(09-19-2024, 09:10 AM)Jag149 Wrote:

(09-18-2024, 09:02 PM)Caldrac Wrote: This feels accurate to me. There was one play in the Miami game where he held onto the football too long in my opinion.

The other sacks were just too fast for him to process anything really. The very first play on offense was ridiculous to start the year off with.

He was blindsided at least once or twice after getting to the bottom depth of his footwork on your typical three to five step drop.

The play caller is going to have to swallow their pride this season if he's going to survive until the personnel can handle the task at hand that was originally envisioned.

Need to find a sweet spot of quick plays and lay up's with layered concepts in the passing game with him buying time deliberately.

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Maybe your on to something here. We have between 2 to 5 receivers out on passing plays.  As the play unfolds the QB looks to select an open receiver. He has a progression. I remember Tom Brady arguing with Bruce Arians about the order of that progression. Arians wanted the deep routes first working back to the short ones. Tom wanted basically the opposite. They eventually came to an agreement and the team took off from there. Could it be so simple as a tweak of that? 

Last year more than a few opposing players said the way to defend TL was to take away his first read. Mix up that first read?

They have to try something different if they're going to survive. A lot of his success over the last two years with Doug has been a good mix and match of quick hitters, misdirection routes and a few deep shots here and there when the time was there for him to find it. They have the players now to do BOTH in 2024.

They can use his mobility to move the pocket to buy him time. There's no reason why Kirk, Duvernay and Washington can't be his sideline to sideline route runners in stacked bunches. They would be your primary drag, screen, slant and curl route runners while Davis and Thomas Jr. are your primary outside receivers tasked with going long and finding that deep ball along the sideline and of course, you can occasionally mix and match these guys up to keep a defense honest as they'll eventually catch onto this.

That then leaves the TE room wide open to do a variety of things as well as the RB room. These are the two groups that need to be the bread and butter, the backbone of the offense when it's 2nd down with 3 - 5 yards to go or 3rd down with 1 - 3 yards to go. It feels like it's the most underutilized group right now as far as formations, pre snap movement and creativity. 

They can use Engram, Strange and Farrell a lot more than they are now. Engram can be flexed outside, moved inside and Strange can be used as a move TE that can motion behind the line as a lead blocker or flex outside near the tackles to make tough catches. Farrell is a good option out there as well in the primary edge setter. There's just something missing as folks keep saying and for me, this is it. It's right here with the TE room and RB room. 

Etienne is not used enough as a receiver. Split back formations could be a lot more creative with him and Bigsby. It just feels like there's a lot of low hanging fruit that's obvious for the taking and they just need to do it enough until the defense can stop selling out to our running game on short yardage situations. The 1st and 10+ rushing success has been awesome during the first two weeks. It's time to start going for kill shots more on those plays instead or getting into a rhythm with short to mid to deep scripted concepts. 

Do it until they stop it. What do you have to lose here by trying that? You're 5/19 on third down's and your running game is atrocious in short yardage situations. Open it up a little bit more.

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