Taming The Lions

Week 8

Skins vs Lions

This weekend was a weekend of firsts for me. I had to work a half day on Saturday. Haven't done that in over 15 years(qualifies as a first in my book since that many years have passed). Went to sleep on Saturday night at around 9:00pm. Haven't done that since I was a kid. I watched this game at home with my daughter. Yep. I stayed home. It wasn't of my own choice, however. For reasons unbeknownst to me, my sister-in- law sent me a text message on sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday at noon informing me that I was no longer welcomed in their home to watch the games. To add further insult to injury, when I inquired as the reasons why, I was totally ignored (twice btw) by both her and my b-i-l. I spent most of the day wracking my brain as to where this came from and decided that it's their loss and I will survive. I was hoping my luck wouldn't transfer to the team.

After watching the first half, I thought, "so much for that bit of hoping, I guess luck is transferable".

Penalties and predictable play calling were par for the course. It was frustrating to say the least. It seemed at every turn, we'd find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot!

I don't know what the "issue" with Portis and Zorn was on the sidelines but lets' get it fixed and move on.

And they did. (Whew!)

The 2nd half was a much better sight for sore eyes. We dominated in every aspect of this game.

• Time of Possession - check
• Total Offense Yardage - check
• QB rating and stats - check
• Score - check (but not until later in the game)

Time after time we continued to give the Lions hope. We didn't shut the proverbial door and they kept peeking their beady eyes and large heads through to see what we were doing.

Ironically, special teams actually saved us this week. Suisham was 4/5 and 1 extra point for a total of 13 points. Santana Moss returned a punt for 6 bringing the special teams point total to 19.

The offense scored one (1) TD and we tried a 2 pt conversion. Not sure why we did that and it was unsuccessful. When these work, coach = genius, when they don't, not so much.

While it wasn't a "blowout" by any stretch of the imagination, we piled up yards and stats to beat the band:

• Total Net yards - 439
• Time of Possession - 35:45
• Portis - 24 carries for 126 yds 0 TD
• Campbell - 23/28 for 328 yds and 1 TD and 0 INT's
• Moss - 9 catches for 140 yds 1 TD
• Cooley - 6 catches for 74 yds
• Randel El - 3 catches for 47 yds

Yoder, Thrash, Portis, Thomas and Alexander all had 1 catch. So the ball was spread around pretty well.

A 'W' is a 'W' and that's what's important. We're 6-2 midway the season. A nice feeling and a sense of pride because it was more than anyone expected.

I'd like to see a few of the FG's be TD's, a few defensive turnovers would be nice along with some pressure on the opposing team's QB. My list isn't too "pie in the sky" as far as I'm concerned. What does concern me however, is the fact that we're moving into the back end of the schedule and we have some pretty decent teams yet to face. We're going to need more points to defeat the likes of Pittsburgh, New York, Dallas and Philly.

Let's hope they get if figured out before the Steel curtain(old skool alert) comes to town.

Hail.