In defense of conservative play calling..

[UKPanther94]

Unlike the other games we had a good pass rush that was still getting pressure in the 4th quarter, the only difference is Russell Wilson. That pass rush should hopefully feast on the less mobile Palmer but the exchange is the Arizona O-line is less porous than Seattle and we're without Allen, but there were promising signs from the pass rush

[Navy_football]

24 minutes ago, King said:

I'd be furious if I were part of the #1 scoring offense in the NFL and my coaches told me to play not to lose.

I think that's a great point. If you've proven all season that you can score against any team at a rate higher than every other team, then why would you ever stop trying to score? Particularly for an entire half of a football game. No defense has shut this offense down this season. That honor is held solely by the Panthers' coaching staff - with conservative playcalling. The Patriots don't ever stop trying to score if there's more than a few minutes on the clock. I think this coaching staff has bought into the idea that they're a defensive team. And they are a great defensive group! But this team wins and loses with its QB. Plain and simple. Maybe it's time to change our model from the Steelers to the Patriots sans the cheating of course. 

And please don't tell me the defensive playcalling doesn't go vanilla as well. You can't tell me that you can shut a team out completely for the first 30-40 minutes, then all of a sudden they score 20-30 points in the last 20-30 minutes. Unless you're doing something different. 

[ok2h8pep]

We won that game in the 2nd half with the 5 minute drive to start the 4th quarter even though we didn't score.

We made Seattle play against the clock and abandon the run.  99% of the time this plays right into a zone defense with picks.  You can't blame the coaches for playing percentages.  They forgot to factor in that Wilson is so f'ing lucky with his playground 'throw it and hope' style.  Well, his luck finally came up short yesterday.

One field goal by us in the 2nd half and there never would have been a doubt but even still this game was over with 10 minutes left.

[Anybodyhome]

They played man most of the first half, with Harper playing 1-deep and they brought pressure. Second half they went soft zone and Coleman was getting matched up with Kearse... and that was embarrassing. I don't think the Panthers even blitzed the second half but maybe 2-3 times. 

[TheCandyMan]

IMO the OPs point would have been a little bit more valid had we scored in the 2nd half.  Especially in the playoffs, it aint over till it's over and I just felt if we could score 31 in a half, so could Seattle.  1 TD in the 2nd half and that would have sealed it, as Seattle wouldn't of had enough possessions to beat us.  After that you want to go into protect mode, cool, but I would have liked to have seen us score once in the 2nd half.  

Maybe it was just a momentum swing or the guys trying not to give up the big play, but it seemed like if Wilson got time he'd have a receiver down field that didn't have a defender within 5 yards of him.  That was a bit disappointing to see.

The other thing that left me scratching my head with Ron's comments in his press conference.  To say we went into protect mode in the 2nd when he wanted to keep the pressure up, my only thought was "well, you're the head coach, tell your coordinators how you want the game played."

All in all, I'm delighted we won.  I think some are disappointed because they saw us have the opportunity to not only beat Seattle, but an opportunity to crush them and we looked like a completely different team in the 2nd half.

[Paa Langfart]

57 minutes ago, King said:

I expect the defense to allow a few scores.

But having no offensive production for an entire half is pathetic.  Our coaches showed zero confidence in our offense against the Seahawks.  They were told to burn clock and sit on their haunches while the defense played contain.

I'd be furious if I were part of the #1 scoring offense in the NFL and my coaches told me to play not to lose.

Pretty sure Cam said as much in not so many words in his immediate after the game on field comments.

[Anybodyhome]

13 minutes ago, TheCandyMan said:

The other thing that left me scratching my head with Ron's comments in his press conference.  To say we went into protect mode in the 2nd when he wanted to keep the pressure up, my only thought was "well, you're the head coach, tell your coordinators how you want the game played."

This

[Thanatos]

3 hours ago, CamMoon said:

On average an NFL teams will see the ball about 10-14 times a game. Since it was already halftime at best the Seahawks could have hoped for 7 more chances to score, barring turnovers or anything of that nature. The problem with being aggressive is that if you do turn the ball over, especially in your own territory the game is lengthened. Quick scores are killers when trying to maintain a lead so playing it safe was the best option. So, giving 10 yard cushions isn't a bad idea since time will continue to run off of the clock. There was literally no way for Seattle to come back unless we turned the ball over or they got a quick score.

