I suspected they were getting gassed too, but then remembered our offense had 2 smothering drives for 6 and 8 minutes, and I'm pretty sure we got points on those. Long drives that increase the score differential should not be alternated with exhausted defense. There was plenty of time to rest up and at least hold for more than 3 total plays on 2 complete drives where Seattle stole 14 pts off us. Those were baffling.

So I think it has to be more confusion than exhaustion. Our D has had to take the field in some games for substantially longer and held up better physically. We've all seen games where our D was on the field far too long cuz our O couldn't get anything going for more than 2 minutes. Our D has had to carry and endurance was not such an issue.

We just need to train prevent scheme more. It's probably something we just never had as much use for in the past because we typically don't have enough of a lead to warrant. But this year is very different with multiple blow-outs in our favor. But we cannot take those for granted. Teams will rally against us late in games, and we need to never turn into the last Super Bowl's Falcons.

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