colin

It's a complicated game of rock paper scissors. Rules help push things along, but defensive coordinators and the generally higher level of athletic ability on d catches up, and then new offenses come along and the cycle begins anew. Right now, D's are really good at pressure, coverage, and run blitzing. They all seem to be poorly equiped to stop a power run game. There is also something to be said about a very balanced d like the one we have, where if guys make tackles we can defend anything. I think that why mcd likes waves of dline and super athlete mbls, they can deal w most anything. I'm a big fan of how these things trend and change. I really got into it back when I played and pitz came in hot w the zone blitz concept and the 3-4 vs 4-3 stuff.

Gore got run into a pile over and over again vs cleveland, while motor was beating the breaks off of them. even the announcers were baffled at how futile our predictable O was. Yeldon and motor have the wheels and hands to run screens, and motor has even had a couple go for big yardage (i THINK even vs cleveland). we are too predictable in what we will do based on down, distance, and formation. we also have too many formations/groupings/play combos. misdirection and different looks to set up plays which we run effectively is what is missing. we are bottom 5 or so in passing and overall O, but top 9 in chunk plays (and the distance from 5th to 9 is really small wrt number of big plays) and are near the top on 3rd and long and still pretty solid in the red zone. that shows me that when we just line up and play we do have the ability to make Ds play and make things happen, but we totally lack consistency and our drives stall out terribly. screens or just short quick execution low difficulty dump off passes can help us vs pressure, but we simply do not run those. we need better tackle play, maybe an upgrade at LG, another back and a big body WR to have a chance at being a good O, but we could be a 22 -24 or so points per game O if we just had better play calling from our OC who simply does not have a good feel for the game.

Bills 27 - Texans 20

ok, so you think we just don't have the horses to run a screen play, whatever. i disagree, i think we simply don't prepare and practice for it because we have too many plays and formations taking up all of our time. what about our lack of 3rd and makable, or lack of offensive identity, or constantly running gore into a pile? sometimes it's not personal, sometimes it's coaching.

assuming we can land shurmer or someone like that, i'm all for dabol leaving to another team. him trotting gore out and running him into a wall so often, duke never playing although he is our only big body wr, him taking so long to make motor or offensive focus (and still kinda getting away from him as well), our inability to beat aggressive blitzes with man coverage, NO ABILITY TO RUN A SCREEN, and most importantly the penalties and lack of offensive identity just shows that our O isn't cohesive, we don't have bread and butter go to plays, and our ability to score in the redzone and convert third and long with the best in the NFL is simply a function of allen using his legs and extending plays, not his drawn up O.

trent and shak are fine. shak is worth more, and i hope we keep him, but trent isn't that bad at all. our D scheme has waves of DL coming at the O and keeps linebackers in there (with interchangable positions for two of them) all day. if milano and edwards can cut out the mistakes their elite skills could put them over and our front 7 ends up being pretty monster. as far as shak and more topically trent go, i'd be good with keeping both, neither, or something inbetween. im confident our FO can find DL talent. the only thing that would really super charge our D is a high level CB2 (not so much of a need, but look what it's doing in baltimore) or most importantly a game changing disruptive pass rushing DE. if clowney is there i say we grab him and just blow up pass plays while rushing four. if you recall, in carolina McD had those two LBs who were money, that one CB who left for washington and fell off, but they were at their most disgusting when they had short at DT (for us that's ed oliver) and the KRAKEN hardy at DE. to me clowney could be that guy and would be a sick monster in our rotation.

Dabol is a bad OC. My evidence for this is on every NFL team he has had an OC role with, he had bad numbers. we have plenty of deficiencies on O, but the biggest flaw on our team is that we simply do not have a concrete offensive identity. trying to ram the ball on 3rd and 4th and short w gore and failing, or not ever running screens well (although that looked a little different vs the jets w yeldon, but of course that guy doesn't dress for games) is what a team that is just throwing stuff against the wall and hoping some sticks does. several players have commented that the O we run is the most complicated they've ever seen. baltimore (and us before w roman, and SF before that) had a very simple O (with lots of trickery and it does take forever to get the plays in and line up, i'll grant that). NE's O is the same stuff over and over w some misdireciton. we do not have the talent nor the cohesion to be running the most complicated O our players have ever seen. the problem with a complicated O is that you don't get enough time to practice things to get the down pat, so you get missed blocks, pre snap penalties, and the like. dabol is the ultimate young coach with a million ideas who is not getting them executed at a high level. the solution is to keep the bread and butter plays that you can always go to and run well, challenging the D to play perfectly. further evidence of this is that we are nearly the best in the nfl at 3rd and long. that is not a function of how well our O is called (3rd and makable being the norm is evidence of a well run O) but of the fact that Josh is a special talent who can extend plays and run for first downs as well as thread the needle into tight windows, and the fact that WRs, while tiny, are hard to cover for long stretches. our red zone success is basically a function of Josh running, or his threat of running, which is not a coaching thing. we need more talent on O (i'd say one or even two new OL, and one new WR and another RB although yeldon should be an upgrade) but we just don't have any blitz beating ability or ways to get solid dependable yards on first and second down, and that's scheme and practicing the scheme as much as it is a talent deficit.

