Playing against a good offense you must always do one thing:
You must always ANSWER their scores. You can't let the other guys pile up scores so you fall well behind. One of the best ways to respond to an excellent offense scoring is by scoring right away.
This is not only a matter of the game situation. Being behind by 7-10 is manageable; falling behind by 3 or more scores is almost always fatal. But it's more than that.
Offense is always a matter of rhythm and momentum. An offense can go in one series from juggernaut to broken down jalopy ... and vice versa. And an offense is always affected by pressure. Pressure can be applied by the opposing defense, but from the other team's offense as well.
Score a TD and an offense will be elated. But if that score is immediately matched by the other team's offense, elation turns to pressure: "what do we have to do to get on top of this game?" Think of the truly great offenses of the past ... say, the Montana Whiners. Remember what it was like playing them. You could get up on them, but when Montana and Rice got it going the entire team felt the pressure of the inevitable backlash. As the game went on, It got harder and harder for the offense to keep producing.
Again, both teams faced that dynamic Sunday. We scored first ... and Rivers answered. We scored again and Rivers answered again. Both teams were feeling that sense that they needed a lot of points. Even late in the 3rd and the mid-4th, Rivers kept coming back and we faced that gut-wrenching sense that this great QB had not yet been put away.
And, again, we won this challenge. We kept answering Rivers' scores and going on to keep scoring. We kept the pressure on him. And our defense got the stops to keep him from getting into position for a late steal of the game.
I am proud of the defense getting the stops they did with missing CBs. But I am even more proud of the offense. We just dominated that LAC defense all game long. Relentless. They could NOT get stops apart from a couple TOs and penalties on that late drive. And then that last drive ... wow.
Offensive effectiveness is a weapon against the opponent offense. Very few offenses had the nerve to keep scoring against relentless production from the opponent. A few can do it, but not many. As the pressure builds, the margin of error keeps tightening and even top notch offenses begin to blink a bit. If you have a fine Defense, that can make all the difference.
I don't know if it has sunk in what a great win that was yesterday. We faced a really good football team, one pumped up by all the Battle for LA stuff. And we rolled them. Rivers had a good deal of success. And that is evidence of how good a win this was. We contained his offense and relentlessly buried his team under our grinding offense. I am so pleased, much more so than last week.
You know, we aren't there yet. But, we are on the verge of being a team with a significant intimidation factor due to our offense. Teams looking at that film are going to feel a lot of pressure on both sides of the ball. And when punting from their EZ!
