The season that was-2013.And what do we need to do for next year?

Well, the 2013 season is officially over and what a roller coaster it was! 9-0 at the bye week with a defense that looked like it could stop a heard of charging elephants and an offense that looked....well.....passable seemed a good way to put it.

Then the offense and defense swapped the dining hall they were eating in and the defense started a long decline and the offense started to look like world-beaters.

Then there was that HORRIBLE playoff second half meltdown that left most of us so stunned we could hardly speak for several days.

The run up to the Super Bowl left most of us silent and uncommunicative. We all knew that we were going to wind up watching Horseface and that big stupid forehead holding the Lombardy Trophy. It was going to be the worst ending to a season in a long long time.

Then the incredible happened. By halftime in the Superbowl horseface was mainlining uncut heroin and forehead was walking in circles on the sideline muttering to himself....."They promised me....THEY PROMISED ME! How could they lie to me like that?"

So our season was saved from complete disaster.

So the question becomes what do we need to do for next season that will give us a better end result?

Most years I have a pretty good idea about that. Last year it was "Get rid of Cassel, the coaches and Pioli." And Clark Hunt did a good job of fixing that problem.

But this year I am just not sure what problems need the most attention.

Why did our defense go from immovable to burnt toast in 8 weeks? Was it just the poor teams we played the first half of the season or was it the injuries or did other teams just take 9 weeks to figure us out? I don't know.

And our offense, what happened with them? How did they go from being unable to win games without the help of a Pick-6 or two or maybe a kick return for TD to scoring an average of 32.4 points per game over the last 8 games? Remember...of those last 8 games, 6 were against teams that went to the Super Bowl or the playoffs. Were the defenses we were playing that bad those last 8 games? Did it take that long for the offense to figure out Reid's game plan? Did someone feed Alex Smith Superman Juice? And what about "Alex Smith is nothing but a game manager"? By the end of the season he was slinging the ball all over the field as if he was some sort of veteran gunslinger. What's up with that?

So unlike most years I really don't have much idea what we need to fix for this coming season and given our limited cap space what can we afford to fix?

So what do y'all think?

And by-the-by.....if we are in cap trouble how in hell can those double-damned donkeys not be in worse cap trouble than we are with that stupid forehead sitting on a $96 million contract?

Our magnificent D of the first 9 games was showing cracks here and there. In almost every game there was a big play or two against it. Like small cracks in a dam that eventually rip wide open. Teams with better coaches and players simply softened us up by increasing the number of those big plays.

That said, I think the way Tamba and Houston went out of the first Denver game was the most dramatic reason for our defensive collapse of the second half of the season. Tamba came back soon enough, but was he really hitting at all cylinders? Houston had to sit out the rest of the regular season and came back rusty for the playoff game.

The fix, IMO, is (in no particular order) pass rush, pass rush, and pass rush. We need at least a couple of more pass rushers from this draft. Seattle has found gems of all kinds in later rounds. Maybe we can find pass rushers in later rounds of this draft, if not one in the 1st.

All I know currently is our division is wide open for next year. Not gonna be a cake walk though. 3 legit teams that could take it..... And the Raiders.... I think the Donks may have a bit of a hangover from the SB loss (fingers crossed) with 2 tough divisions to face we need to cut some fat, try to restructure some contracts, and have a phenomenal draft. Would love to find a way to recomp that 2nd rd pick, but seems unlikely. I hope Dorsey and Reid can improve this team with the limited cap space we currently have. They've showed us they're on the right track, now we need to take a step forward this upcoming season.

I think mainly two things, 1 improve the WR, 2 get a good FS of course more pass rush won't hurt.

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Originally Posted by N TX Dave

I think mainly two things, 1 improve the WR, 2 get a good FS of course more pass rush won't hurt.

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All correct, except in reverse order.

We must improve at WR, secondary & pass rush. The good news is, from what I've seen so far from draft updates, we won't have to stick to a particular order, which could work to the team's favor. We could go after a monster DE in the first round, and still have plenty of really good WR's and DB's to go after in the later rounds.

They are in no particular order they just all need to get done, I don't care which one is done 1 or last.

Looked good against non playoff teams (sometimes looked not so good) and looked not good (offense looked good) against playoff teams.......