I think we made a lot of progress this week on the offensive side of the team. The right side of the line, other than the very first play actually looked servicable. And when the OC remembered that you can do toss plays and not just hand offs to run the ball things really started to open up. Once the Chiefs could run a little Tyler looked like he settled down a little and started playing better, he got tight at the end and starting regressing a little but I was encouraged by his play and the progress I saw from last week. At this rate he might actually be a OK backup.

On the defensive side of the ball I have to mainly blame the players for the problems we saw today. Way too many missed tackles for a professional football team, I have seen better tackling by freshmen high school teams. Some specifics:

• Hali keeps getting blown off the line by the LTs he faces, and today he was up against a rookie. I don't know if he is undersized for the RDE position or what but he looks terribly overmatched so far this season.
• Pat Thomas seems to be reading and getting into position to make plays but then gets juked out of his shorts or is unable to wrap up and make the tackle. If he is the best MLB we have that has to be a priority next off season.
• DJ has a problem disappering in games, I don't know if he is just getting blocked or what the problem is but I am not seeing a stud LB type of plays from him. If he is as good as people like to say he should be blowing up a lot more plays than he is currently doing.

The defensive play calling seemed to get players in a position to be able to make plays and they just would miss their opportunity. But at least these seem to be correctable mistakes and will probably work themselves out.

 I have my knee jerk reactions after these games where I want to scrap this plan and move on, and I still think in todays NFL it shouldn't take years to rebuild. Too many teams turn it around in just a season or two for me to be happy with the thought of just being satisfied with losing for the next two to three years.

What started to worry me at the end of the game was the fact that so many of the players looked totally beaten mentally and had a look of "I give up." I have felt that most of the team buys into what Herm is trying to do and I hope that as long as he is here that they buy what he is selling. But I wonder if they can't squeek a win out here soon what kind of effect that will have on the players mentally. Losing can become ingrained into a person's psyche and they will doubt that they can even win the game, even if they are up at the end of a game. Similar to how the raiders use to be in the 90's they got use to losing to us and every time they were winning you could see in their eyes that they were just waiting for something bad to happen that would cause them to lose.

At some point we need a win to keep spirits up on this team. Not just so that we go 3-13 instead of 2-14 on the season. I think a win followed by some close games will help this team really feel like they are on the right path and really start to progress. I just hope it happens before they become use to losing and this rebuild becomes the Cinncy version; year after year after year.