Georgia Bill

I think if they win the Super Bowl this year he will retire on a high note. But if they don't he'll come back as he seems driven to want to win another one.

Do we know if those 4th down calls were Marrone's, or was it Hackett? If they were Marrone's, bad decisions - lack of guts. If instead he let Hackett make the call, the coach still gets some of the blame, as those kind of huge game changing decisions need to be made by him.

At 56, I'm conflicted. After 45 years cheering for this team, I too want a championship in my lifetime. I keep getting optimistic about us getting better, but then keep getting disappointed. Part of me says I've been foolish investing so much of my time and emotion in this. The other part can't stop watching, and hoping. Even during games I'm schizophrenic - euphoric with each great play, but spending much of my time braced for the next improbable disappointment. As Springsteen said in The River: "Is a dream a lie, that don't come true, or is it something worse?".

Rivers in the game last night just seemed to will the Chargers to a win, like no way he was going to stand for a loss. And that was after getting down by 21. He delivered with gutsy play (bulging disk to boot). I get the feeling with Orton it's just "oh well, we tried, and a few things didn't go our way".

Would it have felt better if we were instead knocked out by a blowout loss at NE? It sucks that it was Oakland, but the result is the same.

This team does not deserve the playoffs. If you can't play hard and beat Oakland, no need to even think about it. On to next year (sigh).

It's just what I was worried about. Seems we thought we'd win by showing up.

I was just about to say the same thing

Just got in from some Christmas shopping. 21-0, I'm loving me some San Fran

If we make it to the playoffs and make some noise, I could potentially see some offers. But just because we had a decent defense and beat Green Bay does not mean the guy is going to be a hot HC prospect. I simply don't see him leaving until end of next year at the earliest. It would take a desperate team willing to take a chance that a good DC who inherited a very good defense would also make a good HC. For a team to be that desperate, they are probably not talent loaded, and thus would be more of a risk for his long term future. He cannot afford to be considered a failure at head coach again.

If we got to the game in NE at 9-6 with a need to win and chance to be in (with a bit of help), I think that would be awesome. I don't care how "unlikely" it is for us to win, it would effectively be a playoff game. It was also unlikely that we'd beat Green Bay. I think this particular team, with this defense, could show up in NE hungry and on fire. It's been freaking forever since the last game in the season meant anything!

Relentless(+1)

gudenuf2day

I've always loved a great defense and this year's is special. Awesome playoff atmosphere and the win was the sweetest in recent memory. Finally the defense had a chance to win the game outright - by virtue of protecting a lead - and they were up to the task big time! Hope we can hold onto these guys!

We'll see how our offense fares this weekend against a "weak" (#25) defense.

Wow there are a lot of folks thinking Marrone is going to be canned if he lose to the Packers, or if he doesn't win at least two of the next three. I suspect that is just wishful thinking about what those people WANT to happen, but I predict he will still be our couch next year, even if we lose the next three. I don't think anybody's that trigger happy. We'll just have to wait and see.

IF Orton gets us to 10-6, you can bet there will be people saying he ought to be our starter next year. Not sure I'd disagree.

You guys are crazy! Marrone and Hackett will both be back next year, even if we go 7-9. They're going to get another chance.

Curious why you'd say that. He's caught 76% of passes thrown to him (29 of 38) for an 11 yd avg. Watkins has amazing hands and has caught 52% of passes (51 of 98) for 13.6 yd avg. I'm not suggesting Hogan's a rival to Watkins, (Watkins gets thrown more deep balls, which are lower percentage), but why shouldn't he be playing?

Hogan's not too shabby either.

+1

It was odd that they didn't show either of those. They were big yardage takeaways.

Perhaps he was only successful late in the game because Denver thought the game was out of reach and had dialed back their pressure. Would have made it interesting if we had managed to get the onside kick

Cutler = Orton +/- a negligible difference. Why bother?

Just keep winning boys, the playoffs have already begun. The Buffalo Blizzard!