Gantt's Rant

[TheMaulClaw]

So when we fire Rivera next year, will we have to get another OC once again?

This is nothing but positioning to draft Clowney. Which if we're not a playoff team next year....I'd prefer anyway.

[TheMaulClaw]

JR told Rivera he'd get a 3rd year. He then hired Gettleman. With Gettleman's resume, if he was absolutely set on firing Rivera JR may have let him.

No reason to fire Rivera this year with the cap hell we're in anyway. This whole year is nothing but a little R&D for Gettleman for the following season when he'll actually have flexibility to shape the team. In addition the Panthers had to have some inkling that Chud was interested in the Browns job before they made the GM hire, undoubtedly Gettlemen knew that this might be a possibility before accepting the position. Gettlemen is prepared to give Rivera a fair shake, which is fair after the strong finish. It's also fair to say that the firing of all those offensive position coaches was foreshadowing of Chud leaving. If Gettlemen can't fire Rivera this year he wants to do the next best thing which is to bring in his coordinators and limit Rivera's sphere of influence over them, especially on offense.

[kepickle]

I think Chud Leaving will help this team not hurt it & I support giving RIvera one more chances Besides our new GM has others things hunt for a New HC If Rivera Screws up Fire him Next yr

[Bwood]

Wow, a kepickle sighting.

[dugbug]

At least gantt has passion for the team and gets good info. He may be a bit off his rocker now and then

[ladypanther]

I am choosing to look at this glass as half full. RR has a chance to correct his early mistakes, which he has admitted he made in his hiring process. Gettleman has a lot of experience and while coaching hires are the responsibility of the HC, got to think that Ron will get some imput from his new boss. I think Chud moving on is a good thing....just can't believe the Browns are so enamored with him. May be the best thing that could have happened to Rivera.

[CRA]

My favorite Chud view...

Cam asks for the read option

Cam teaches teammates/RBs about option

Chud allows Cam to run it

Somehow that makes Chud a mad scientist. Mike Shanahan this year as well.

[Argus Plexus]

The read option is a type of play, not a base offense.

Secondly, I don't think the read option itself was the issue. i didn't like the way we were running it, and we had a hard time blocking.

It doesn't matter if you are running a power run game, zone run, or read option, if miss your assignments or get beat on your block your going to lose yardage.

Well it was our base offense at the beginning of the year. Our O-Line was being asked to work magic against the league's best pass rushers.

[Marguide]

Well it was our base offense at the beginning of the year.

Running a certain play frequently does not make it your base offense. We also frequently throw deep outs to Smith out of the gun, but you would never call that play your base offense. The read option run play is no different.

[Argus Plexus]

Running a certain play frequently does not make it your base offense. We also frequently throw deep outs to Smith out of the gun, but you would never call that play your base offense. The read option run play is no different.

So when the majority of your plays are in the same formation that's not your base offense? Gotcha.

[DawgzLife]

...(Devil's advocate)

There is still the chance that Chud coaching out of his ass and not being intelligent with how the offense was run is a large part of the reason we were so behind the 8-ball this year. A new OC might fix that problem and effectively save Rivera's job. How many times did we want to burn Chud in effigy this year?

We ranked 12th out of 32 in the league for offense (~ top 1/3 of the league) & 23rd in defense (~ bottom 1/3rd in the league). You think offense was our problem other than Cam making some dumb decisions early on in the season? (BTW, Cam was overwhelmed by the complexity of Chud's system & Chud deducted that complexity, which is when Cam 'improved').

I am not saying Chud's offense was my preference, b/c I like a more treadition rushing attack, but I'm saying it was not our offense that was our biggest problem (defense/coaching were, IMO).

[Peppers90 NC]

i think it's a good time for Gettlemen to be the GM and bring in someone of his choice.

[Peppers90 NC]

My favorite Chud view...

Cam asks for the read option

Cam teaches teammates/RBs about option

Chud allows Cam to run it

Somehow that makes Chud a mad scientist. Mike Shanahan this year as well.

i think that it is becoming more clear our lacking of execution was much worse than Chud's playcalling. that should have made him make adjustments which he took too long to do, but it has been proven that type of offense can be consistently successful.

[mwright350]

We ranked 12th out of 32 in the league for offense (~ top 1/3 of the league) & 23rd in defense (~ bottom 1/3rd in the league). You think offense was our problem other than Cam making some dumb decisions early on in the season? (BTW, Cam was overwhelmed by the complexity of Chud's system & Chud deducted that complexity, which is when Cam 'improved').

I am not saying Chud's offense was my preference, b/c I like a more treadition rushing attack, but I'm saying it was not our offense that was our biggest problem (defense/coaching were, IMO).

There is no question that coaching was our largest problem. But you'll notice that what I'm saying is about the coaches and not the players. Chud coached our offense for the first part of the year like he was playing Madden. We totally lacked balance (in spite of our 80 million dollar backfield) and we ran an offensive scheme that the whole world (but him) knew was not working as a base offense in the NFL.

Our offensive scheme didn't play to the strengths of our team and got Cam hit far more than he should have been hit. It works well as a wrinkle when they're not expecting it but defenders are too fast in the NFL for the option to be your base game plan. It's no surprise that when we started running an offense that was was more suited to the NFL we suddenly started performing better. It had nothing to do with complexity - it had to do with the scheme and the playcalling.

Cam had some issues this year (but he does have the highest passing yard total through his first two seasons of any QB to play the game...so he could have done a little worse). So did our receivers. So did our OLine. But all of this was made to look 100x worse because our playcaller was calling plays like a 12 year old in a sand-lot.

Also it's worth pointing out that our final defensive rankings for the year were:

10th in Yds/G (331.1).

18th in Pts/G

So that's pretty on par with the offense, huh?

To me the failure of this season is on Rivera and Chud. I wanted them both gone. I got one of them. My hope is that a new OC will come in here and run the offense right for an entire season. Maybe that saves Rivera's job...maybe it doesn't.