Breaking Down the Opening Drives

After reading OCC's post on 4 Stats That Left Me Scratching My Head...a few of thecomments were talking about looking at the balance of plays called and their effectiveness, sacks allowed, and penalties suffered.  I went back with www.nfl.com and read through the drive logs and took my stats from there.  Let me know if there is anything else I can throw in with the drive breakdowns I looked at below following the jump.  I tried to cover quite a bit concerning the drives.

Week 1 - @Tampa Bay:  Couldn't overcome a big sack on first down which stalled the drive, luckily Folk managed to put that ONE through the uprights. lol

Week 2 - New York:  First drive, new stadium.  You'd hope it would be a little more memorable than 3 and out.

Week 3 - Carolina: Dallas converted a nice 3rd down, but an eventual 10 yard sack forced a  40 yard FG try that missed. 

Week 4 - @Dener: Was a decent drive, but stalled on a 3rd down sack.  Offense just never really seemed to be in sync this day.

Week 5 - @KC: Drive had some promise, but the Illegal Man Downfield penalty on the Barber screen led to too long of a 3rd down and a punt.

Week 6 - Bye:

Week 7 - Atlanta:  Another 3 and out.  This following the Atlanta TD, a first down at least would of been nice.  Team bounced back huge, but another slow start.

Week 8 - Seattle:  The offense was clicking, then just stopped.  Forcing second and third and long didn't help.

Week 9 - @Philadelphia:  Drive was both bad and good.  Good use of Roy for the first down, bad sack the following play.  No points.

Week 10 - @GB:  People may disagree with me, but the Nick Folk miss(will be nice and not call it a choke) was as big of a play as the Woodson sack with the controversial fumble recovery by Felix.  Moved the ball well, but once again, a sack on 3rd down affected the overall outcome of the drive.

Week 11 - Washington:  Another 3 and out.  

Week 12 - Oakland:  Another missed opportunity for points, offense moved the ball, but 2 offensive penalties.  Hard to conver 3rd and 24s

Week 13 - @New York:  This drive just stalled once it crossed into Giants territory...I don't really know what to say.  It did help create an advantage in field positioning over the next few drives.

Week 14 - San Diego:  Nice drive that overcame 2 penalties and 2nd and 22.  3 points was disappointing, but for an opening drive over the year, it was at least something on the board.

Week 15 - @New Orleans:  Quick strike TD, stunned the crowd.  Stunned the Saints.  Great plays and execution.

Week 16 - @Washington:  A Terrence Newman INT set up the short field and the offense executed. Nice 3rd down conversion

Week 17 - Philadelphia:  Miles drawing the PI on 3rd down was a huge conversion.  And the conversion on the Witten TD was just Witten dominating.

The Wildcard was the same, a little movement, with problems that stopped the drive:

You are not going to convert many, if any 3rd and 32s.  That really destroyed a promising drive.

Overall, you'd have to say the blame goes to the team as a whole, although, the running backs definitely did their share at just below 5.8 yards a carry.  The negative plays of sacks and penalties definitely hampered a few drives. It appears to me that poor decisions and execution resulted in leaving 12 points on the board, just with missed FGs and places they could of kicked, but were forced to punt.  Hopefully better execution this coming season leads to less points left on the field.