Just stealing a moment during bath duty to write down a few thoughts. Overall, a middling performance against a critically flawed team at home. Baltimore did not have a clue what they wanted to do on offense, but I give the Hawks credit for taking away their running game and forcing them into that state a bit.
- Mo Morris gets the start. Shaun was introduced to the crowd, but Mo started. It did not seem to make much of a difference as the team started slow again on offense, but it’s good to see Holmgren will make the move if he thinks the team has a better chance to win.
- Probably just a coincidence that Shaun had his best game in a long time, but still worth noting.
- I’ll need to watch the game on tape, but it sure seemed like Womack was on the field for nearly every big run. His playing team appeared drastically increased this week. I have a really hard time believing we could go downhill from Sims or Gray at this point. I believe Sims got beat again on the early 3rd & 1 where Mo lost yardage.
- Much of the running success came inside the guards. I have not seen the Hawks run there much this year. They are more of an off-tackle and stretch team. Wouldn’t it be ironic if we turn out to be a better North-South running team?
- Most rushing yards in a game all year. Not only that, but this was a much more even rushing performance than our 135 against the Eagles where we got 45 yards on Mo’s one run. The Hawks have a chance to go into the playoffs more confident in their running game as they face the 27th-ranked run defense next week.
- Matt made some uncharacteristically poor decisions today. We should have had more points than we ended up with.
- The weather was pretty miserable. I’d bet players were wishing it was just windy like last week.
- Nate Burleson has quietly almost single-handedly replaced D-Jack’s 10 TD receptions last year with 7.
- Nice game for Julian Peterson today, and it’s about time. He’s been mostly absent for the last 5-7 games.
- There were a few Baraka Atkins sightings today as well. I don’t know if he’s not been getting snaps or just hasn’t been noticeable, but I definitely saw him collapse the pockets a few times today.
- I think we’re officially over the punting and placekicking nightmare, and not a moment too soon.
- We move to 10-2 this season and 29-4 in the last three when scoring 20 or more points. We’re 9-1 when we score more than 20.
- That 80 yard TD the Ravens scored sucked. I think that pretty much kills our shot at a top 10 defense this year.
More later.