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Week 6
Admirals @ Claymores 7 - 17
By: TonVFor an explanation of the shovel rating system, head here.
by TonV
Impressions
Ross has work ganging up on him again, so the weekly report has been put on my shoulders... Oh well, at least the report won't be as bad as the performance in Scotland. And boy oh boy was it bad. Bad bad bad. We must have used up our store of expressions for it. Mince, pants, horrible and awful cover it pretty well. Ah heck, on with a more detailed explanation of why we were bad.
The only play to get five shovels is by #71 o-liner Corey Hulsey. His punting of the 40 yard marker down the field looked quite impressive! Though I doubt he was able to appreciate it in his frustration.
Offense
80 yards total offense? Surely they meant 80 yards for the first half? Although even that would have been pretty bad. I'm not sure if this is a league record and I'm too scared that it is, to look it up. This day set a new standard for a 'one shovel performance'.
The worst part had to be the running. 2 yards combined by our running backs. There were no holes to run through, which can be blamed equally on the backs and the o-line and the brilliant performance of the Claymores d-line who just had a field day out there. Part of the blame has to go to the coaches too, for not giving up on the runs through the middle when it was painfully obvious they wouldn't work even we put that tank from the power party on the field.
Wynn was given a surprising amount of time to throw, one of the few not-so-horrible things (thanks to the o-line), but he looked very unsettled. Passes were overthrown repeatedly and when they arrived, the receiver dropped them. Two passes landed right on a defensive players numbers, which startled one of them so much, he couldn't hold on for the pick. Blame to be shared equally by Wynn and the receivers. One or two long passes were overthrown because the receiver had given up on them too early. The rest was Wynn firing too quickly. We might have had a chance here, because the Claymores' defensive backfield has looked very weak to me all season long. Most of those passes should have embarrassed the dbs, had they actually arrived.
Defense
I had to go with more than one for this lot. When you gain a grand total of 80 yards and make your defense stand on the field for about ten minutes longer than your offense, you really expect more than 17 points against. Still, the Claymores offense has been bad all year long so the d didn't have to do all that much.
And they didn't anyway. They couldn't stop the Claymores running backs if they had been sitting on them. Ok, they weren't big gains, but they just kept plugging it up the middle and getting the 5 yarders. On the first few drives, our cornerbacks sprinted out towards a receiver who had just caught the ball near the line of scrimmage, only to dive right by that receiver when he made a slight move.
I do feel sorry for the defense in a way: you manage to finally stop a Claymores drive, haul your bruised bodies off to the sidelines and 4 plays later you have to do the same again. But we have seen the kind of intensity they can summon the week before against Barcelona and it obviously wasn't there this week.
Special Teams
Didn't make any huge mistakes. This lot could have saved face by kicking the four point fieldgoal, but not even that was to be. In all honesty: it was a good attempt, the distance was there and it didn't sail wide by much. Still, the hang times aren't there yet and compared to the Claymores punting... well...
Coverage guys allowed too many yards, especially when compared to what they were capable of in previous games. Returners managed some decent field position, but nothing spectacular.
Coaching
I think we should have been grateful we didn't have Al Luginbill there, or he would have shouted himself into a heart attack. I don't know what the coach said, or could have said, but this was just a team not in the game. How can you coach a team into the kind of passion that scores 33 points against the Dragons, then have a bunch like this on the field?
Final thoughts
The worst game I've ever seen by the Admirals. At one point I said 'well, at least we didn't get any penalties' and of course a couple of 10 yarders were made after that. I guess we should have been happy that it didn't rain at least. In hindsight, I think me, Niki and Michel losing the fan football game to a woman might have been a bad omen :)
I don't know what the coach can do to turn this performance around. Either it will be the same after the game in Barcelona and we will utterly crush the Fire at home, or the team will fall into a slump and lose to the tenacity of a mediocre Fire team. In any case, let's make some noise out there!
Brief impression on the not so important games
by TonV
Fire @ Galaxy
"Seit froh das es kein Absteig gibt" the Fire fans sang in Frankfurt ("Be happy there is no relegation"). The Fire proceed to send the Galaxy to 1 in 5 and the 'best fans in the league' are deserting the team in droves. Still, not something we should be cheerful about. If the Galaxy take a nose dive, the league will lose one of its two flagships in attendance and income and that will hurt everyone. Also, the Galaxy can still win some games. Lets hope its not against us. Fire offense still looking suspect, defense did a good job. We can beat this team *if* the Admirals can get over their pants performance in Scotland and get some of that intensity back they showed against the Dragons.
Thunder @ Dragons
Eek! 55 points?! I think we might have upset the Dragons when we beat them. Just a tad... And the Thunder scoring 35 points as well? What a touchdown fest, I hope they had enough fireworks in store for that. Thats about 13 tds in one game. Damn, I almost hope we won't have to be in the WB, because any team playing against the Dragons then will almost certainly get their butts royally kicked. I could do without the depression of losing another WB... The Thunder defense must be considered as one of the worst in the league, which is good news for us. Their offense is doing well though. So it might become a case of 'who can score the most points' in the two games we play against them. And that will not be easy for the Ads to win.