Make or break year for Shula (I hope)

[Mojo]

to be fair that's the down and distance where you wanna take a shot,and if you can't hit it you convert the easy 3rd or 4th and like 3 logically a defense wants to stop the short game and may not have the guys deep to defend, also kinda hard to call something short when the opponent gets tired of the short game and decides to load the box and come up in coverage 11 man box = 1on1 on the outside. So there

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That's true but if the play takes too long to develop route wise (which was my point) all of that is moot. 

[teeray]

I'd rather have an offense that can get past the other two elite defenses in our conference and win the conference.

 

Didn't we beat SF at SF and take Seattle to the last possession last season?

 

We were more than capable of getting past them. 

 

There is a reason we reigned in the offense last season.... because it worked.

[nosuchthingasapanther]

I'd rather have an offense that can get past the other two elite defenses in our conference and win the conference.

 

good luck.

 

seattle and san francisco went a combine 6-1 against top 10 offenses last season.

 

that includes seattle's  absolute dismantling of denver's highlight reel machine offense in the superbowl.  

 

[Chimera]

Didn't we beat SF at SF and take Seattle to the last possession last season?

 

We were more than capable of getting past them. 

 

There is a reason we reigned in the offense last season.... because it worked.

 

yes and yes. but was it due to shula or our own elite defense?

[Chimera]

good luck.

 

seattle and san francisco went a combine 6-1 against top 10 offenses last season.

 

that includes seattle's  absolute dismantling of denver's highlight reel machine offense in the superbowl.  

 

 

that's cool. we were a combined 1-2 against those two teams last year.

[MedellinHeel]

Not sure where you get that, Shula's offense was top 10 in the NFL in points per drive last year.

 

You could average 10 points per drive. But if you only get 2 drives a game ie 20 points (bad D, slow time consuming O, etc) then it wont do you any good. 

 

Hence why offensive rankings go off of PPG and not PPP/D. 

[MedellinHeel]

which are you hoping for? make or break

 

 

title has been bothering me

 

I am hoping for in order

 

A) A miracle happens and Shula is a new man. Innovative, calculating, and aggressive and brings a top 5 offense to Char. 

 

or 

 

b ) Shula is average at best like he has been his entire career and is fired. 

 

or 

 

c) Shula sucks it up pretty bad and is fired. 

 

or

 

d) Shula is average and not fired. 

 

or 

 

e) Shula is terrible and not fired. 

[panthers55]

I would think that anyone who is a Panther fan would hope that Shula has a great season as do the Panthers. Hopefully we regain a power ground game and mix that with great third down receivers with great hands and multiple weapons in the redzone so when we do get down the field we are efficient at getting 7 points instead of 3.  Cam progresses even further and is able to read defenses and then call audibles which exploit that defensive alignment. That way he knows who is going to be open before the ball is snapped.  Truth is that Shula offense goes the way that Newton goes because Cam runs the show and has the power to change anything he wants at the line.  Shula gives Cam free reign to have as much input as he wants.  He knows that he he has hitched his wagon to Cam.  Where I hope Ramsdell will help is working with Cam to fully understand the Coryell system and how to integrate his unique skill set into that mix.  Shula really isn't a Coryell devotee like Ramsdell so there is so there is only so much he can teach him about that system.  Shula will run the show but Ramsdell will help design the passing attack and design plays to fully use our backs in this system.

 

Too much to hope?

[panthers55]

You could average 10 points per drive. But if you only get 2 drives a game ie 20 points (bad D, slow time consuming O, etc) then it wont do you any good. 

 

Hence why offensive rankings go off of PPG and not PPP/D. 

The only way you could average 10 points a drive is if defensive scores, kickoffs and punt return TDs are included in ppd like they are in ppg..  Otherwise the most you can average would be 7 points a drive if you scored a TD and extra point on every one of them and kicked no field goals and scored on every possession. So unless their calculations are very lazy adding in points not earned on team drives, I can't agree with your premise.  I know that you were just trying to use an example but when you use improbable information in your example it invalidates everything that follows.

