Re Akers... There you have it. He was injured. And making a guy who was recovering from double-hernia surgery kick a 63-yard field goal was foolhardy.

We can blame players all we like, but decisions made by coaches and managers during the off- and regular season often make the small differences that help or hurt a team's chances of improving on its previous year's campaign.

Letting Blake Costanzo leave after last year's stand-out performance has been a major factor in the relative decline in special teams play as a major factor in the team's success this season.

Not making sufficient effort to ensure plausible depth on the defensive line or at the safety position was another oversight that is currently foregrounded by the scrambling taking place to compensate for the injury to Justin Smith.

Effing with the offense's chemistry... whatever. Sometimes chemical experiments result in novel and wonderful compounds, so I'm still open to whatever positive developments we might see over the next weeks.

The same bar is there though, regardless of how many qualifiers are raised: be better than one-and-done or consider this season a gift for second-guessers.