(09-24-2018, 02:01 PM)Deacon Wrote: (09-24-2018, 01:45 PM)Bullseye Wrote: The problem is that the offense became a caricature of itself way past the point of diminishing returns. Seems as if the offense completely eschewed attacking deep, even when Adoree Jackson left the game.
While I'm convinced Fournette will change the dynamic some, can we afford to play that conservative (reminding that conservative football is not to be confused with ineffective football)?
Just because a team throws short does not, in my mind anyway, mean that it isn't being aggressive. Being hell-bent on a certain play that attacks a certain part of the field isn't aggressive, it's stubborn. More times than not, the Tennessee Defense was in a seven-man front which would indicate to me Safety coverage over the top. So why throw into that? Seems dangerous.
Without rewatching the game, my impression was that plays were there to be made. The players just didn't go out and get them. Not to say that the plan couldn't stand a little tweaking, but I think it was good enough to get the team more than nine points.
Plays were certainly there to be made offensively. Poor execution and inopportune penalties crushed any little bit of momentum they managed to pick up here and there. Batted passes, a few drops and over throws. Those little things add up when you lose by three points.
I agree with you regarding the aggressiveness Vs. short throws though. You can dink and dunk a team to death and make big plays with RAC yardage. They managed that on a handful of plays in last Sunday's victory over New England. But it felt like a lot of that wasn't working against their front seven yesterday.
My biggest gripe is with Grant. They seem to want to run him too much out of the spread formation or shot gun formation. I want to see our offense line up the way the tacks line up their offense. When they want to run the football. They don't get cute. They throw the kitchen sink at you.
They were out muscling our offensive line all day and in the 3rd quarter they started dictating our front seven with their own ground game.
Why are we not bringing the same physicality into these ball games? It's a divisional game. They rely on the ground game as much as we do. They need to start bringing two TE's and the FB out there to run the football with Grant at least. Create a pile. Something. Anything.
But stop giving them free lanes to impede the ground game with. Move a TE or FB around. Beef up the run blocking when you need to do it. I don't see them doing that enough at all.
"What do I know of cultured ways, the gilt, the craft and the lie? I, who was born in a naked land and bred in the open sky. The subtle tongue, the sophist guile, they fail when the broadswords sing; Rush in and die, dogs - I was a man before I was a king."