Quote:Not necessarily. It could mean the offense performed well enough to keep us within that frame.
Your closing statements about the 6 games that weren't blowouts and within striking distance are interesting. Good coaching can make a difference, I concede that.
But arguably two of those games were decided by bad shotgun snaps. Did Bradley and company coach Wiz to mess up those snaps? If so, why weren't the snaps bad until late in the year? If something were wrong with the coaching in the close games that made the difference, and the plays that made a difference in those games were caused by bad coaching, then consider the following theories:
1) The coaching was consistently bad all year on the C snaps from shotgun, which means the bad techniques, etc., were being taught all year, which means the same mistakes should have been seen all year. Yet we didn't see the bad snaps until the end of the year. Why not?
2) The coaching on the C snaps from shotgun were usually pretty good, as evidenced from the lack of bad shotgun snaps until the end of the year. If this is the case, why would the coaches deviate from a technique that worked all year to an untested technique? For that matter, after the second botched snap, Wiz did not have a bad shotgun snap the rest of the year, which means assuming the coaches saw the link between the change to bad technique and the bad result and returned to the good technique previously taught, wouldn't that mean they were capable of making the adjustments so many assert are not being made?
3) The coaching was consistently bad all year on the C snaps from shotgun, but it took Wizniewski, an experienced player, most of the season to absorb that bad coaching. If it is possible that it takes a while for coached techniques (good or bad) to set in, and that transition period had an effect on field performance, then is it reasonable to assume that Bradley and his staff could coach young players properly and it take a while for his coaching to take hold, which means they may perform better later rather than sooner?
4) Maybe the negative plays had nothing to do with coaching. Perhaps Wiz botched those snaps on his own, whether due to injury that impacted his performance, or due to a lack of concentration, or some other error. In this case, why does Bradley get the blame for this?
It's funny that you bring up the botched snaps because I distinctly remember critiquing the coaching staff regarding these shot gun snaps right at the end of the season.
If my memory serves, Wiz botched the shot gun snap three games in a row. I remember thinking after the first game, "hey, stuff happens". After the second game, I got kinda concerned. By the third game, I was pretty peeved by the whole thing.
As a manager, I know that skills need to be constantly reinforced. If one of my top personnel makes a mistake, generally I would address my concern and make sure that person knew the expectations. If the mistake happened again in a relatively short period of time, I'd have had a much more in depth conversation and would have coached and observered him performing the action to ensure proper execution and that a third mistake would not happen.
Now, I know we are not at the practices to see whether Gus was properly managing the situation--- however, I guarantee that in the real world, if my employee made the same mistake 3 times in a row in a short period of time, my abilities as a supervisor would be called into question by my director above me. And I would expect that my director would call into question what I was doing, and whether my coaching and supervisory skills and actions were effective.
Now, Gus isn't the o line coach that teaches shot gun technique, but my analogy for management still applies.
1st botch, pull the o line coach and make sure he's aware that Wiz has an area of opportunity to focus on for the week.
2nd botch, in as many weeks-- you make sure the o line coach understands you are not happy, and you watch the coach and Wiz execute in practice.
3rd time in as many weeks, you make sure accountability actions are I implemented... maybe bench wiz for bo
To me, this is a major concern. But like I said, 2015 was a long time ago and I'm not sure how beneficial it is to litigate this, unless you'd just like to pass some time.
I'm willing to let this season play out