During the Nolan years, the team has had a tendency to win games early in each season, then wear down and look pathetic toward the end. The reason we won early was mostly the defense. The reason we lost late was that the defense had been on the field far too much. The best thing we could do for the defense was to improve the offense.
Hopefully this year we get some early leads and can go to the running game more as the games progress, thus sparing our defense for later points in the season.