November 11, 2009

Any time you travel cross-country you never can know how your body is going to react the next day. And there are different philosophies as a head coach as it pertains to the best method for adapting and preparing. I think Coach Schwartz did the logical process by leaving Saturday (as usual for us), but leaving with enough time to do our walk-through in Seattle allowed us to get acclimated.

I think that paid off for us and was evident with the way we came out to start on Sunday. We looked crisp and were firing on all cylinders in the first quarter, but the talent is too good in this league to feel comfortable with any lead and when you have a team down you must keep pressing onward. We unfortunately were not able to do that and the result speaks for itself.

I feel somewhat uncomfortable talking about the game, as I was not out there playing, but I will try my best. I thought as an offense we executed the gameplan how we wanted and knew what to expect.  Seattle relies on the “12th man" to gain an advantage, and it is as good as any crowd in the NFL.  We took them out quick, first goal achieved.  We knew they wanted to try and be physical, second goal achieved by us to go out and punch them in the mouth (figuratively, not literally). 

But the biggest determining factor in the NFL is turnover ratio, and that unfortunately got away from us in the end.  I will say this in Matt's defense and leave it at this, he was going to the right places on ALL of his interceptions.  And sure it’s easy to sit back and say he needs to make throws, but from personal experience I can say things are moving fast and the littlest of things can affect your timing.  Not being able to step into your throw or a receiver comes out of his break at a different angle and you become subject to a major error. 

So now we move on and look forward to Minnesota coming off their bye.

They should have Winfield back in the lineup this week, which changes the dynamics of that defense.  He is as good of a tackling corner as there is in the NFL so we must be aware of where he is on the field.  Not to mention their front 7 is arguably the best in football.  That being said, we have played them tough to the end every time the past three seasons I have been here. 

We know what we need to do to win, it’s a matter of going out and executing it on Sunday.

Drew Stanton is a quarterback with the Detroit Lions. His blog for www.playerpress.com runs at www.drewstanton.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/drewstanton.