How will Mike Shula change our offense?

[CRA]

to be great? no. to do better than he did? absolutely. and it's not just based on tampa, but at his time in alabama where he ran pretty close to the same type offense and had the same type offensive woes as he did in tampa.

i would have liked to see even a glimmer of something good, but i didn't. all i've seen are excuses for the lack of production from both instances where he ran the offense.

could he be a victim of his situation in both efforts? absolutely, but i haven't seen anything to point to him being better than what he and his offenses produced.

not only have i looked at the numbers and then, in the case of tampa, looked at what happened when he was replaced, but i read what was being said about him and his offense from those who were there and/or those who were paying attention (and not just zod). what i saw was a lack of positive things being said. all signs were pointing to him just not being good. his offense was predictable, without much in terms of balance, and not only were in game decisions bad, they came slowly.

tbh, i wasn't crazy about him being named QB coach. i thought it was cool that he was shula's son, but when i looked at his track record as a QB coach i was much less than impressed. but i was impressed with how well he's apparently done with cam, tho i think cam came to the game pretty ready thanks to his natural talents and work that guys like whitfield and weinke and dorsey had done early on and the scheme being tailored to his strengths.

my point is that he did better than i thought he would with cam so maybe he'll do better than i think as OC. it's just that i didn't see him fail as a QB coach. i saw failure in his offenses in tampa and alabama and the fact that he hasn't had really any interest in his OC talents or whatever until we handed him the job as a sign that no one else really saw much they wanted either. he might be better, bt i'm going to have to see it to believe it.

He had RBs and a coach that wanted him to play to let his D win.....and that generally worked.

What talent exactly could he of used better or utilized more?

Jeff Davidson....what was the difference in 2008 and 2010? Was he a better OC in 2008?

[fieryprophet]

How the hell did this topic get to 14 pages?

I can understand Zod being a bit on the zealous side regarding the offenses Shula ran with the Bucs and Bama, even though he overestimates the talent level of both.

The only thing to note is that Shula at least has a track record of winning games, he isn't changing the offense wholesale, and if he follows through on his stated desire to give Cam more freedom in audibles than it may all prove to be a moot point. Just have to hope for the best.

[rayzor]

He had RBs and a coach that wanted him to play to let his D win.....and that generally worked.

What talent exactly could he of used better or utilized more?

 

how much talent did he need to not get shut out as often as he did, to score more than 7 points in a game? to score more than 14?

 

btw, the talent he had produced significantly more after he left. if the change had been at QB, i could understand that kind of transformation but when it's pretty much just one WR and the OC...it kind of more points to the OC as being the issue. just my opinion anyway. don't really care who buys that.

 

i just keep going back to the lack of production....and i mean not just being bad, but being horrible....consistently one of the worst in the league in regards to production and scoring and i can't for the life of me believe that it was dungy's plan to be that bad. his defense compensated for the lack of production on offense and it was done out of necessity.

[rayzor]

How the hell did this topic get to 14 pages?

I can understand Zod being a bit on the zealous side regarding the offenses Shula ran with the Bucs and Bama, even though he overestimates the talent level of both.

The only thing to note is that Shula at least has a track record of winning games, he isn't changing the offense wholesale, and if he follows through on his stated desire to give Cam more freedom in audibles than it may all prove to be a moot point. Just have to hope for the best.

 

he doesn't have a track record of winning games. that defense did, and they did it in spite of an offense that struggled to put up 14 points in half their games and may times couldn't even get 7.

[fieryprophet]

he doesn't have a track record of winning games. that defense did, and they did it in spite of an offense that struggled to put up 14 points in half their games and may times couldn't even get 7.

That's not how it works in the pro game. A multitude of good defenses go nowhere because of poor offenses (see: Chiefs, Cardinals last year) As long as they were consistently outscoring the other team (and they did over multiple seasons during Shula's tenure) then he deserves his share of credit for those wins. I'm not saying he was the primary or even secondary reason, but everyone acts as if winning with a dominant defense consists of punting away on first down when terrible offenses sink great defenses all the time.

[rayzor]

sure it's how it works. when one side of the ball is weaker than the other, the other has to compensate for the weaker to win games. that's the way it is with any organization. the stronger has to compensate for the weaker in order to succeed. the offense was the thing holding that team back. once it got corrected and they changed OCs, they did better.

 

[CRA]

how much talent did he need to not get shut out as often as he did, to score more than 7 points in a game? to score more than 14?

 

btw, the talent he had produced significantly more after he left. if the change had been at QB, i could understand that kind of transformation but when it's pretty much just one WR and the OC...it kind of more points to the OC as being the issue. just my opinion anyway. don't really care who buys that.

 

i just keep going back to the lack of production....and i mean not just being bad, but being horrible....consistently one of the worst in the league in regards to production and scoring and i can't for the life of me believe that it was dungy's plan to be that bad. his defense compensated for the lack of production on offense and it was done out of necessity.

the talent produced more when he left?  Not the talent he worked with...He left and they FINALLY brought in a WR.  His WR had the worst year of career and his career ended.

 

If you don't have talent to pass....it is hard to score points.  They won 11 and 10 games his last 2 years....what they wanted to do by playing to the D worked

[MadHatter]

Here you have a decent thread with different opinions, all backed up with legitimate reasons, and a few non contributing whiners that get butt hurt any time someone has the audacity to suggest that Shula is a big question mark. Of course Shula will be awesome, 'cause Belichick!

Notice how they take funny little jabs at me, crying for attention and validation. Sad really.

It goes from Shula being a huge question mark to "OMG you said Shula is the worst OC in history and has no chance of success!"

Mainly due to lack of reading comprehension skills, so I forgive it.

Seems like you are the one still whining and bitching.

[fieryprophet]

On the bright side, if Shula ends up wrecking the offense Rivera will be gone by the end of the year, since it was the first crucial decision he made under Gettleman's tenure, and we'll know Rivera's not the coach this team needs.

[rayzor]

On the bright side, if Shula ends up wrecking the offense Rivera will be gone by the end of the year, since it was the first crucial decision he made under Gettleman's tenure, and we'll know Rivera's not the coach this team needs.

 

thats a very frustrating and unwanted bright side.

[Ace_Aladdin]

In the end it comes down to player execution..doesn't matter how much of genius  your OC if your players can't carry out the plays then the most genius OC will look like a dumbass........ Our Offense is built for pro style with the power running game and that's what where going back to ...we got the personnel to carry it out and be successful... Shula wouldn't be the OC if the coaches and players didn't have faith in him as well.

[rayzor]

the talent produced more when he left?  Not the talent he worked with...He left and they FINALLY brought in a WR.  His WR had the worst year of career and his career ended.

 

If you don't have talent to pass....it is hard to score points.  They won 11 and 10 games his last 2 years....what they wanted to do by playing to the D worked

 

lol if you want to believe that all it took for them to go from the very bottom of the league in offense to 6th best was one WR and not a change in direction in the management and playcalling of that offense then have at it.

 

it's hard to score twice a game? once a game? ok. they were the worst or among the very worst in the league. a lot of teams had a lot easier time of it than them. and yes, they won with that little tiny bit of production from their offense. did they win because of their offense or in spite of it? how many teams could win with that little production from their offense? when you see a team that can win with that little, you don't go chasing after the guy running that offense (which really nobody did....in 12 years), you stay away from the one running that offense and go after the guys working with that defense....which when you look at the dungy coaching tree quite a few did.

 

i just can't believe that any team would be content with just scoring once or twice a game and barely getting by. i don't care how many games they won, it wasn't because of him. that's why he got fired.

 

and then why he got fired at alabama...because what he did in running the offense didn't work well enough. and that's why there hasn't been anyone interested in hiring him for an OC gig in all these years. there was nothing in his offense that made people think, "hell yeah! that's the guy for us!"

[rayzor]

In the end it comes down to player execution..doesn't matter how much of genius  your OC if your players can't carry out the plays then the most genius OC will look like a dumbass........ Our Offense is built for pro style with the power running game and that's what where going back to ...we got the personnel to carry it out and be successful... Shula wouldn't be the OC if the coaches and players didn't have faith in him as well.

 

people lay too much credit on players. it's BALANCE. you have to have a good plan and good decision making. you have to have the guys prepared. you have to have the guys in the best position for them to win AND you've got to have talent.

 

talented players without proper coaching is as worthless as talented coaches without good players.

 

if your coach can't game plan well enough or make the right decisions during the game utilizing the players he has, they aren't going to reach their potential as a team. you can't throw JAG players into any coaches system and expect excellence and you can't just throw talented players into JAG coaches and expect excellence.

[Zod]

In 1999, Shula's last year in Tampa Bay he had Trent DIlfer and Shaun King in at QB and 27th ranked offense. Leading receiver was Jaquez Green with 791 yards.

 

In 2000, the Bucs had Shaun King as QB and ranked 6th in offense. Leading receiver was Keyshawn Johnson with 874 yards.

 

So Keyshawn only had 75 more yards than Green the year before. Does that move you from 27th to 6th in offense?

 

 

One could easily argue Shula had the better QB as Dilfer went on to win a Superbowl as starter for the Ravens and Shaun King would be soon out of the league.

 

Hell, even the run game improved after Shula was fired, it went from 15th to 9th. Same running backs. Same OL. New coach decided Warrick DUnn should be the feature back. More carries, more yards than Alstott the year before.

 

The Bucs ranking did not go up because better players were brought in. It went up because they had smarter gameplans, better preparation and adjustments. All of that falls on the offensive coaches.

 

 

You can be optimistic about Shula, thats fine. We all hope he has learned a whole lot over the past few years. But stop trying to sugar coat his OC history. It stinks.