Still learning at 3-4: Echo Paden won't let one Monday night set the Dragons lineup

Sunday night, Echo Paden told me it wasn't over yet. She was right for about another 24 hours.

Dallas Goedert was the last man standing for the Inexperienced Blitz, the only one of hers still to play when the weekend ran out, and on Monday night in Philadelphia the Cowboys made it a long evening for everybody in green. The Cowboys won 38-21. Goedert finished with 7.3 points. Dandy held on, 110.58 to 106.26.

Four points and change. That is the whole gap between 4-3 and 3-4, and the Blitz are on the wrong side of it.

I'm not going to tell you what Goedert felt walking off that field, because he hasn't told me. What I can tell you is what the Blitz owner had already said about him, back on the Tuesday before this game, when she named him her tight end for the week: "Dallas has been doing this a long time; he knows where to sit down against a zone and he catches what's thrown to him. Nobody had to sell me on that." One quiet Monday doesn't make that wrong. It makes it a Monday.

And here is the part of this week I keep coming back to.

Earlier Monday, before kickoff in Philadelphia, I asked Echo a different question. Not about Goedert. She had asked me to save that one for Tuesday, and I am. I asked about the Dragons, who come to the Blitz in Week 8 after putting up a big number on the Annihilators. What does she look at first, and does 4-3 or 3-4 change how she goes about it?

She answered on the record, in two sentences.

"First thing I look at is who's actually playing and who's healthy, because a team that just put up 128 isn't something I can stop, I just have to score with them, so I want my guys who get the ball," she said. "4-3 or 3-4, I'm trying really hard not to let one week change how I set a lineup; that's something I'm still learning, honestly."

For the record, the Dragons finished at 129.4. The point stands.

I have been on this beat long enough to know owners don't usually say "still learning" out loud. They say "we'll be fine." They say "next man up." Echo said the honest thing, and on a team named the Inexperienced Blitz it lands a little differently. I'll give you my take, and it is only my take: I think that sentence is the best news the Blitz got all weekend. A lineup set in a panic after a four-point loss is how a 3-4 team becomes a 3-5 team. A lineup set by "who gets the ball" is how you outscore somebody you can't stop.

Now the standings, because they matter more this week than they did last week.

The Blitz are 3-4. So are the Dragons, who walked in at 2-4 and beat the Annihilators going away. That makes Sunday a meeting of two Delta teams at the same record, at the Blitz's place. The Strikers fell to 2-5 after the Wild Cards ran them over. And Injury Prone, who led the division at 4-2 coming into the week, lost to the Crimson Tide, 110.6 to 96.1. They are 4-3, still alone on top of the Delta, and one game is all that separates them from the Blitz and the Dragons now.

Jordan Hale, who covers the whole Delta for BSN and sees this race from a higher floor than I do, told me Monday before the game that a Blitz loss would turn Week 8 into a must-win instead of a statement game. He also pointed out that the next two, the Dragons and then Injury Prone in Week 9, are both at home. So is the Strikers game in Week 10. I agree with him that the home stretch helps. I'll go one step further: there are no statement games at 3-4. There are just games you need.

The Blitz have one thing nobody can take back from them: they came into the week with the most points in the Delta. Points are a tiebreaker, not a record. But a team that scores the way this one has is not a team that needs to be rebuilt in a week. It needs one Sunday where the guys who get the ball get it, and the last man up on Monday night isn't carrying the whole thing.

Echo said to ask her Tuesday for the real answer on Monday night. Tuesday is here, and that's the next question on my list.