It felt after the first set of drives it was going to be bad. Maye nearly got picked and Carolina marched down the field. It really could have gone pear-shaped IMO if Marcus Jones didn't light a fire under everyone's asses by his thrilling return. That seemed to snap them out of the funk they were in.
Personally I was not expecting the offense to look this good. It looks as efficient as it did back when Josh was here last time. Some plays didn't work but they tended to set up plays that did work. Personally I thought it'd take more games to see an example of the squad executing Josh's offense as intended. For instance I think this is the first time they used the fullback on some big plays. To me this shows they are "getting it".
And for me this is the first game where I saw enough to convince myself that Drake will be a quality NFL starter for years to come, and he still has room to grow well beyond just a quality starter. He had that shaky start in this game but once he snapped out of it he was consistently excellent. IMO he'll still have his ups and his downs but I think we're seeing when things are going well he can really perform.
They always say to wait four games before judging a team. I'm happy we are 2-2 with the arrow pointing up. We at least have one data point that shows this outfit can execute Josh's offense. Right now I'm more concerned about the overall talent on the D than I am about the O, and am hoping our acting DC can come up with a good game plan to use against the Bills.