Offensive Balance

[The Emperor]

Yeah, we do tend to stray rather quickly from what's working. Baffling sometimes. But some of those runs were penalized and maybe that caused Garrett to believe that the patch-work line wasn't up to task and decided to start passing.

Actually, I looked at the game log. None of our offensive penalties came off of runs. They all came off of procedure or passing plays. So, from looking at the game, in order to decrease penalties, we should have run the ball more.

Hey, it's just one game out of sixteen. He can still get it right. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

 

[craig71]

We keep going for these massive (purportedly) maulers and we won't run screens well.

Free and Kosier are the only guys who are good in screen blocking.

I wouldn't say that the whole reason for the lack of success with the screen in recent memory is tied to immobile linemen. To be an effective screen team, it takes alot of practice/reps along with disciplined players working in unison come gameday. I'm not so sure that the screen play gets alot of attention during the week with this staff, although I can't quantify my opinion.

Craig

 

[The Emperor]

In 2009 in our game against Washington at Fedex we ran the ball 33 times...out of 61 plays and scored 7 points. (54% run first, more balanced)

This season in our game against Washington at Fedex we ran the ball 22 times...out of 70 plays and scored 7 points. (76% pass first)



Did running a lot more and "having balance" help us last season?

You mean, at Cowboys Stadium, don't you?

We were 3/11 on third downs that game. That has something to do with why we didn't score more than 7 points. In Washington last week, we were 5/13 on third down.

The fact is the running game was what was working in Washington and Garrett went away from it for some unidentifiable reason.

 

[dbair1967]

So? We didn't run it enough

There's a difference between not running it enough and giving up on it, which is what I responded to. But we controlled the ball (almost a 10 min adv in TOP), made 1st downs and gained yards doing what we were doing. We only had 1 three and out. What good would running the ball more really have done?

And you want to talk about the pre-season and what indications from that time gave me the impression we could run the ball? The fact that we didn't run any elaborate blocking schemes. We were pretty vanilla.

Vanilla doesnt have anything to do with generating a push or being physical, and it wasnt just the run blocking that was bad. The pass protection was medicore too. So their answer to that, with 2 backup OL starting was to have a game plan designed around short drops, and quick throws. I dont have a problem with the logic they used to come up with it. I just wish they'd have adjusted sooner to the Commanders coverage flaw and started going downfield, particular into the intermediate middle of the field.

And what happened in Washington gave me all the impression necessary to believe we can run the ball in the regular season.

Pretty sure that will be one of the results, especially once Colombo and Kosier are 100%. That said, running the ball more doesnt mean we'll definitely score more points, which is what the issue really is.

 

[BourbonBalz]

That's one way to look at it. I think part of the problem though is that we as fans don't get to hear why they got away from the run. Did they abandon the run because Washington countered with a different defensive look? Or was it something else. I often think that sometimes if either Garrett or Wade would give a definitive answer as to why they did something alot of the what-if's would go away. Just an opinion.

Craig

We have several years to look at when it comes to Garrett's play selection. This isn't a one game deal. It's the continuation of a trend that has been apparent since he's been the OC. Garrett does not have the patience to stick with the run game, whether it's working well or not. We have a big sample size to take into consideration, not just the Washington game. Yes, last year is last year, but Red's pattern is crystal clear.

 

[BourbonBalz]

The trouble is...and what many don't understand...we have success running because of the pass.

They see 4.9 YPC and think we should run it 35 times...well if we did that 4.9 would become 2.5 or 3.0 YPC and we'd never move the ball. Our OL is not a power running OL, just because they are big doesn't mean they routinely maul defenders.

Best case they will get stalemates and things clog up and we get a couple of yards, worst case they get shoved back and we lose a couple.

You want to run it more?

Get 3 guys more like Free and Kosier that can move and zone block.

You don't necessarily have to have OL that move great to get movement on the line and block well for the run game. Our OL in the 90's was BIG, didn't zone block, and did not move particularly well. However, we used the road grader approach and it worked very well thank you. This line should be able to do the same thing, but in order for that to work, the OC has to have patience, stick with the run game, and wear down the opponent like we did then. Garrett cannot or will not do this. I'm not saying we should become a "three runs and cloud of dust" type team, but we should become more balanced offensively. Especially when our OL is having problems pass blocking.

 

[BourbonBalz]

We ran the ball the same amount of times in the second half as we did the first half. It was never "given up on" You can keep saying it, but it doesnt make it true.

Once again, what evidence did you see during preseason that our OL as it was going to be strong in the run game?

Regardless of halves, we passed the ball more than twice as much as we ran for the game. That won't win many games IMO. History has proven as much.

 

[Jarv]

Actually, I looked at the game log. None of our offensive penalties came off of runs. They all came off of procedure or passing plays. So, from looking at the game, in order to decrease penalties, we should have run the ball more.

Hey, it's just one game out of sixteen. He can still get it right. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

Yeah, I had heard the before also.

Its well known my disappointment in abandoning the run. Do I want us to be a run orientated team, no, but I still think we need to run more and not from the shotgun.

I want to see a balanced running attack from a normal set, then use play action more. I think we could be an even better passing team if we used play action more based upon an increase of runs.

 

[percyhoward]

There's a difference between not running it enough and giving up on it, which is what I responded to. But we controlled the ball (almost a 10 min adv in TOP), made 1st downs and gained yards doing what we were doing. We only had 1 three and out. What good would running the ball more really have done?

Counting penalty yardage, we averaged 4.7 yards per running play and 4.3 yards per pass play. So one thing that running the ball more *did* was it resulted in more net yardage per play for the offense. But I'd really like to look at three-and-out's.

It's true that three-and-out's weren't our problem in this game--our problem wasn't getting a couple of first downs on a drive, or even three or four. It was the old familiar problem of stringing enough first downs together to get into the end zone, or at least stringing enough long drives together to get multiple FG attempts.

So if I'm trying to figure out what caused that problem, it does me no good to count three-and-out's. Instead I'd look at what we were doing offensively that led to first down conversions (successes) vs. what we were doing that led to punts (failures).

First, the successes. What kind of plays were we running that led to us converting the next first down in that drive?

• When Passing on 1st down
  14 of 22 (64%)
• When Running on 1st down
  10 of 10 (100%)
  
  2nd half only
  (prior to final drive)
• When Passing on 1st down
  0 of 3 (0%)
• When Running on 1st down
  6 of 6 (100%)

For the whole game, every single time we ran the ball on first down led to a conversion. When we passed on first down, we weren't nearly as successful at getting that next first down.

Now the failures:
What kind of plays were we running that led to 4th downs? Find the punts and work backwards. We punted six times in the game, and the series that ended with punts looked like this:

1. 1st Qtr
   at end of 8-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
2. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 6-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
3. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 12-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
4. 3rd Qtr
   at end of 5-play drive
   pass-run-pass-punt
   
5. 4th Qtr
   at end of 8-play dirve
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
6. 4th Qtr
   at end of 3-play drive
   pass-pass-run-punt

That's six different series of downs that all led to punts, making for a total of 18 plays from scrimmage. And 16 of the 18 were passes. Our pass-run ratio for the whole game may have been heavy, but it definitely wasn't 16-2. So obviously a great many of the plays from earlier on in those drives were runs.

We can either speculate about what good running the ball more *would* have done, or we can just look at the play-by-play to see what good running the ball *did* do when we did run, compared to the good that passing did.

 

[craig71]

Counting penalty yardage, we averaged 4.7 yards per running play and 4.3 yards per pass play. So one thing that running the ball more *did* was it resulted in more net yardage per play for the offense. But I'd really like to look at three-and-out's.

It's true that three-and-out's weren't our problem in this game--our problem wasn't getting a couple of first downs on a drive, or even three or four. It was the old familiar problem of stringing enough first downs together to get into the end zone, or at least stringing enough long drives together to get multiple FG attempts.

So if I'm trying to figure out what caused that problem, it does me no good to count three-and-out's. Instead I'd look at what we were doing offensively that led to first down conversions (successes) vs. what we were doing that led to punts (failures).

First, the successes. What kind of plays were we running that led to us converting the next first down in that drive?

• When Passing on 1st down
  14 of 22 (64%)
• When Running on 1st down
  10 of 10 (100%)
  
  2nd half only
  (prior to final drive)
• When Passing on 1st down
  0 of 3 (0%)
• When Running on 1st down
  6 of 6 (100%)

For the whole game, every single time we ran the ball on first down led to a conversion. When we passed on first down, we weren't nearly as successful at getting that next first down.

Now the failures:
What kind of plays were we running that led to 4th downs? Find the punts and work backwards. We punted six times in the game, and the series that ended with punts looked like this:

1. 1st Qtr
   at end of 8-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
2. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 6-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
3. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 12-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
4. 3rd Qtr
   at end of 5-play drive
   pass-run-pass-punt
5. 4th Qtr
   at end of 8-play dirve
   pass-pass-pass-punt
6. 4th Qtr
   at end of 3-play drive
   pass-pass-run-punt

That's six different series of downs that all led to punts, making for a total of 18 plays from scrimmage. And 16 of the 18 were passes. Our pass-run ratio for the whole game may have been heavy, but it definitely wasn't 16-2. So obviously a great many of the plays from earlier on in those drives were runs.

