Turk Schonert/TO's impact on our offense

[BillnutinHouston]

In my opinion a variable more important to this offense than Turk's play calling will be giving T.E. the freedom to call audibles at the line.

 

Since we hear that T.E. is so bright, Turk should let him use this strength to get us out of bad plays.

 

If you have T.O., Evans and Lynch on the field at the same time, you should have the ability to put at least one of them in a position to make a positive play. The odds only increase if you let the QB make adjustments at the line.

[VOR]

I'm not sure how much of the blame from last years offense rests on Turk. For the first 5 games of the year when Trent was playing well and throwing the ball down field, he looked like a coaching genius. Then Trent decides to no longer throw it down field and instead throw to RBs behind the line of scrimmage most of the time. Guys were open and not thrown to. Turk had a great game plan against the Clowns, but it was executed horribly. Then, the offense looks dull, predictable, etc. The offense will be fine this year if whoever is under center plays well. If we get more play like in the 2nd half of the year, even if Mike Holmgren or Bill Walsh or Tom Landry is the OC, our offense is gonna suck again.

 

I think Turk's fine. We need good QB play.

Bingo. The offense started to tank once Trent did. And not having another legitimate WR, much less a competent TE, certainly didn't help matters either. Throw in Owens, Fine (who will be healthy and in his 2nd season) and the offense should be much better. Assuming they get a halfway decent LG, although it shouldn't be too hard to upgrade from Dockery.

[DazedandConfused]

I wish we had a TE, but I think TO and Evans on the outside also opens a lot of opportunities for Roscoe in the slot (until he gets injured again).

The problem for us at TE is that we (Schonert/Fairchild and DJ bear the responsibility for this IMHO) never have established how we are going to utilize this player in our O. There are working models where your pass catcher is a stud who is a primary option in the passing game (Gonzo in KC for example) and there is another extreme such as the one historically (its been a bit different for them with McMichael but this silk purse looks more like a sows ear in this WR/RB oriented offense) the Rams would get maybe one or two catches from the TE position. This player was in essentially as a 6th OL player giving the long pass plays in the Greatest Show on Earth time to develop.

 

It makes sense with the foul weather here not to invest totally in a pass-happy O, and in theory the TE could be prominently used as a check down guy to pass in bad weather and as another blocker during Beastmode. However, the Bills O never really established use of the TE as a consistent check down option, nor did they commit to 4 yards and a cloud of astroturf as our offensive style.

 

Instead they would send Royal way downfield from time to time as we sort of pretended the TE was a feature in our passing attack when in actuality the TE was a poorly used distraction the way our O tried to work.

 

We are confronted with a system where Royal simply has not shown the skills to be a consistent downfield threat nor is the position used as a go-fixture as a checkdown.

 

I think neither Schouman nor Fine (nor Royal if we had kept him) have shown the talent to be a solid downfield threat or play the role as a solid blocker when asked. Folks seem to be all hot for Pettigrew as the next savior. However, this view seems to forget that TE as played in the Pro game is really a hybrid position that it is gonna take any rookie a year or two likely before he really can contribute a lot to the team.

 

They also seem to forget that in this rugged game what happened last year to Fine of him suffering an injury that really cost him half a season does not happen to everyone but it happens enough a team needs to have a plan B. The idea that we are going to count on Pettigrew to be a big contributor this year it may happen but we likely are in for a rude awakening,

 

Then if Pettigrew has a normal learning curve for a player, do we then expect Fine or Schouman to play some pivotal role?

 

I doubt it.

 

What's my solution?

 

We are way deep at WR right now I would go three WRs as our base O and exchange the TE for another WR and 2 RBs. Its tough for us as we do not have the quality or depth at FB for much 2 RB work.

 

If we have to make the TE situation work, It would be far more likely to see us get Gonzo who wants out of KC and then pick up another TE late or try to train Fine Schoman to make it work rather than simply go with the noting we got and then try to replace nothing with a rookie player who really likely will need to learn to become a pro.