Anybody concerned about Shula...

[Snake]

I'd be more worried about some shitty organization trying to grab a hot young defensive coordinator that likely isn't ready for a HC job. see: McDermmy

Honestly I am underwhelmed at what he does. His in game adjustments are sub par and you can just feel Rivera's hand in Game planning and half time adjustments.

I mean can you say McD has done better than say Rob Ryan who has turned the saints into not terrible.

[Kurb]

I've thought the Halftime adjustments have been exceptional.  

[Jrock88]

doubt it , we are ranked 26th in total offense ... not exactly eye popping

 

 

[panthers55]

lol @ talking heads and keyboard warriors...

 

"creative and innovative" equates to a 30th overall ranking in passing and 9th in rushing... 26th overall offensively...

How long has it been since Gruden and Billick have been actively coaching, btw?

If you think our offense is doing their share to keep us in/win these games then I would agree...

If you think they are doing anything impressive, I would disagree.

 

No need to get personal.

I don't think I attacked you, I just pointed out that what you complain about, other knowledgeable offensive gurus have said just the opposite. Both Gruden and Billick are very good offensive minds and are involved in football every day.

 

If you look at overall yards our offense is not rated high but if you look at which the offense has had the most 80 yards drives for TDs as a function of overall drives it is us. We are currently number 2 behind Denver in converting 3rd downs.  We don't get the press because we are no longer a quick strike offense and don't put up gaudy numbers  but this offense is better than Chuds was.  We don't have the 3 and outs, we can control the ball and grind out drives which score points and keep our opponents off the field. We are the epitome of an efficient offense which may not look flashy but wins games.  So are we impressive?  Not to the uneducated fan, but for those who know football, this is a balanced efficient offense that is built to win even when it gets cold and ugly outside which is when it counts.  

[panthers55]

I've thought the Halftime adjustments have been exceptional.  

Totally agree. Anyone who lived through Davidson and Trgovac should be ecstatic with McDermott and Shula. We always knew that if  our game plan worked on the first few drives we were going to be fine.  Otherwise  we were in for a long day. This staff has done a great job of making halftime adjustments as well as designing good initial plans given we have  only trailed 2 times at the half in the first 11 games.  I would totally agree that out in-game and half-time adjustments have been very good.

[panthers55]

Honestly I am underwhelmed at what he does. His in game adjustments are sub par and you can just feel Rivera's hand in Game planning and half time adjustments.

I mean can you say McD has done better than say Rob Ryan who has turned the saints into not terrible.

Funny that Rivera has called him a defensive prodigy.  I read or saw somewhere where he said that he helps with overall design and initial gameplanning but that McDermott calls all the plays and makes the in-game and halftime adjustments.

[Bronn]

I don't think I attacked you, I just pointed out that what you complain about, other knowledgeable offensive gurus have said just the opposite. Both Gruden and Billick are very good offensive minds and are involved in football every day.

 

If you look at overall yards our offense is not rated high but if you look at which the offense has had the most 80 yards drives for TDs as a function of overall drives it is us. We are currently number 2 behind Denver in converting 3rd downs.  We don't get the press because we are no longer a quick strike offense and don't put up gaudy numbers  but this offense is better than Chuds was.  We don't have the 3 and outs, we can control the ball and grind out drives which score points and keep our opponents off the field. We are the epitome of an efficient offense which may not look flashy but wins games.  So are we impressive?  Not to the uneducated fan, but for those who know football, this is a balanced efficient offense that is built to win even when it gets cold and ugly outside which is when it counts.  

 

That's a lot of text to just basically call me an uneducated fan that doesn't know football.

 

You may not think you're attacking me personally, but you're basically underhandedly calling anyone that doesn't agree with your assessment morons.

 

Our offense has been extremely good at times. Our offense has also had a lot of drives killed by dropped balls and miscommunication which would have made us better.

 

We also haven't played any great defenses, really, and when we did we scored 10 points (SF), 7 points (SEA), and 6 points (ARI.)

 

I'm continuously not impressed with a lot of our play calls in certain situations. I watch other teams do a lot more with less than we have.

I'm not putting it all on Shula, because our OL is pretty terrible. But he does call the plays.

We looked pretty terrible on offense for 3/4ths of the game versus Miami. It took some good play by Cam and others on that last drive to squeak out a win against a middle of the pack defense.

Color me unimpressed with Shula. He does enough, I suppose. But he doesn't do enough to utilize our strengths, IMHO.

[Cary Kollins]

The best thing to ever happen to this team was the Browns taking the Chud off our back.

[CRA]

That's a lot of text to just basically call me an uneducated fan that doesn't know football.

 

You may not think you're attacking me personally, but you're basically underhandedly calling anyone that doesn't agree with your assessment morons.

 

Our offense has been extremely good at times. Our offense has also had a lot of drives killed by dropped balls and miscommunication which would have made us better.

 

We also haven't played any great defenses, really, and when we did we scored 10 points (SF), 7 points (SEA), and 6 points (ARI.)

 

I'm continuously not impressed with a lot of our play calls in certain situations. I watch other teams do a lot more with less than we have.

