OTAs twitter feed thread

[grimesgoat]

2 minutes ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Is this a serious question? These guys are professional football coaches. The gameplan should be being addressed on a weekly basis based on personnel, the opponent, match ups, etc. To continue to do the same things (unsuccessfully) week in and week out is insanity.

Its a serious question and you did not answer it. 

Put yourself in Shula's shoes.  You put together a playbook prior to the season starting.  Everyone learns the plays and gets comfortable with lots of reps.  Our playbook focuses on ball control, lots of misdirection running plays and short passes to move the chains.  We mix in some longer pass plays to keep the defense from loading the box.  We have at least one fast guy (Ginn) but you still need a few seconds from your offensive line to allow Ginn to get downfield.  The five guys you have to block are doing their best, but often they fail.  You have 2 options - try to help them get better at what you want them to do or give up, change scheme, and admit they are hopeless.

You seem to be advocating the latter.  I believe our coaches continued to hope the line would improve with repetition and improved execution. 

But the question is when would you have made a change in offensive philosophy?  Keep in mind, through 6 games up to the bye, we were 1-5 but averaging over 27 pts per game (probably top 3 or 4 in the league at the time).  When should we have chucked it?

[LinvilleGorge]

14 minutes ago, grimesgoat said:

Its a serious question and you did not answer it. 

Put yourself in Shula's shoes.  You put together a playbook prior to the season starting.  Everyone learns the plays and gets comfortable with lots of reps.  Our playbook focuses on ball control, lots of misdirection running plays and short passes to move the chains.  We mix in some longer pass plays to keep the defense from loading the box.  We have at least one fast guy (Ginn) but you still need a few seconds from your offensive line to allow Ginn to get downfield.  The five guys you have to block are doing their best, but often they fail.  You have 2 options - try to help them get better at what you want them to do or give up, change scheme, and admit they are hopeless.

You seem to be advocating the latter.  I believe our coaches continued to hope the line would improve with repetition and improved execution. 

But the question is when would you have made a change in offensive philosophy?  Keep in mind, through 6 games up to the bye, we were 1-5 but averaging over 27 pts per game (probably top 3 or 4 in the league at the time).  When should we have chucked it?

Do you realize how big an NFL playbook is? If we don't have shorter, quicker developing pass plays available designed to get the ball out quicker then that's honestly a far bigger concern than our failure to adapt. You don't have to ditch your entire scheme and playbook in order to field what appears to be an entirely different offense.

When do you adapt your philosophy? When your franchise QB is taking a hellacious beating because the OL can't block for your slow developing pass plays would be a fine time to reassess your philosophy. I know we want to attack downfield, we just did not have the OL to allow for it last year. 

I've always said that decent coaches can succeed if given the personnel to execute their scheme, but great coaches tailor their scheme to fit their personnel. 

[Khaki Lackey]

11 minutes ago, grimesgoat said:

Its a serious question and you did not answer it. 

Put yourself in Shula's shoes.  You put together a playbook prior to the season starting.  Everyone learns the plays and gets comfortable with lots of reps.  Our playbook focuses on ball control, lots of misdirection running plays and short passes to move the chains.  We mix in some longer pass plays to keep the defense from loading the box.  We have at least one fast guy (Ginn) but you still need a few seconds from your offensive line to allow Ginn to get downfield.  The five guys you have to block are doing their best, but often they fail.  You have 2 options - try to help them get better at what you want them to do or give up, change scheme, and admit they are hopeless.

You seem to be advocating the latter.  I believe our coaches continued to hope the line would improve with repetition and improved execution. 

But the question is when would you have made a change in offensive philosophy?  Keep in mind, through 6 games up to the bye, we were 1-5 but averaging over 27 pts per game (probably top 3 or 4 in the league at the time).  When should we have chucked it?

Not to mention, it's not exactly like we could have installed a new WCO during our bye week.

No I'm not a Shula apologist, but it's not as simple as everyone makes it seem. Throwing short slants in a stacked box ain't always easy or productive either. If your o line is destroyed and down to 2nd and 3rd stringers, pretty much any offense is going to suck.

our defense cost us four or five games last year, but McDermott gets a pass.

"he should have schemed around the rookie corners getting torched!"

[csx]

I was out on a bike ride and stopped by just as it ended. Saw Gettleman signing autographs which seemed weird.

[t96]

4 hours ago, stbugs said:

We scored the most points, but we were actually 11th in yards per game. The biggest thing we had was turnovers. Our turnover margin was 1 turnover a game better than average. We had a very good offense, but our turnover margin (+20) gave us a lot of opportunities to look better on offense than we really were.

Before I get flamed. In 2015, KC was #2 in turnover margin. They were the #9 scoring offense even though they were 27th in yards per game. More proof of turnover margin having a profound affect on scoring. Bucs, Falcons and Chargers were 5, 7 and 9 in total yards, but 20, 21 and 26 in scoring. They were 8th, 6th and 12th in terms of worst turnover margin.

I loved what we did in 2015, but the #1 scoring offense had just as much to do with turnover margin as Cam having his best year. Cam was 16th in passing yards and 2nd in passing TDs, without even counting all the rushing TDs. He was awesome, but having short fields helped efficiency.

