there are lots of things that have contributed to it.

Like you said, losing Pennington for the season definitely hurt, and one of the big reasons for that was that our offense was geared towards CP10’s strengths. Short to mid passes that worked well with his accuracy. We didn’t really have much of a deep game because people knew that CP10 didn’t have the strongest arm. Because of that, we have a very similar mold in our receivers: Bess, Camarillo, and Hartline are all very similar slot/possession type receivers. Ginn is the only real deep threat that we have, although he’s not much of one since he only catches 1 pass out of like 10 or so. We do still have a rookie receiver in Patrick Turner, but we have yet to see him out on the field.

Also, as jwillis noted too, our safeties have been absolutely killing us. We haven’t been able to effectively cover tight ends all season. And considering we’ve gone up against 3 of the best in the first 3 weeks of the season, Gonzalez, Clark, and Gates, it has been bad. Giving up big plays to TEs over the middle has been a big part of our struggles.

Vontae and Smith have really been up grades.

Pat White tends to anchor the ‘Spread’ or ‘Pistol’ formation, and seeing as how he has yet to complete a pass this season out of any snaps he’s taken, I would assume that it’s going to be power running from Ricky and Hilliard, with some Lousaka Polite thrown in on short yardage situations. We may see a couple Pat White passes, but generally he’ll be running the option and he’s been a great pitch man, setting up great room for Ricky to run after he secures the ball.

Patty is not used as a running back… well not a true running back. when he comes in you can bank on a spread option/true option.. with the occasional incomplete pass. Obviously PW is not gonna run up the gut again, he tried that last week and got blasted!

I would say you will probably see either Ricky and Lex, or Ricky and Kory Sheets, with a little WildPat mixed in. I would say that Ricky and Lex is probably the most likely combo.

He makes his rookie mistakes but you can see how amazing he will be in years to come. He’s also not targetted as much as a rookie CB would normally be, because he’s on the WR like white on rice. Once he gets used to positioning himself and using his safety help effectively, he’ll be a force to be reckoned with.

I am a Sean Smith fan. His speed/size combo is impressive. He looks like a Sean Taylor type put out at corner…with coverage skills.

we should just safety blitz every down and force short throws lol

Ginn makes 1 catch in about every 20 passes. The odds of that 1 pass being on a deep ball are pretty slim.

better trade us Smith before his stock rises and you have to pay too much for him… lolol

He has showed good poise in the pocket and stayed calm when he makes mistakes. There are a few things he still has to work on, as he is essentially a rookie, but I do think that he can be a starter.

As for your last question, uuummmmmm……….no.

Dude is tough. Backs up a bit too much under pressure but his arm is a rocket and you can hear the ball hit pad when he lasers it between the numbers

His stats are killed though by terrible WR drops, an O-line that shows up every other week, and Ints off the WR. He’s definitely a starter, and plenty of NFL teams would kill for Henne, even though the media doesn’t think much. Lemme say this, haven’t been this excited since Marino left.

Jason Taylor, who is starting to look more like his old self nowadays, and Cameron Wake, who has been an absolute beast when he’s been playing. Charlie Anderson filled in for Porter last game and he had a pretty good game as well. I would most be worried about Taylor and Wake though.

Bundle him, Wilson, Ayodele, Ginn and Fasano in a tight little package and ship them somewhere for a bunch-o-picks. Even Weird-Al is keeping his picks, so I have no idea who’d be interested.

D – The man, the legend, the Jason Taylor

We’re hoping he stays that way, Sean Smith still needs to get his first INT of the season. And if it was a pick 6, that would just be gravy. =)

It seems to me that we do much better at stopping a bruising power back than an agile and elusive one. Part of that has to do with the sloppy tackling of the safeties and linebackers. i.e. The DeAngelo run against us in the pre-season game. He broke what, like 6 tackles on that?

It was kind of a depressing day when I read that. The remainder of our schedule suddenly looks a lot tougher.

Garbage.

Maybe somebody could send the memo to Chad.