I'm not putting it all on Shula, because our OL is pretty terrible. But he does call the plays.

We looked pretty terrible on offense for 3/4ths of the game versus Miami. It took some good play by Cam and others on that last drive to squeak out a win against a middle of the pack defense.

Color me unimpressed with Shula. He does enough, I suppose. But he doesn't do enough to utilize our strengths, IMHO.

Shula is not trying to be "impressive'....

 

and yeah, we put up only 6 pts against AZ.....but that wasn't b/c of Shula.  That was b/c the players didn't execute a great first half called by coaches.  IMO, the 2nd half of that game was a learning point for Cam.  Cam IMO handled the pressure bad and pretty much built our win streak off learning from it.

 

I have one thing I hate Shula did in both of our last games.....3rd and long and he calls designed right rollouts for Cam.  Those calls basically take half the field away and limit a QB.  3rd and long seems to be a bad time to limit your pass.  Neither worked.  I don't like that on 3rd and long.

 

What strengths is he not utilizing?

[therealmjl]

No.

[Ivan The Awesome]

I think it is an awesome turn of events that just about two months ago this board was saying Shula was the worst signal caller in the world and now the threads of job offers are being made. He is doing something right. Personally I do not think he will go anywhere. I think he likes it here and if we go deep in the playoffs he may say screw other jobs and finish the job here first.

[panthers55]

That's a lot of text to just basically call me an uneducated fan that doesn't know football.

 

You may not think you're attacking me personally, but you're basically underhandedly calling anyone that doesn't agree with your assessment morons.

 

Our offense has been extremely good at times. Our offense has also had a lot of drives killed by dropped balls and miscommunication which would have made us better.

 

We also haven't played any great defenses, really, and when we did we scored 10 points (SF), 7 points (SEA), and 6 points (ARI.)

 

I'm continuously not impressed with a lot of our play calls in certain situations. I watch other teams do a lot more with less than we have.

I'm not putting it all on Shula, because our OL is pretty terrible. But he does call the plays.

We looked pretty terrible on offense for 3/4ths of the game versus Miami. It took some good play by Cam and others on that last drive to squeak out a win against a middle of the pack defense.

Color me unimpressed with Shula. He does enough, I suppose. But he doesn't do enough to utilize our strengths, IMHO.

And that was a lot of text to say nothing new or further the conversation.  So we didn't look that good against Miami in the first half so our offense is not impressive.  That is a strong indictment there;  As for the rest, you are wrong.

 

We have played 3 of the top 10 defenses and 8 of our games have been against defenses in the top 20.

 

We scored 7 against Seattle but we had almost 270 yards and but for a few dropped passes could easily had 21 points.

If you want to mention that we scored 6 points against the 8th ranked offense, why not mention the 31 points we put up against the 14th ranked Bucs or the 30 we put up against the 18th ranked Rams.  Sure the difference in rankings sound big but the difference between the 8th ranked defense and the 18th ranked defense is 30 yards a game or less than a 10% variance.

 

Lets ignore that 2 of those 3 games were on the road where points are always at a premium.

 

And the whole we don't play to our strengths is laughable.  Who is our biggest weapon?  Cam. Whose hands do we put the ball in when we need a big play?  Cam.

 

Truth is that because we are winning people forget that our offensive line is patched together and that our starting right guard was a DT in game 1 and has only started 2 games. And our starting left guard was sitting on the sofa at home week 1.

 

Again, say what you want but anyone who thinks we are not impressive is looking at the superficial and not looking any further.  Call that superficial if you don't like uneducated.  The result is the same. 

[Snake]

Funny that Rivera has called him a defensive prodigy.  I read or saw somewhere where he said that he helps with overall design and initial gameplanning but that McDermott calls all the plays and makes the in-game and halftime adjustments.

 

If thats true then it would explain why our defense gets exposed on some plays like in Mia. They baited McD and made him pay that whole half. It was not until halftime did they adjust and we will never really know if Rivera helps or not but Im sure he has some say. You can tell he lets McD control the playcalling because he does not even carry a playcalling sheet.

[panthers55]

If thats true then it would explain why our defense gets exposed on some plays like in Mia. They baited McD and made him pay that whole half. It was not until halftime did they adjust and we will never really know if Rivera helps or not but Im sure he has some say. You can tell he lets McD control the playcalling because he does not even carry a playcalling sheet.

 

First of all even great defenses have lapses so to assume that the passes caught by Wallace were due to poor scheming would be wrong. Rivera said we were playing quarters which is a cover 4 shell and there should have been safety help over the top on both plays.  It was the safety's fault not Munnerlyn or play calling which was at fault.  That and the fact that we missed Johnson's pass rush when Miami rolled out right which is exactly where Johnson would have been.

 

As for defensive play sheets, many DCs don't have play sheets.  They call the base defense  and any blitzes packages often based on down and distance. The call comes to the Mike linebacker and he makes adjustments based on what they discussed all week and what they said they were going to do. Sometime the DC calls the cover, sometimes the Mike calls it other times it is the free safety or defensive coach.  Defenses aren't scripted so much as reactive to what the offense is doing. I am simplifying it but unlike OCs there are not playcalling sheets that they use on every play.