Recapping a nice win vs. The Jags

Outside of three plays–only THREE–things did not look good overall.

A long pass to Hill, another to Waddle, and a great game-saving forced fumble by Holland come to mind as really great plays.

There were other positives of course, but not enough stellar efforts that I wanted to see.

Actually the defense did well. It didn’t feel like it at the time, but looking back, they got us the W. Only giving up 17 points–and Zero in the second half–is encouraging.

On the Jags first TD, they started back deep. They hit a long running play on a broken assignment, then a few plays later, they had a long PI penalty on Ramsey in the end zone. Those two Dolphin mistakes accounted for the majority of that “drive.” The Jags did not run the ball down out throat or dominate, they simply took advantage of a few mistakes. So that’s a good thing. Our new D held up well.

The offense gave me a feeling of last December. Even though our starting line was in there, in felt uneasy. It felt like the same ragtag group of third stringers who were in there last winter.

Mike McDaniel did nothing to show me that he improved since last year. Starting last December, opponents figured out our offense. Take away the short strikes, and we’re doomed. That is EXACTLY what the Jags did. We looked lost. Outside of two long bombs, we couldn’t move the ball well.

The Jags diagnosed our screen passes well before the snap. They flooded the box when they knew we were running it. All of this occurred without McDaniel changing things up, just like in our December collapse.

Running Mostert up the middle on every first down wasn’t working, yet McD stuck with it anyway. And our tight ends were the biggest disappointment!! I hate to be right, but I’ve been saying for months that we wasted money on Jonnu Smith because McD doesn’t know how to utilize a tight end. Never uses them, never will.

Well, I was wrong. He did utilize the tight ends, and they all sucked. Smith dropped two passes and had a penalty. Durham Smythe dropped three and had a penalty. We have the worst TE corps in the business, and it showed.

I’ll give McD credit for using Jeff Wilson and Ingold on the final drive. Those guys–not Mostert–picked up huge first downs to get us into FG range. I wouldn’t say that McD “benched” Mostert, but I give him credit for recognizing that Mostert wasn’t getting the job done earlier, so why not give a fresh Wilson a chance to run at them. It worked perfectly, and I applaud McD for that personnel decision.