6 +.

"tonyagnese" wrote: