The fallacy of the playcalling argument

[HoustonFrog]

Originally Posted by erod

These kinds of scenarios happen all the time.

Jason Garrett calls a five-yard slant to Dez Bryant. Demarco Murray is running a flare into the flat, and Witten is going to goes in motion to the far side of the slant.

Romo surveys the defense and notices the outside linebacker is dropping off into coverage, right in the zone where Dez' slant is supposed to be run. Both Romo and Dez should read this, and Dez should instead run a hitch.

Romo looks at the playclock and still has 10 seconds, so he decides to "Kill! Kill!" the play, which audibles it into an off-tackle run to Murray on the right side. The defense then audibles because they believe it to be an actual play change from Romo, and the strong safety steps into the box.

Free doesn't seal the inside edge, and Bernadeau gets stood up. Murray slashes outside, then cuts upfield and gets tackled by the safety for a two-yard gain.

[View Full Quote]Then Cowboys fans here and yon scream collective bloody murder, "GARRETT, THROW THE DAMN BALL! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING INTO A BLITZ?"

Such is the idiocracy of us football fans. We think there's a magic playcall sequence, and if the calculus is figured properly in the gameplan, and the head coach properly weighs the statistical trends, 40 points should rain down from the scoreboard like confetti in Times Square.

Experts fly onto the message boards detailing their acute and studied knowledge of what should have been called. Their storied high school playing career, coupled with their ranking status in Madden online, reinforces their strange belief that, in fact, most of these 32 coaches won a job lottery and have no idea what they're doing.

Especially Garrett.

The fact is, every play is designed to score, and has produced, touchdowns. Every one of them. And every team pretty much runs the same plays, weighted by personnel and talent. There hasn't been an original thought in a good long while in this copycat league. They've been running the read-option in high school for 20+ years.

But what never seems to get properly considered (mostly because we don't know for sure and won't admit it) is that the play called isn't necessarily the play run, and plays that don't work are 90 percent the result of a missed block, bad read, or poorly thrown ball or route run.

Basics still decide football games.

I want Garrett to turn over the playcalling duties, too, but not because I don't think the guy can call plays. I want him to free up his time and energy so he can better manage all three phases of the game on Sunday, and simply run the sideline. That's what Jimmy and Parcells did. Landry called offensive and defensive plays at one time, but he had a whole staff of future head coaches, and players were more self-disciplined in those days.

Way too much attention is being payed to this right now. The much greater matter at hand is getting the line of scrimmage tilted back to 0 degrees, instead of the 30-degree uphill angle it's currently on.

Garrett and Romo are hamstrung. New plays aren't needed as much as new people to run them with.

No offense, because its a very well laid out post, but then why does a team like the Ravens fire their OC and when the new guy comes in he clicks? The reason is that some OC's can play call better than others given the personnel they have. Its why teams like GB with a bad Oline run a semi-hurry up and get the ball out of Rodgers hands quickly. It's why some teams keep RBs in to chip when they know they have trouble blocking one guy. You can't just say that OC doesn't matter because everyone calls the same plays so we need more talent. Then why even have an OC? The Ravens showed that some guys can take the same team and turn the exact same personnel into a different machine. We didn't take advantage of the plusses we had...Romo and our WRs and instead kept trying to fit a round peg into a square hole running the ball behind a bad oline just to try and establish something.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

And now we get rationalizations that are not even based on anecdotes. Let's just apply cause without basis to two different things, equate them and then act like you have made a point.

It doesn't 'click' and if you don't understand that it's the playcalling then you have no clue.

Someone else changed OC's and something changed for the better. PLAYCALLING!!!

They didn't score points in certain time frames: DEPR DERP PLAYCALLING!

[HoustonFrog]

Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins

And now we get rationalizations that are not even based on anecdotes. Let's just apply cause without basis to two different things, equate them and then act like you have made a point.

It doesn't 'click' and if you don't understand that it's the playcalling then you have no clue.

Someone else changed OC's and something changed for the better. PLAYCALLING!!!

They didn't score points in certain time frames: DEPR DERP PLAYCALLING!

Translator please

[Hoofbite]

If it's all about failures on behalf of the players, it's makes you wonder how some guys make careers out of being an OC or DC.

[superpunk]

Originally Posted by HoustonFrog

Translator please

All is well.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Originally Posted by Hoofbite

If it's all about failures on behalf of the players, it's makes you wonder how some guys make careers out of being an OC or DC.

It's not all or nothing. The bottom line is that dumbing down things that you have nor real understanding of in the first place posits nothing.

A team changes OC and they win the Super Bowl so obviously that means it's the playcalling? Really? You find merit in that line of thinking?

People dumb down an OC's responsibilities down to DERP PLAYCALLING! and they do it over and over and over and over and over again.

When I do read stuff from people that I respect their acumen like Sturm and Vela I never see the DERP PLAYCALLING routine. They talk about play execution and formation trends. Actual specific observations. What a novel idea.

Again I go back to dumbing things down that you do not grasp in the first place posits nothing.

[HoustonFrog]

Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins

It's not all or nothing. The bottom line is that dumbing down things that you have nor real understanding of in the first place posits nothing.

A team changes OC and they win the Super Bowl so obviously that means it's the playcalling? Really? You find merit in that line of thinking?

People dumb down an OC's responsibilities down to DERP PLAYCALLING! and they do it over and over and over and over and over again.

When I do read stuff from people that I respect their acumen like Sturm and Vela I never see the DERP PLAYCALLING routine. They talk about play execution and formation trends. Actual specific observations. What a novel idea.

