Twitter: Silva: 'Predictable playcalling' criticism is a little goofy

Stash

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.
 

waving monkey

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

I think Jimmy Johnson would agree with Silva
 

Yakuza Rich

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

I don't quite agree with Silva's account either. But, there is some merit to it.

Most teams in the league look at opponents and cook up a gameplan against them and then take their offense and the plays that they run pretty well to attack that part of the defense.

What the Patriots do is that they still stick within the confines of their offense, but they will practice new plays that more specifically target that defense that they haven't run before.

Sounds great, right?

But, who else lived by that philosophy?

Mike Martz.

And you got some incredible results and at other times not so good results.

If Silva means predictable in the sense of a team running the group of 30-40 plays that they usually run, then I understand his point. But, if he is talking about individual plays where the defense knows you're going to run a draw...then I completely disagree with him.

What the Cowboys offense did so well this year was largely based on execution. Not only could they run the ball extremely well, but they ran it to the left side, right side and up the middle very effectively.

But at the same token they were quite predictable because you knew they were running on 1st down and throwing on 2nd down. It's just that defenses had more difficulty figuring out where we were going to run it and where were going to throw it. However, if the execution isn't there, the playcalling needs to be more unpredictable as far as whether you're throwing or running.

There's a real art to playcalling though and I think Silva's tweets miss that.






YR
 

Stash

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I don't quite agree with Silva's account either. But, there is some merit to it.

Most teams in the league look at opponents and cook up a gameplan against them and then take their offense and the plays that they run pretty well to attack that part of the defense.

What the Patriots do is that they still stick within the confines of their offense, but they will practice new plays that more specifically target that defense that they haven't run before.

Sounds great, right?

But, who else lived by that philosophy?

Mike Martz.

And you got some incredible results and at other times not so good results.

Very true, but I think Martz's successes and failures were directly tied to the talent he had or didn't have also.

If Silva means predictable in the sense of a team running the group of 30-40 plays that they usually run, then I understand his point. But, if he is talking about individual plays where the defense knows you're going to run a draw...then I completely disagree with him.

What the Cowboys offense did so well this year was largely based on execution. Not only could they run the ball extremely well, but they ran it to the left side, right side and up the middle very effectively.

But at the same token they were quite predictable because you knew they were running on 1st down and throwing on 2nd down. It's just that defenses had more difficulty figuring out where we were going to run it and where were going to throw it. However, if the execution isn't there, the playcalling needs to be more unpredictable as far as whether you're throwing or running.

There's a real art to playcalling though and I think Silva's tweets miss that.

YR

At the risk of sounding nitpicky - which I'm not - if there was one criticism I could have of a tremendous season, it would be that predictability and the glaring tendencies that this team still had.

From first down run plays to a complete lack of faith in the run game on 3rd and short, to the all-too-often empty backfield sets, I thought this team was entirely too predictable for my tastes. Hopefully, with a year of reflection and self-critiquing, these tendencies will be improved upon.
 

Idgit

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Both methods work, as long as you're able to execute. Silva's right, though, that being predictable is not necessarily something to criticize automatically.
 

Doomsday101

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I think some of it is play calling as in doing things to keep defense off balance but much of it does come down to execution, when players miss blocks, get penalized that is failure to execute and the play called will not change that at all. Either you carry out the assignment or you fail to carry it out.
 

jobberone

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

It's both. But schemes etc are worthless unless you execute. And Seattle is not predictable on defense. Looking at just their DL, they line up in multiple looks, shoot gaps, shoot and hold, play two gaps and one gap, line up over players as well as well as a and b and gaps, play wide and st8 up on the outside, as well as stunts, loops etc. All teams do this and much more behind the line. Now Sea does play shoot and hold which many don't and they have the tackles to play all over the place. Not every tackle can play two gaps and get doubled one down, push the pocket and shoot a gap and pressure the QB like they can. And they do stuff with their back seven that I can't understand like some triangles etc.

There is a reason they are so good on defense.

And you never know what the heck NE is going to do on offense. I haven't looked at them defensively. They are the most versatile team in football on offense.
 

Toruk_Makto

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

Pats aren't really unpredictable. They will attack your weakness. There is predictability in that.