I honestly do think they called an overly vanilla game plan on purpose. They didn't want to show anything and wanted to see how they could do just playing straight up

Missing tackles is a problem of ours, but we lost the game on two big yardage screen passes. If we blow those up, I bet we walk away winners. Why can we not run or stop a screen?

Josh has plenty of bad habits to get out of a d lots to learn. Most of all, he needs to learn to calm down at the start of big games. I've come to the conclusion that dabol is a very much old school coach who has a rigid idea of what a good o is and will slam square pegs into round holes until they fit or they break. Josh in a timing pass o is kinda not perfect, our trash rt singled up on long developing plays is bad, gore as a speed/power back is laughable, and our Smurf wrs don't get open vs man enough. He's designed some good plays here and there, but has zero feel and it just seems like our team is playing uphill all the time

He really is trash.

Direct runs and passes out of spread are what is working, we are fools to do anything else

Obv we are still in it, but on O we just aren't fast or physical. Every ne play has a convoy of blockers and yards after contact, Devin is the only guy who can do anything after contact on our team, and we aren't long or fast. Just a dumb o

Great st play, but once again the degree of difficulty of our o exceeds our talent.

Josh is being hesitant. If he lets those two throws to Knox out on time we are tied and going for more. No panic and no bad decisions or unseen guys tho, so we have something to work with

We need to find an answer for the power run game, and fast. Don't think they gained less than five yards on first down yet

Bad ball

Whooooooooooooooooo!

Im a huge allen supporter. What this bevy of stats, and our overall not good O and passing game (in terms of yards as well as points), along w the fact that we are top 10 (and teams like 5 through 10 are all neck and neck) in "explosive plays" tells me is there is something fundamentally wrong w our bread and butter offensive execution. some of it is for sure Josh, throwing the odd just terrible ball, or eating a sack when he shouldn't, or leaving the pocket early or what have you. a chunk of it is on the OL for blowing assignments, straight missing blocks, or (bothers me the MOST) penalties. we also have the issue of dropped passes, and we really have only one RB on the roster who can get anything done (gore just hit the wall early). I've got to think this is the stuff that the OC has to be able to fix. either with different formations/play calls, or with a better feel for the game to play rock paper scissors vs the D better. It is sometimes shocking how we can just eff the dog so bad on O for so much of the game, especially when we turn it around some and get back in it (Balt and pittz games are great examples, if we had a miracle catch by brown and won that baltimore game, science could never explain how it happened). they really do always keep it interesting tho.

that's a good point, but i had to laugh at zay, deonte, and holmes. and the big fat slow dude from carolina, benji. OMG did we trot out some trash that season!

I like Mike Torrico, he's clear, enthusiastic, and seems to enjoy the game. who was the guy who had all the great stevie johson/fitz games, gus johnson? i liked him too.

we have a ton of room and the draft. I'd ditch either lawson or murphy (would rather keep shaq, but numbers will be the decider) and maybe go get clowney or a monster in FA. I'd also look at drafting a SAM backer, CB, and could take another flyer late on safety depth (would help w special teams too). for DT i'd keep star and harry and oliver and phillips. if you throw a legit can't be single blocked DE to this front, you are talking about a D that will be talked about for a decade.

yeah, i meant the last rex year. anyhow, the point stands, tyrod put up good stats when the team was putting up good stats because the scheme and talent on the O side of the ball was good. once that faded (and mcD is a part of it because he just seems to hate offense) altho we made the tourney in 2017, our O was trash and we needed miracle turnovers from the D and a gift from the bengals to get in. in jax tyrod just couldn't make a play, at all.

it musta been wet or misty or some such last night. our WRs had some butter fingers, our RB fumbles twice, and after he was down the ball got popped out of allen's hands too. we also had pittz fumble 3 times right in front of white shirts, but they were lucky to get two of them. I think a part of it is both d's are salty and just disgusting, and there mighta been some kind of condition out there.

all this staturbation is making me crazy!! TDs are a team stat. you have to observe, understand, and contextualize the observations to know wtEFF is going on and who is good and who is not good. tyrod had some juice to him early, but looking at his stats vs allen's is staturbation at it's most horrible. the TT team had percy, watkins, woods, clay (meh, i know) prime mccoy, karlos (who was nasty for a minute) and LT to C that line was a MONSTER. even in his last year, mccoy was still balling, the line was still intact, and watkins and woods were still out there, and gilliesee was a solid number two (compare him to the exhumed corpse of frank gore who we have now). tyrod, while great at limiting mistakes, just simply could not make a play when it was needed. he was a tortoise and if bottled up was junk. all anyone has to do is watch some of his games to see this. if allen was working with that talent that was around tyrod and roman as OC, he'd be the talk of the nfl. some of you guys seem to think a steamy spreadsheet sesh gives you insight into the sport of kings, but it just just makes your hands smell and provides neck beard lube.