Hey even Jeff Davidson went 12-4

[CRA]

Honestly, that wasnt the part to be focused on. Whether we would have been the worst or 5th worst, consistent playoff teams are probably much better than 26th.

Most also don't sport that good of a D.

Our ranking pretty much boiled down to drive attempts. Not how good/effective the O was compared to the rest of the league

[EightyNine]

What was the lowest ranking before that? Or before the next one?

That is for fun and total yardage ranking should not drive decision making.

We tried a higher risk reward offense in 2011 and first half of 2012. How did that work out for us?

 

I wasn't saying that alone should decide what decision is made.  But it is something you look at and say, hey maybe we need to consider making bigger changes.

 

 

I also wasn't saying we should move to a high risk offense.  What I was saying was that the offense needs to be much better, so it is perfectly legitimate to look straight at the guy in charge and question if he is doing the right things.

[CRA]

I wasn't saying that alone should decide what decision is made. But it is something you look at and say, hey maybe we need to consider making bigger changes.

I also wasn't saying we should move to a high risk offense. What I was saying was that the offense needs to be much better, so it is perfectly legitimate to look straight at the guy in charge and question if he is doing the right things.

If we had a good OL.... or heck, even a one dimensional one that could run block our O would have looked much better.

[EightyNine]

Most also don't sport that good of a D.

Our ranking pretty much boiled down to drive attempts. Not how good/effective the O was compared to the rest of the league

I understand that we had less drives and how that affects things. But even Shula said we needed more big plays, and that driving up the field a few yards at a time was hard to do consistently.  So maybe that wasnt the best approach either. I said before that I thought Shula was decent, so its not like im here trying to say that he sucks.  

[EightyNine]

If we had a good OL.... or heck, even a one dimensional one that could run block our O would have looked much better.

Im not saying some of the personnel wasnt a problem either.  But considering what we had done with less in prior years, I still thought we should have been able to make more big plays.

[frash.exe]

or the answer is all of the above.

i can complain about all those things and them be right....mainly the skill positions (we need another top WR and maybe another pass catching TE), the offensive line (we desperately need RT, need improvement at RG, and need to start rebuilding that left side), and poor OC (results speak for themselves, and i'm talking about offensive production which is what shula is responsible for).

we are doing plenty of thinking and none of this is new. the only new thing is the discrepencies in the officiating that last game. it was piss poor and favored san fran.

12-4 and nfcs champs was great, but the offense was the thing that hurt us this year. it held us back. it just wasn't as good and productive as it was in years past. it may have been more efficient and utilized more receivers on a regular basis, but it could have been more productive. we should have scored more points this year and we didn't. i don't know why this should be overlooked.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComplainingAboutComplaining

[teeray]

I wasn't saying that alone should decide what decision is made. But it is something you look at and say, hey maybe we need to consider making bigger changes.

I also wasn't saying we should move to a high risk offense. What I was saying was that the offense needs to be much better, so it is perfectly legitimate to look straight at the guy in charge and question if he is doing the right things.

Even with the personnel deficiencies that others have noted, we were top 10 in TDS per drive, TOs per drive, Drive Success Rate, TOP per drive, Points per drive, plays per drive etc.

Just because we didn't try to max out possessions and snaps doesn't mean our offense wasn't successful.

Could we have benn better and been top 5 in some of those categories instead of just top 10, of course. But it is hard to gripe that much just because we keep possessions low and therefore have lower total yardage despite being pretty efficient.

That is my whole dispute with the flawed logic. I personally don't care if we run our offense like Oregon or Stanford, as long as we are being efficient. There are plusses and minuses to every offense. Changing what we do does not translate directly to more wins. It is how we do it.

There is a direct correlation between offense, special teams, and defense.

Our offense was successful at scoring TDs when it had the ball and did so without turning the ball over. That is all I really care about, and we were pretty successful at it.

[EightyNine]

Even with the personnel deficiencies that others have noted, we were top 10 in TDS per drive, TOs per drive, Drive Success Rate, TOP per drive, Points per drive, plays per drive etc.

Just because we didn't try to max out possessions and snaps doesn't mean our offense wasn't successful.

Could we have benn better and been top 5 in some of those categories instead of just top 10, of course. But it is hard to gripe that much just because we keep possessions low and therefore have lower total yardage despite being pretty efficient.

That is my whole dispute with the flawed logic. I personally don't care if we run our offense like Oregon or Stanford, as long as we are being efficient. There are plusses and minuses to every offense. Changing what we do does not translate directly to more wins. It is how we do it.

There is a direct correlation between offense, special teams, and defense.

Our offense was successful at scoring TDs when it had the ball and did so without turning the ball over. That is all I really care about, and we were pretty successful at it.

 

Ill say it again.  I am not trying to say that Shula is terrible.. But like everyone at the end of the season or after a loss, you try to look back and pick everything apart to see where you need to get better.  Im not just looking at our total yardage rank to make a point. I just think that our offense was our weak link.. Even though we had our chances at the goal line in the first half, we were shutout in the second half of the game vs SF.  We fixed our D this past offseason and now our offense should be the area of focus. it looks like that's what we need now to put us over the hump.  Some new personnel will help im sure, but I still think Shula's ability to have an explosive offense is a concern.

[MadHatter]

If we had a good OL.... or heck, even a one dimensional one that could run block our O would have looked much better.

 

Exactly.

 

A good OL significantly upgrades both the passing and running game.

 

Put Shula's offensive scheme behind a solid OL and this offense would be great.

[Peppers90 NC]

Point is people shouldn't just look at the record as the reason why to keep Shula. Those that actually watched every play this season know play calling was our major weakness.

i watched every play this season, and very rarely has that thought come to my mind.

 

curious, who are some reasonable replacements and what makes you think they would be a good fit?

[TN05]

Jeff Davidson didn't just give us a 12-4 season, he gave us the seventh-best scoring offense in the league that year and the third-best in team history (behind 1999 and 2011). People underrate just how good of an offense we had that season before Jake Delhomme imploded.

I think we need to give Shula at least another season or two, preferably with a better offensive line (particularly at RG and RT) and a few more weapons at receiver (a big WR and maybe another receiving TE).

[Cpt slay a ho]

our team is heavily leaning towards defense Juggernaut instead of offensive powerhouse, there's just way more talent on defense add some guys on the oline that can block before calling for the OC's head. If anything we should look at how good Shula did with the very limited talent on offense.

 

also the reason we didn't have a lot of plays over 20 yards is because early in the season cam was missing those but later it didn't matter because dbs would grab our guy and get a 5 yard penalty, not to mention the couple drops ginn had.