You have a weak run defense? We are going run heavy.

You have a stout run defense? We are going pass wacky.

People talk about them using extra lineman, or going to unbalanced lines and/or making different guys eligible pre snap.... It all sounds sexy. Then you realize those plays make up 5 to 6 of the total plays the offense ran in a game.
 

Plankton

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Fans criticism of play calling falls under two categories: the success of the play called, and what the fan would have done in the situation.

Considering that the team has more access to and has actually studied personnel groupings, down and distance tendencies and game conditions relative to the play calls, I think that fans complaints can be dismissed pretty easily as uninformed.
 

Idgit

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Fans criticism of play calling falls under two categories: the success of the play called, and what the fan would have done in the situation.

Considering that the team has more access to and has actually studied personnel groupings, down and distance tendencies and game conditions relative to the play calls, I think that fans complaints can be dismissed pretty easily as uninformed.

This is exactly right. If the play did not work, it was not a good play call. If it did not work, and it was significantly different from what they were expecting to run, it was an awful play call. If it worked, it was supposed to. If it worked and was the opposite of what the fan expected, it was a brilliant call. That's pretty much the metric. Get enough of those votes together, and you have consensus.
 

gimmesix

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That criticism is a fan crutch. Always blame the play calling. Never admit the players weren't good enough.

We had the most efficient QB in the league this year, a 1,200 yard, 16 TDs WR and the leading rusher. LOL @ any and all play calling criticism.

I think you can always look at what you can do better, both play-calling and executionwise. For instance, I believe that we were so determined to run the ball that we did not mix in the pass enough on first down to take advantage of teams stacking against the run. There's a fine line between getting away from the run and being stubborn about running, and I think there were times we crossed it.

I also think that a lot of times when we did run play-action on early downs, we made it easier on the other team by only going for the home run shot. The other team only had to cover a deep route to negate any advantage we gained.

Then there also were times when we didn't use any quick-hitting routes to beat blitzes. If we had picked up those blitzes (execution), the longer routes would have worked, but because we had trouble with blitzes, we needed to do a better job of mixing in blitz busters.

Those things do not take away from the season the offense had, but could have made it even better. A team should always be evaluating how it can improve ... and just saying the players are not good enough can be an excuse for the coaching also not being as good as it could be (and this comes from someone who was very pleased overall with the coaching this year).
 

Alexander

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

It is not black and white. It rarely is in any regard. People keep looking for absolutes and right answers where that really does not exist.

Even the Seahawks had to get "unpredictable" to pull off that win last week when what they tried to execute did not work.
 

Alexander

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That criticism is a fan crutch. Always blame the play calling. Never admit the players weren't good enough.

We had the most efficient QB in the league this year, a 1,200 yard, 16 TDs WR and the leading rusher. LOL @ any and all play calling criticism.

Situational criticism is where some people are coming from, not a global "playcalling" gripe.
 

Stash

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It is not black and white. It rarely is in any regard. People keep looking for absolutes and right answers where that really does not exist.

Even the Seahawks had to get "unpredictable" to pull off that win last week when what they tried to execute did not work.

Well said.

And it happens incredibly often in internet conversations.

It's either "this" or it's "that", "right" or "wrong".

Absolutely.
 

DallasInDC

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And the team on the opposite side of the field? The New England Patriots, one of if not the most unpredictable team in the league.

Sorry, but I disagree with Silva's opinion here. While a case can surely be made for execution (as well as talent), keeping an opponent guessing is an undeniable advantage as well, in an ultra-competitive league where every advantage counts.

I agree you have to have some degree of unpredictability. The talent levels between teams is too close to rely solely on beating the guy in front of you heads up on every play. Jimmy was able to do that because we dominated most teams talent wise across the board. In the age of parity, you can't do that consistently.

Its best to have a good mix of both (otherwise, your unpredictability would become predictable ;))
 

Risen Star

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Situational criticism is where some people are coming from, not a global "playcalling" gripe.

What play caller isn't prone to situational criticism? Hey, that pass didn't work, should have ran it. It's nonsense. You look at the entire body of work and quickly realize there is no issue with play calling in Dallas. The offense was tremendously productive.
 
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