Turnovers definitely are a consideration but with an average turnover margin we probably wouldn't have dropped out of the top 5-7ish at worst. Bigger factor by far when looking at the points and yards and trying to understand why they're so far off and that's our red zone efficiency. We were first in the league in that area in '15, without Benjamin too. Due to Cam's skill set a lot but also Shula has been a solid red zone coordinator.

[gakonline]

3 hours ago, Montsta said:

 Not to pile on KB, but that little hitch he ran in the seven second clip was about the most awful route I've ever seen. It took him four yards and 2-3 seconds to "fake" the DB and turn around. 

That was pretty bad. 

Looked like an incoming sack to me. Route took way too long for short route. 

[t96]

3 hours ago, Hogmolliesmaht said:

Everybody should time those routes by Samuel and KB in your heads. Samuel runs a 10yd route in about 2 seconds and KB runs a 20yd route in about 4 seconds. KB will never APPEAR to be as fast as Samuel but there really isn't much difference, if we're all  honest about it.

Football is a game of inches, and milliseconds. I don't think KB's lack of speed and quickness means he sucks or anything but there truly is a huge huge difference in speed and quickness between him and Samuel, in the NFL game. KB's game is size, not speed.

[t96]

Just now, stbugs said:

OL health helped and Newton had his best year. I just like to point out that the whole we were the number 1 scoring offense without taking into account the turnovers which help turn punts into FGs and FGs into TDs. Going from +20 to -2 in one year is a huge problem. How many 1st and goal INTs and pick sixes did we have in 2015? I don't remember any, but I remember multiple in 2016 costing us 4 losses. Throw in Gano and we're 11-5 same as Atlanta and that's even with the injuries and overall crappy play.


Sent from my iPhone using CarolinaHuddle

I agree with you that turnovers are a big factor and that people are ignoring them that year when looking at our offense and they shouldn't be. But it's not like we didn't have a great offense just because yards weren't top 10 or whatever. Our offense was dominant in red zone efficiency.

I think last year was a big anomaly and this year will look much more like 2015, but possibly even better on both offense and defense. Scary for the rest of the league. And if Butker turns into something then lookout.

[Saca312]

33 minutes ago, thomas96 said:

And if Butker turns into something then lookout.

Sad state of affairs when you consider our season could be make or break based on how our rookie kicker pans out.

[tiger7_88]

6 hours ago, The Onion Knight said:

he'll scald all of us underlings

Ouch.

Sounds painful.

[Hogmolliesmaht]

50 minutes ago, thomas96 said:

Football is a game of inches, and milliseconds. I don't think KB's lack of speed and quickness means he sucks or anything but there truly is a huge huge difference in speed and quickness between him and Samuel, in the NFL game. KB's game is size, not speed.

Maybe you don't, but a lot of people are piling on the guy and it all started with a false report that he weighed 280. It's ridiculous how people act like stupid sheep sometimes.

[grimesgoat]

1 hour ago, LinvilleGorge said:

Do you realize how big an NFL playbook is? If we don't have shorter, quicker developing pass plays available designed to get the ball out quicker then that's honestly a far bigger concern than our failure to adapt. You don't have to ditch your entire scheme and playbook in order to field what appears to be an entirely different offense.

When do you adapt your philosophy? When your franchise QB is taking a hellacious beating because the OL can't block for your slow developing pass plays would be a fine time to reassess your philosophy. I know we want to attack downfield, we just did not have the OL to allow for it last year. 

I've always said that decent coaches can succeed if given the personnel to execute their scheme, but great coaches tailor their scheme to fit their personnel. 

I'll respond once more, then give you the last word.

I imagine the playbook is full of all sorts of options, but I suspect with the constantly changing offensive line we fielded last year, that playbook was shortened considerably.  And we do not have Henry Winkler out there designing ridiculous plays in the middle of the Bourbon Bowl, so we have to use what we learned in training camp/preseason.

I'm sure there are short route options in the playbook.  But if Cam is counting the number of defenders in the box and he sees 8-9 guys, then he knows his best option will be further down the field.  He's counting on the line to hold up long enough for guys to get down there, but they just could not do it consistently.  Throwing short quick passes into an 8-9 man box is not the answer.  To add further insult to injury, when our only fast guy did get open downfield, it was 50/50 whether he would actually catch it.

I realize I'm defending Shula, which is a no-no on this board, but I'm not aware of anyone that would be significantly better for Cam at this point (other than maybe Norv Turner, whom I suspect Ron has on speed dial if we come out of the gate slow).  Let's see what Shula can design with some REAL weapons this year.

[pantherphan96]

5 hours ago, Montsta said:

 Not to pile on KB, but that little hitch he ran in the seven second clip was about the most awful route I've ever seen. It took him four yards and 2-3 seconds to "fake" the DB and turn around. 

That was pretty bad. 

Quick feet at the top of his route but it still took him forever to make a cut. No DB is gonna be fooled by that.

[Snake]

10 hours ago, Mr. Scot said:

Wonder how many remember Mayo was the guy who lived in a shed to go to school.

He had drop cord power if I remember. 

Also shed makes it seem too big. What I remember was about the size of a kids playhouse.