We can either speculate about what good running the ball more *would* have done, or we can just look at the play-by-play to see what good running the ball *did* do when we did run, compared to the good that passing did.

Shouldn't you also account for what defensive formation they faced on those downs? If the Skins had 8 or 9 in the box on a particular down that would account for a pass more than likely.

Craig

 

[percyhoward]

Shouldn't you also account for what defensive formation they faced on those downs? If the Skins had 8 or 9 in the box on a particular down that would account for a pass more than likely.

Craig

If the Skins were dictating whether we would run or pass, then we were playing right into their hands.

 

[Jarv]

Counting penalty yardage, we averaged 4.7 yards per running play and 4.3 yards per pass play. So one thing that running the ball more *did* was it resulted in more net yardage per play for the offense. But I'd really like to look at three-and-out's.

It's true that three-and-out's weren't our problem in this game--our problem wasn't getting a couple of first downs on a drive, or even three or four. It was the old familiar problem of stringing enough first downs together to get into the end zone, or at least stringing enough long drives together to get multiple FG attempts.

So if I'm trying to figure out what caused that problem, it does me no good to count three-and-out's. Instead I'd look at what we were doing offensively that led to first down conversions (successes) vs. what we were doing that led to punts (failures).

First, the successes. What kind of plays were we running that led to us converting the next first down in that drive?

• When Passing on 1st down
  14 of 22 (64%)
• When Running on 1st down
  10 of 10 (100%)
  
  2nd half only
  (prior to final drive)
• When Passing on 1st down
  0 of 3 (0%)
• When Running on 1st down
  6 of 6 (100%)

For the whole game, every single time we ran the ball on first down led to a conversion. When we passed on first down, we weren't nearly as successful at getting that next first down.

Now the failures:
What kind of plays were we running that led to 4th downs? Find the punts and work backwards. We punted six times in the game, and the series that ended with punts looked like this:

1. 1st Qtr
   at end of 8-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
2. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 6-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
3. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 12-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
4. 3rd Qtr
   at end of 5-play drive
   pass-run-pass-punt
   
5. 4th Qtr
   at end of 8-play dirve
   pass-pass-pass-punt
   
6. 4th Qtr
   at end of 3-play drive
   pass-pass-run-punt

That's six different series of downs that all led to punts, making for a total of 18 plays from scrimmage. And 16 of the 18 were passes. Our pass-run ratio for the whole game may have been heavy, but it definitely wasn't 16-2. So obviously a great many of the plays from earlier on in those drives were runs.

We can either speculate about what good running the ball more *would* have done, or we can just look at the play-by-play to see what good running the ball *did* do when we did run, compared to the good that passing did.

Now that was an awesome breakdown. Appreciate the stats, running on first down was a lot more effective.

 

[craig71]

If the Skins were dictating whether we would run or pass, then we were playing right into their hands.

I think that you could make that argument. I also think that this team has enough weapons to either pass or run the ball at will if they so choose. If the Skins were crowding the LOS, I think Austin,Williams,Witten and Bryant are more than capable threats to beat that philosophy. I remember back to the early nineties team. They would try to run the ball first and foremost. But that didn't mean that they couldn't pass the ball at will if required. There were games that the running game was not simply there, but Irvin and Novacek came up big. Even the Thanksgiving Day game against Miami, Emmitt was not all that efective, Moose received a number of short passes in that game. The main difference between this team and that team is execution. Without proper execution even the best play call will result in disaster.


Craig

 

[blindzebra]

Counting penalty yardage, we averaged 4.7 yards per running play and 4.3 yards per pass play. So one thing that running the ball more *did* was it resulted in more net yardage per play for the offense. But I'd really like to look at three-and-out's.

It's true that three-and-out's weren't our problem in this game--our problem wasn't getting a couple of first downs on a drive, or even three or four. It was the old familiar problem of stringing enough first downs together to get into the end zone, or at least stringing enough long drives together to get multiple FG attempts.

So if I'm trying to figure out what caused that problem, it does me no good to count three-and-out's. Instead I'd look at what we were doing offensively that led to first down conversions (successes) vs. what we were doing that led to punts (failures).

First, the successes. What kind of plays were we running that led to us converting the next first down in that drive?

• When Passing on 1st down
  14 of 22 (64%)
• When Running on 1st down
  10 of 10 (100%)
  
  2nd half only
  (prior to final drive)
• When Passing on 1st down
  0 of 3 (0%)
• When Running on 1st down
  6 of 6 (100%)

For the whole game, every single time we ran the ball on first down led to a conversion. When we passed on first down, we weren't nearly as successful at getting that next first down.