That notwithstanding, the reason that ppg is not a real valid measure of the offense in that it does include total points scored per game by all contributors not just by the offense. Lets say in a game one offense scores 1 TD for a total of 7 points but there is a kickoff return for a score and a defensive score so the PPG is 21 although in 7 drives the offense scored 7 points for a ppd of 1.  While the other team scores twice and there are 2 field goal attempts made so on the same number of drives there are 20 points scored for a  ppd of 2.9. This example has the ppg winner of 21 points with a better offense that the loser team although the ppd was almost 3 time better.  Who had the better team versus who had the better offense.  One team won despite the offense, while the other lost despite the offense doing their all.

[dos poptarts]

You could average 10 points per drive. But if you only get 2 drives a game ie 20 points (bad D, slow time consuming O, etc) then it wont do you any good. 

 

Hence why offensive rankings go off of PPG and not PPP/D. 

 

And this is where your logic train falls off tracks...

Your opponent will typically have the same # of drives as your team. Maybe 1 more or 1 less. Your opponent has to keep up with you not PPG stats.

 

The Chip Kelly offense scored 2.18 pts per drive for the season. The Schula offense scored 2.09 pts per drive. You guys act like Schula was dog poo.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestatsoff

 

The Cam-Schula show were very good at long drives ending in TDs (top 5 for most of the season, kinda fell off the last two games as Smitty wasn't playing). Did Cam save Schula's ass a few times, oh hell yes, but it's not as if the Car WR/RB situation was at best league average.

 

And how people forget....The Panthers played the NFC West who didn't have a sorry defense in the entire division. (top Dlines across the board) The Saints were also a top 5 scoring defense IIRC. If the Panthers had played the NFC North last year, every one of those games would have looked like Minn@Car.

[panthers123]

yes and yes. but was it due to shula or our own elite defense?

 

Everybody knows its the defense. That is not the question we need to ask. The real question is whether another offense coordinator out there can take what we currently have on offense and put up 27-30pts. 

[panthers123]

You could average 10 points per drive. But if you only get 2 drives a game ie 20 points (bad D, slow time consuming O, etc) then it wont do you any good. 

 

Hence why offensive rankings go off of PPG and not PPP/D. 

 

I dont know what you want but aside from the broncos the top tier teams are only putting up 27 points per game. http://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/points-per-game

 

We are right at 22pts per game which is average. If you think about our talent level on offense we are doing pretty good. 

 

Do you think it is realistic to land an OC who can put up 27pts a game with the team we had last season?

 

The 3 WRs we had are now WR3 on their new team. We only had 2 really good offensive linemen out of 5. No run game. We only had Cam to carry the offense which thankfully made us average. 

 

 

If you think back a few years ago people were calling for DC to get fired because we were in the bottom of the league. Well if you take away Luke, Star, TD (injuries), Hardy (before beasting) then no matter how you plan your game your gameplay is going to suck. 

 

 

What I am saying is this

 

We have ALOT of really good players on the D and our DC is doing a great job and using their talent to produce result so we should have high expectations. 

 

 

We have FEW really good players on the offense and our OC is doing a good job at making us look average. We should NOT have high expectations for the offense. (NOT top 10) 

 

We would ALL LOVE to have a beasting Offense but you gotta be realistic here man we simply dont have enough talent. 

[Chimera]

Everybody knows its the defense. That is not the question we need to ask. The real question is whether another offense coordinator out there can take what we currently have on offense and put up 27-30pts.

I won't talk about what we have "now" since training camp hasn't even started. But last season we did score 30+ four weeks in a row, and six times overall.

However, against the only two other elite defenses in our conference, we scored 7,10 and 9 respectively. The Saints' D wasn't quite on the same level as us, but it is definitely trending up.

What I'm saying is this: barring a catastrophic attack of the injury bug, our defense will keep us in every single game. While it is nice to score 30+ against weaker teams, it is necessary to maintain drives and score against elite defense as well. I do not feel Shula understands man defenses to the point that he can out scheme them. The team is too reliant on defense in those games.

[mbarbour21]

does possession = points?

when did we start judging offenses on possession?

lol

PPG is the only stat that matters.

FPs point is that everyone "knew" what was coming, but we were still 5th in T.O.P. We had problems scoring TOUCHDOWNS once in the redzone. (See first Saints game) Fixing that with more redzone threats, our offense should improve. So there is no legimate reason to let Shula go now until we see how it goes with better redzone targets. (Redzone Threats: Cam, Tolbert, Stewart, Olsen, Cotchery, Dixon, Benjamin, and possibly TE Williams.) Summed up, the offense should be more productive(point-wise) this season with this scheme.