The battle up front

[barefoot]

One thing has not been mentioned much in the "bad" category. Blocking, especially in the open field was horrible. The old saying "games are won or lost in the trenches" couldn't have been more true last night. WR's and TE's did a piss poor job sticking to their blocks. Our screen plays looked like they were practicing non contact drills. Dockery tried to cut a defender on a screen and fell to the ground a yard in front of him. Completely missed the block. The interior front line had a few break downs as well on some runs. The defensive line was not impressive at all. Their big guys just outplayed our big guys.

[SlobberKnockinFootball]

I'm surprised this thread isn't getting much play. You're 100% correct. Brunell never had anytime to sit back there and pick the defense apart like Brad Johnson had. Our O-line looks very shaky... and if someone tries to tell me one more time how much Dockery has improved I'm going to kick their ass. He flat out sucks, he's the weakest link in an already average line at best.

[Brave]

I thought the same. To me, both lines were outplayed.

I saw Samuels fall down in front of his man once, who then stepped over him and went on to pressure Brunell into a 3rd down incompletion.

Little things like this lose games, but you rarely hear about them like you do a bad call by the refs.

[pappy1271]

I don't think our D-Line did that bad a job against the run. They filled up the holes allowing the linebacker to come in and stuff the run. Vikings averaged 2.5 yds per carry longest being 10 yards. But where was Carter on pass plays? BJ had all day to pass and on a slightly depleted secondary. Vikings O-line did a teriffic job picking up our blitzes and handled our "studs" one on one with little to no problem. This cannot continue against Dallas or it will be a long night.