And they got two quick scores. They had two drives under 3 minutes long that resulted in touchdowns. And we forced a couple punts in the second half, if those were just FG drives, hell if even one of those ends in a FG, its a totally different game.

Don't kid yourself by saying there was "no way" they could come back. They could have, easily. We made *just* enough plays yesterday to prevent that, but we were one play away from them tying it up.

[HeatCheck]

1 hour ago, TheCandyMan said:

IMO the OPs point would have been a little bit more valid had we scored in the 2nd half.  Especially in the playoffs, it aint over till it's over and I just felt if we could score 31 in a half, so could Seattle.

True but Seattle turned to ball over that allowed us to score some of those points. When playing conservative you limit those possibilities of turning the ball over.

[Matthias]

3 hours ago, CamMoon said:

On average an NFL teams will see the ball about 10-14 times a game. Since it was already halftime at best the Seahawks could have hoped for 7 more chances to score, barring turnovers or anything of that nature. The problem with being aggressive is that if you do turn the ball over, especially in your own territory the game is lengthened. Quick scores are killers when trying to maintain a lead so playing it safe was the best option. So, giving 10 yard cushions isn't a bad idea since time will continue to run off of the clock. There was literally no way for Seattle to come back unless we turned the ball over or they got a quick score.

Cam was visibly upset with the conservative play.  That's all we need to know about how things went in the second half.

[FootballMaestro]

2 hours ago, King said:

I expect the defense to allow a few scores.

But having no offensive production for an entire half is pathetic.  Our coaches showed zero confidence in our offense against the Seahawks.  They were told to burn clock and sit on their haunches while the defense played contain.

I'd be furious if I were part of the #1 scoring offense in the NFL and my coaches told me to play not to lose.

Yeah

A better argument would have been for the Panther offense to score 1 or two FG, or a couple of FG's in the second half.

But to score nothing (even in a win after a big lead), makes you wish for more.

[tondi]

We scored our last TD with seven minutes left in the first half and then proceeded to sit on the ball for the last 37 minutes of the game.  Luckily it turned out OK but I have no idea why a team with the highest scoring offense and an MVP QB that had totally dominated the game up to that point decided to quit doing everything that got them into that position, especially when our defense has a well documented track record of giving up big leads. 

 

[SportsCrazie4172]

3 hours ago, Achilles said:

It is nearly impossible to hold on to a big lead for an entire 30 minutes of football against a team like Seattle.  We did it once all season (home against  ATL).  That being said, basically Russell Wilson just made some sick throws under duress and they mounted a comeback.

The conservative play calling is definitely designed to not give up the big play and to run out the clock.  It worked.  We won.  It wasn't pretty, but the coaches did enough.  The players did enough.  One thing that may go overlooked:  We never trailed in that game.

The biggest problem was that our offense didn't really sustain much.  If we could have scored even 2 FGs in that entire half, the game would have been out of reach.  Not enough first downs.  That was a problem that put all the pressure on the defense to hold a huge lead with tons of time.  However, and this is huge:  We did not turn the ball over!

Everyone complains about the pattern of the Indy, GB, and NYG games.  It was the same today.  Point is: We won all of them.  4-0 in games that go like this one.

In the end we did enough things right to win the game.  That was Rivera's line.  I think he's exactly right.

Arizona is a team that can score fast and often and score 24 points in a half, so...

Would you rather have a close game that goes down to the wire?

Or

Have one team get out to a big lead only to have the game come down to an onside kick?

Either way it's the NFL.  You win the game, you go on to the next round.

We are on to the next round.  Doesn't matter how.

It always goes back to what Luke said in a post game interview after beating the Colts..

"We may not win pretty but we win"

[Cookie Lyon]

1 hour ago, TheCandyMan said:

The other thing that left me scratching my head with Ron's comments in his press conference.  To say we went into protect mode in the 2nd when he wanted to keep the pressure up, my only thought was "well, you're the head coach, tell your coordinators how you want the game played."

All in all, I'm delighted we won.  I think some are disappointed because they saw us have the opportunity to not only beat Seattle, but an opportunity to crush them and we looked like a completely different team in the 2nd half.

Rivera's comments left me scratching my head as well.

He acts as if he doesn't have any power over his coordinators. LOL!

Hopefully this conservative BS doesn't come back to bite this team going forward.