Does Chud. Run a West Coast Offense?

[Kevin Greene]

The offensive philosphy of the Gillman-Coryell offense is to pull the safety's either out towards the sidelines or deep covering the outside deep WR.

Generally what the offense wants to happen is for the safety's to move onto the deep WR's leaving the TE, Slot Receiver, ext open for routes over the middle of the field in single coverage / gaping holes in a zone based defense.

So to answer that question, it would depend on what the defense is running and how they are playing their safety's. Typically I'd say those 5-10 shots down the field would need to be 25+ yards on average.

Those passes don't necessarily have to be completions, just the shots need to be taken. The offense will be more effective if 2-5 can be completed, the rest is based off of running the ball and YAC from crossing, out, and slant routes.

While it's probably a given that the Panther's will run the ball more and rely on Play action passes. "Probably similar to what SD ran in River's rookie season play calling wise" the key is still to push the ball down the field on those passes.

So either way Carolina runs Chud's offense, the QB is going to need to be able to complete those Down the field passes. That and the fact that Chud is throwing in option plays and runs for Newton, makes me think that Newton is likely to be the starter come opening day. "That is unless he completely bombs in the pre-season games, maybe the first one won't be pretty. After that I think he settles down and becomes the starter for the season.

Way too many things being added to the offense for Newton + the offense style being suited more so for Newton then Clausen = makes me think that the decision has already been made on who's the starter for the season.

One of the reasons for the play calling River's frist year as a starter was All Pro play by Ladanian Tomlinson. #21 ran for 1800 plus yards in 2006 and had 500 receiving yards as well, incredible productivity.

LT's production declined steadily after that last great year and out of necessity the Bolts have had to pass more as they still search for a replacement (maybe Ryan Mathews steps up this year). Of course Schotty was also fired by GM Smith after 2006 and Norv took over.

One of the bright spots for the Panthers is the yardage DWill and JStew should be able to put up every Sunday in this offense when they are complimented by the passing game, especially if the safeties are stretching deeper.

Can't wait to see what they can do.

[mav1234]

So to answer that question, it would depend on what the defense is running and how they are playing their safety's. Typically I'd say those 5-10 shots down the field would need to be 25+ yards on average.

I honestly think that the "sweet spot" that needs to be hit might be less than 25 yards (but they also need to do it more than 5 times a game), because DA(2007) had only 2.6 attempts per game >20 yards and Rivers(2010) had 3.5(Clausen had 2 attempts per game >20 yards). You are right that the threat must be there though. No doubt, Rivers and DA seemed more of a threat to go deep now. And of course, Rivers and DA had more attempts as a percentage of their total past 20 yards (8% for DA >20 yards, 10% for Rivers, 7% for Clausen) than Jimmy, but Jimmy's completion percentage was still as good as Rivers and better than DA. So maybe he can run this offense? Then again, considering how completely he blew in 11-20 yards, I'm not so convinced he can run ANY offense if he hasn't improved in that area against live NFL defenses.

everything about the stats and the CLE/SD games I've seen have suggested that the key to chud's (and turner's) offense is in the 11-20 yard range. When those offenses were really clicking, it always seemed to be strings of intermediate passes to seemingly wide open guys for first down after first down, marching quickly down the field. It is that range where Clausen was worst last year... and by most reports, it's in that range that many of the playcalls Clausen is getting in camp are going. (and Cam for that matter) I think this comes back to a few things: 1) clausen didn't often have time to make throws of any significant distance because he was incapable of adjusting the blocking schemes at the line, 2) clausen really didn't have the timing on routes down, which is why we saw a lot of balls go to the wrong place (and it's very possible his WRs didn't either based on some of the comments that have been made), and 3) his confidences eroded after the first game or two for sure...

edit: An argument could be made for Rivers establishing his deep threat earlier in his career; but for Derek Anderson, I don't really think so. Honestly, Clausen was able to go "deep" often enough last year, but he wasn't able to go "intermediate" EVER... :(

[carpanfan96]

It is the 11-20 yard throw that moves the chains and puts up points in the Tuner variant Croyell offense, but for those 11-20 yard throws to be successful the deep pass needs to be working or at least be a threat. Those plays can be effective as well if ran from play action after getting the run game going. I expect to see a mix of the team going deep and using PA to get the defense off balance and spread out.

I'm in no way saying that Clausen can't run the offense, because I think he can. He just doesn't have any confidence in his arm anymore, at ND he'd at least take the shot down field, It just didn't seem like he wanted to throw over 5 yards last season. :(

Hopefully that will change this season and I guess we will find out if he's willing to trust his arm a bit and make those kind of throws.