Now the failures:
What kind of plays were we running that led to 4th downs? Find the punts and work backwards. We punted six times in the game, and the series that ended with punts looked like this:

1. 1st Qtr
   at end of 8-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
2. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 6-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
3. 2nd Qtr
   at end of 12-play drive
   pass-pass-pass-punt
4. 3rd Qtr
   at end of 5-play drive
   pass-run-pass-punt
5. 4th Qtr
   at end of 8-play dirve
   pass-pass-pass-punt
6. 4th Qtr
   at end of 3-play drive
   pass-pass-run-punt

That's six different series of downs that all led to punts, making for a total of 18 plays from scrimmage. And 16 of the 18 were passes. Our pass-run ratio for the whole game may have been heavy, but it definitely wasn't 16-2. So obviously a great many of the plays from earlier on in those drives were runs.

We can either speculate about what good running the ball more *would* have done, or we can just look at the play-by-play to see what good running the ball *did* do when we did run, compared to the good that passing did.

The funny thing is that you keep talking about this game and not as a whole...not that I buy that.

In no way or form did we run our normal passing game. Our bread and butter is that 10-15 yard range and getting YAC.

We were attacking their OLB and containing their pass rush with the passing game.

I do think we saw how we will approach the running game more because of Free by attacking the edge. Getting Kosier back should help us even more.

 

[blindzebra]

You don't necessarily have to have OL that move great to get movement on the line and block well for the run game. Our OL in the 90's was BIG, didn't zone block, and did not move particularly well. However, we used the road grader approach and it worked very well thank you. This line should be able to do the same thing, but in order for that to work, the OC has to have patience, stick with the run game, and wear down the opponent like we did then. Garrett cannot or will not do this. I'm not saying we should become a "three runs and cloud of dust" type team, but we should become more balanced offensively. Especially when our OL is having problems pass blocking.

For God's sake it isn't the 90's!

In that decade our OL averaged around 320 pounds...care to guess the average DL?

DL today are a lot bigger.

Ratliff would be a big DL in the 90's. Bruce Smith played 3-4 DE in the 270's.

 

[percyhoward]

The funny thing is that you keep talking about this game and not as a whole...not that I buy that.

That's awfully vague. If you think I'm trying to sell you something, tell me what it is, and if you found something unusual in what I said, then tell me what it was.

 

[blindzebra]

That's awfully vague. If you think I'm trying to sell you something, tell me what it is, and if you found something unusual in what I said, then tell me what it was.

There is a bias against Garrett and no matter what he does there will be those who find fault.

The gameplan for game one was not our usual scheme, yet he is getting ripped for not running enough.

Last year we ran 61% of the time against them and scored 7 points what about that?

We were playing a hated rival on the road, against a new scheme with no tape of real games, and had two starters missing on the OL. Anyone using this game as an indictment of Garrett as an OC has an agenda, plain and simple.

 

[percyhoward]

There is a bias against Garrett and no matter what he does there will be those who find fault.

The gameplan for game one was not our usual scheme, yet he is getting ripped for not running enough.

Last year we ran 61% of the time against them and scored 7 points what about that?

We were playing a hated rival on the road, against a new scheme with no tape of real games, and had two starters missing on the OL. Anyone using this game as an indictment of Garrett as an OC has an agenda, plain and simple.

I couldn't care less about biases against Garrett. Sounds like soap opera dribble to me, honestly. Let's just forget about biases and look at the game, shall we? Let's talk football and not personalities.

You already know we converted every single time we ran on first down, so what does last year's game have to do with anything? Seriously. Do you really believe there were coaches at halftime looking at the first half statistics, and saying, "Well, I notice that we are getting positive yardage every time we run, and we are converting every time we run on first down, too. But then, in that game last year, we ran a lot and only scored 7 points. Better keep chucking it."

 

[blindzebra]

I couldn't care less about biases against Garrett. Sounds like soap opera dribble to me, honestly. Let's just forget about biases and look at the game, shall we? Let's talk football and not personalities.

You already know we converted every single time we ran on first down, so what does last year's game have to do with anything? Seriously. Do you really believe there were coaches at halftime looking at the first half statistics, and saying, "Well, I notice that we are getting positive yardage every time we run, and we are converting every time we run on first down, too. But then, in that game last year, we ran a lot and only scored 7 points. Better keep chucking it."

You proved my point.

Agendas are a wonderful thing.

 

[percyhoward]

Let me know when you want to talk football, bz.