Ahem...

The Overlord of Optimism!!!   I LOVE IT!!!!!

JMP wrote:The Overlord of Optimism!!!   I LOVE IT!!!!!

It wasn't "optimism" as much as a sudden, massive gut feeling I had. Remember, I had them getting curbstomped by the Ravens and I think I predicted a Texans loss as well.

The Texans win was just another "opponent out-sucks the Fins" kind of game that we've seen so many times over the last 6-7 seasons. But the Ravens win? That to me was the sign. And then I looked at the schedule and...every single game was winnable. Every one. It was obvious to me even then that the Titans and Saints were nowhere near the same teams they'd been just a month before.

Looking at the schedule before the season I figured there would be another slow start as well. Losing to the Bucs and being swept by the Bills were no-brainers. I actually had them losing the Pats opener given Flores' history in openers (and they were outplayed and very lucky to win). I saw the Raiders and Colts games as 50/50 at best and was not surprised they lost both. Basically, 1-4 seemed to be as good as I could hope for even before the season started.

I did not have the Jags and Falcons games as losses before the season but after how the first 5 games went down I changed my mind. And there you go. (And even then both games were VERY winnable.)

But then the Ravens game happened and it became obvious (to me anyway) that something with this team had changed drastically post-trade deadline. This really is going to be two seasons in one. I'm not psychic and have never pretended to be but that night I got this massive, overwhelming sensation of them winning out. I can't explain it other than it was more of a heart thing than a mind thing.

And just think...we could easily have won the Raiders, Jags and Falcons games, and we'd be sitting at 8 wins right now.  Damn.

JMP wrote:And just think...we could easily have won the Raiders, Jags and Falcons games, and we'd be sitting at 8 wins right now.  Damn.

The Raiders loss was excruciating, but really it was just karmic balance from last season when this team had no business winning that game.

The Jags and Falcons losses were the real killers and if this team wins out and misses the playoffs they'll be the reason why. Those are the two offensive 400-yard games I referred to earlier BTW. I knew this team would start slowly because the schedule was front-loaded, but even *I* didn't think they'd be 1-7 before the season. There's no doubt in my mind the Watson distraction was responsible. The D had the same players but was performing so much worse, against teams with mediocre offenses at best. Brissett also turned out to be a much worse QB than I thought. I figured he'd at least be a competent, game manager type who could win a couple of 17-13 games while Tua was out. He's not the worst Fins QB I've ever seen this century but he's definitely been more responsible for the 1-7 start than Ray Lucas was for them missing the playoffs in '02.

The defensive play calling has been taken over by Flores I believe.