In defense of conservative play calling..

[Cookie Lyon]

9 minutes ago, tondi said:

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. 

 

This.

[uncfan888]

What pissed me off the most was the squib kick out of halftime.  Gano had been booming them out of the end zone and they come out and do that? Then there's 15 more yards tacked on from a dumb penalty and they start their first drive from the 35.  Something inside of me was just like "ok...  This is about to get interesting" 

[Semaj]

4 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.

Except for the fact that we completely destructed them in the first half and were up 31-0.  In other words it was working.  It was not broken.  Why change anything.  They had no answer for the first half Panthers.  Only the Panthers could stop the Panthers and thats exactly what happened.  

[pstall]

I said the last few weeks the formula for winning in the 2nd half is this.

The offense needs at least 1, 4-5 min drive and the def at least 2, 3 and outs. In the 4th quarter especially. 

[UpstatePanther]

3 hours ago, firefox1234 said:

Poor execution on offense than a poor gameplan in my opinion...

I didn't really see that. Cam was on point. And Stewart was grinding out the yards. It just looked to me like the coaches played to grind clock, not score points. Against a good defense in the playoffs, you can't do that. Mike Shula takes the blame for that one.

But it was a joint effort. The decision to play soft zone for the last 2.5 quarters of game time infuriated me. Why fix what's not broken? Keep up the pressure. Keep tight coverage. Our pass rush was still great in the second half, but RW started finding receivers because we stopped playing tight on them. I almost blame that more than the lack of offensive production. Sitting on a lead while your defense swarms and overwhelms the opponent is one thing. But sitting on a lead when the opponent is scoring to catch up? That's playing with fire.

1 hour ago, Cookie Lyon said:

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.

That's not the point of his comments I don't think Cookie. Rivera is well known for giving his coordinators alot of freedom. It sounds to me like he was just as disappointed in Shula and McD's play calling as Cam was. And Cam never said who he was frustrated with. 

In this instance, I think we should take a wait and see approach. Rivera has never commented himself on the conservative play calling before, so it encourages me that he said something this time. Methinks he is going to get in his coordinators' grills about it not being over until the clock reads 0:00. He may have learned that lesson, but it looks like both of them havent.

[csx]

You have to couple the play and attitude of the players in with the criticism of the coaching. They have a tendency to get way too excited early and that energy wears out. 

[Cookie Lyon]

2 minutes ago, UpstatePanther said:

I didn't really see that. Cam was on point. And Stewart was grinding out the yards. It just looked to me like the coaches played to grind clock, not score points. Against a good defense in the playoffs, you can't do that. Mike Shula takes the blame for that one.

But it was a joint effort. The decision to play soft zone for the last 2.5 quarters of game time infuriated me. Why fix what's not broken? Keep up the pressure. Keep tight coverage. Our pass rush was still great in the second half, but RW started finding receivers because we stopped playing tight on them. I almost blame that more than the lack of offensive production. Sitting on a lead while your defense swarms and overwhelms the opponent is one thing. But sitting on a lead when the opponent is scoring to catch up? That's playing with fire.

That's not the point of his comments I don't think Cookie. Rivera is well known for giving his coordinators alot of freedom. It sounds to me like he was just as disappointed in Shula and McD's play calling as Cam was. And Cam never said who he was frustrated with. 

In this instance, I think we should take a wait and see approach. Rivera has never commented himself on the conservative play calling before, so it encourages me that he said something this time. Methinks he is going to get in his coordinators' grills about it not being over until the clock reads 0:00. He may have learned that lesson, but it looks like both of them havent.

I know that wasn't the point of Rivera's comments, but I just wanted to point out that to me, he acts like he has no control.

I agree with your last point though about taking a wait and see approach.

[mbarbour21]

4 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 actually does matter in my opinion. I didn't disagree with trying to run out the clock to end the half. Take 31-0 into the half. However, trying to run all the time off in the third quarter??? We did enough this time, yes. But what about next time??? That is what bothers me.

[MadHatter]

The OP is correct and it was a sound and the correct strategy.  However, RR admired they got a little too conservative.

[Carolina Crazy V2]

5 hours ago, chknwing said:

that sounds awesome and all but they were 1 onside kick away from potentially winning

You mean one highly improbable onside kick away from having to drive halfway down the field in under a minute with what, one or no timeouts, and score a touchdown against one of the league's top defenses? And then there's overtime. I'd say at the most, their chance of victory was 5 percent after that late field goal. 

[Navy_football]

Someone said it earlier, if you can score 31 points in a half then so can your opponent. I'm actually of the idea that you never stop playing to score/win unless there's literally no way an opponent can come back. Then you put in the back ups and keep playing aggressively. 

The Panthers won yesterday. That's most important, but when you dial down the play calling, players tend to dial down their effort. For instance, my son's basketball team has an athletic group of guards. When they come out the gates with a full court press, it gets the team going. Their juices are flowing. It causes them to be more aggressive on the offensive side by penetrating to the basket and crashing the boards as well. I've seen them give up 30 point half time leads when they dial it down and stop pressing and give the other team momentum and hope. Now all of a sudden the other team is allowed to comfortably get into their offense and make a few shots. And before you know it, every thing they throw up is going in. Teams they should have beaten by 50, end up winning by 5 or 10. Momentum, hope, confidence. They are real in sports. You don't ever want to give a team either if you can help it. The emotional aspect of the game is as important as the mental and physical.