“Marathon”
Last week’s game was obviously an embarrassment and not a very good performance on our part. The Eagles outplayed us on both offense and defense decisively. On Monday night they were clearly the better team. I really don’t know what else to say about that except to apologize to our fans. I can promise you this — we are a much better team than what we showed on Monday and we can play with and beat the Eagles. We showed that earlier in the year when we knocked Vick out of the game and proceeded to beat them up in Philadelphia. Obviously the last game was a much different story, but my point is we are much better than that and as bad as that game was, we are good enough to beat quality opponents.
Like I said in one of my earlier blogs, the NFL season is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Imagine yourself when you’re running. At the beginning you feel fresh and good. The longer you run, the more tired you get, then all of a sudden you get your second wind. Maybe you stub your toe on the curb but as you keep running you hit every green light, then by the end you can see the finish line. You look back on your run (or marathon in my example) and you think about what it took to get to that point — the ups and downs, the struggles and sudden bursts of energy you got. An NFL season is very similar to this. It is not a sprint that ends quickly if you win a few games or have a losing streak. There are many ups and downs. That is why there has only been one undefeated team in the history of the NFL. Every week presents a new challenge, and everyone is so evenly matched and equally talented that it’s tough to get an edge on every opponent you play. If you think about it, there are usually one or two undefeated teams every year in college football. Last year at the end of the regular season there were six undefeated teams. But in the history of the NFL there has only been one undefeated team. That just shows you how tough it is in the NFL. I told my wife that even though this is technically a short week because we played on Monday, it’s going to be a really long week until we finally get to play again on Sunday. We will get back on the winning track and we are a much better team than we displayed in our last game.
I just ask that our fans remain loyal and believe in our team, because we do. From what I understand Jamie Dukes went on a rant on their show earlier this week ripping our team and a lot of fans agreed with him. I understand Phillip Daniels responded to his rant and stood up for our team and a lot of fans agreed with him. From what I have been told, most fans supported Daniels, and I really appreciate that. We need our fans to remain supportive and behind us and I guarantee you won’t regret it.
The last thing I wanted to talk about is there are a lot of people doubting the 3-4 defense. I understand Washington was very good in the 4-3 before and I respect that. There are good teams that play the 4-3 and the 3-4. They are both good schemes. But if I were to ask you to list the top defense in the NFL, which ones would immediately come to mind? I immediately think of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Baltimore Ravens, the New York Giants and the New York Jets. There are other good defenses out there, but those were the first to pop into my mind. Three of those four teams are 3-4 defenses. Year after year those are among the top defenses in the league and most of them run the 3-4. Kansas City and Denver just switched to the 3-4 last year, Seattle moved to a 3-4 this year. I don’t know the numbers but I would guess half the teams in the NFL run the 3-4. A lot of college teams are moving to the 3-4 like Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M and others. If you think about it, colleges should be less likely to run the 3-4 because they have to recruit kids to run the 3-4. I don’t know many defensive ends in high school who would rather play a 3-4 scheme than a 4-3 scheme. Not because the 4-3 is per say better, but because they will have a lot better stats in the 4-3 vs. the 3-4. So even though it’s tougher to recruit for the 3-4 scheme, college teams are moving to it anyways because they believe in it.
The bottom line is I believe in the 3-4. It has been proven to be a great defense. Just ask the Patriots and Steelers who have each won multiple Super Bowls in recent years using a 3-4 defense. In our case, this is our first year running the 3-4 and there are going to be growing pains. Nobody said it would be easy or there wouldn’t be bumps in the road. But the 3-4 over the past decade or more has statistically been the best defense in the NFL. I believe, given time, we can be a great defense. This year we have definitely given up more yards than in the past, but we have also caused a lot more turnovers. When we get to the point where we don’t give up many yards and cause a lot of turnovers then we will be that great defense, and like I said before, I definitely believe we will get there.
Once again I acknowledge our embarrassment and apologize to our fans for what happened Monday. I ask for your continued support and backing, and I definitely believe we are a good team that will only get better and better. Thank you.
“I found out that if you are going to win games, you had better be ready to adapt.” – Author Unknown
Edit: This blog was archived in May of 2016 from our original articles database.It was originally posted by Adam Carriker