Again I go back to dumbing things down that you do not grasp in the first place posits nothing.

Well while your name calling the fact is changing OCs WAS the reason the Ravens got better. Talk to any NFL pro/analyst out there. Cam Cameron ran an outdated offense and didn't use his personnel properly. Ray Rice was getting the ball 44 % when he was there. It was ruining play action and the deep ball. After Caldwell took over they ran 51% which opened up the play action and gave Flacco freedom. Cameron even said it worked. You just saying it doesn't make a difference doesn't mean squat when your patently wrong!! Im amazed that so many people attack people's intelligence yet still defend everything that has caused this team to fail for over a decade.

[superpunk]

Originally Posted by Hoofbite

If it's all about failures on behalf of the players, it's makes you wonder how some guys make careers out of being an OC or DC.

Or why we hand out Coach of the Year honors.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Originally Posted by HoustonFrog

Well while your name calling the fact is changing OCs WAS the reason the Ravens got better. Talk to any NFL pro/analyst out there. Cam Cameron ran an outdated offense and didn't use his personnel properly. Ray Rice was getting the ball 44 % when he was there. It was ruining play action and the deep ball. After Caldwell took over they ran 51% which opened up the play action and gave Flacco freedom. Cameron even said it worked. You just saying it doesn't make a difference doesn't mean squat when your patently wrong!!

That is not namecalling. I did not call anyone anything.

I am not saying that the new offensive coordinator did not make a huge difference in their offensive execution. What I am saying is that trying to distill that down to and characterizing it with the "DERP PLAYCALLING" is dumbing it down.

[HoustonFrog]

Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins

That is not namecalling. I did not call anyone anything.

I am not saying that the new offensive coordinator did not make a huge difference in their offensive execution. What I am saying is that trying to distill that down to and characterizing it with the "DERP PLAYCALLING" is dumbing it down.

Sorry it just seemed like you were saying that people are dumb and clueless if they think the OC makes a difference. I just think it does when there are teams that are effectively masking their deficiencies by fitting the play calling to the personnel....exams above..Green Bay...bad line, no RBs

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Originally Posted by HoustonFrog

Sorry it just seemed like you were saying that people are dumb and clueless if they think the OC makes a difference.

That is not what I said nor is it what you were saying. You cannot make a point if you keep on changing it.

This discussion is about playcalling as cause and not about the architect of the offense.

[T-RO]

Good post, erod.

The rampant harangue surrounding play-calling is a tell-tale sign of an immature fan.

The reality is that Cowboy problems have very little to do with the plays being called. Some perhaps. Not much.

[superpunk]

Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins

Spare me, punk. Just because you agree with the premise does not mean that you don't come on here most days and deride the simpleminded approach seen all too often.

I don't necessarily disagree with the premise but I do take serious issue how the gap between premise and cause is arrived at.

When game in and game out you see this team come out flat and ineffective on offense, until they get behind and have to toss the gameplan out, I think you can pretty safely infer that there is some sort of problem with our coaching; either playcalling/gameplanning/having the team ready to play.

Combine that with the fact that as an organization we are making playcalling changes...

What in the heck do you want people to conclude?

There is an art to playcalling. It's why Norv Turner will have a job in the NFL as long as he wants one - because he's got a knack for timing and is regarded as one of the finest playcallers in the league.

The fact that it's a simplistic explanation doesn't make it untrue. It also doesn't mean we don't have other very serious problems.

But every sign in the universe points to Garrett as an incompetent playcaller/gameplanner/whathaveyou. We aren't overhauling the staff and (maybe) replacing him (idk guys we'll figure that out sometime between now and August, k?) because he's awesome at it.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Originally Posted by superpunk

When game in and game out you see this team come out flat and ineffective on offense, until they get behind and have to toss the gameplan out, I think you can pretty safely infer that there is some sort of problem with our coaching; either playcalling/gameplanning/having the team ready to play.

Combine that with the fact that as an organization we are making playcalling changes...

What in the heck do you want people to conclude?

There is an art to playcalling. It's why Norv Turner will have a job in the NFL as long as he wants one - because he's got a knack for timing and is regarded as one of the finest playcallers in the league.

The fact that it's a simplistic explanation doesn't make it untrue. It also doesn't mean we don't have other very serious problems.

[View Full Quote]But every sign in the universe points to Garrett as an incompetent playcaller/gameplanner/whathaveyou. We aren't overhauling the staff and (maybe) replacing him (idk guys we'll figure that out sometime between now and August, k?) because he's awesome at it.

I am just a reductionist and put little to no stock in gross generalizations.

Was something wrong? Sure, that is obvious but stuff like "we can safely infer that something is wrong with our coaching" just sounds like throwing crap against the wall in a closed-minded way and "every sign in the universe points to Garrett as an incompetent playcaller/gameplanner/whathaveyou" just sounds like a butthurt extension of that to me.

I don't think it's an unfair standard to qualify assertions with something of quality and your 'deductions' hardly meet that standard. It's obviously heavy on emotion and generalization and short on empirical proof. You call others out on this all the time.

[Dhragon]

We might be giving a little too much emphasis on playcalling when other things are much more a part of what is wrong than that (O-line being bad main one IMO). Yet, it still puzzles me why one of the two plays at Romo's arsenal whenever the opposition starts to blitz alot (the "Kill, kill" play) is not a screen or some such which can kill a team who blitzes.

We've gone whole games with little or no "anti-blitz" play calls even when the opponent is blitzing all the time. Why is this?

A playcaller has got to know when certain plays will be needed. Garrett doesn't seem to get this IMO.