I saw so many plays last night where we used shotgun.. Thereby taking away any illusion or possibility of a run. The play action pass was absent last night and it should have been a healthy part of the mix. Callahan needs to go. If Garrett does indeed stay, we needs a really good "proven" OC in there to compliment him. We do NOT need to go back to Garrett sharing the HC/OC duties. He is already in over his head. Watching him coach is the equivalent of watching Jeff Heath out there trying to play safety. Heath was a "project" from day one and Garrett falls into the same category.
I would keep Callahan on the O-Line, but remove him from play calling duties.
I wouldn't mind seeing Rob Chudzinski becoming the O-Coordinator. He runs virtually the same system, but is much more innovative (he just needs a better QB than Derek Andersen, Brandon Weeden and Jason Campbell). He seems to have fallen in with the rest of the league in all of this pass happy, shotgun nonsense though.
Still, we need a HC that is willing to run the ball.
I think he's fallen a bit in love with the stat-heads (myself included) who are obsessed with passing the ball. The problem with the stat-heads is that most of them have never painted an accurate picture of what exactly the importance of the running game is.
Last night I watched a few plays and noticed that on a 2-yard running play for the Cowboys, they were going to run off about 30-40 seconds off the clock. This was between the time the play was run to the next play with the clock moving because it was a running play. Compare that versus an incomplete pass where you may run off about 5-7 seconds. You also have a porous defense to worry about. So I would take 2nd and 8 with 35 seconds ran off the clock than 2nd and 10 with 6 seconds ran off the clock.
It also plays too much into the hands of what the defense wants to do. It lets the defense dictate how the play will be ran if you go to shotgun every time they show blitz or stack the box.
I don't mind a lot of shotgun and passing if you're absolutely gouging AND scoring at will against the defense from that formation. But those times are few and far between and the penalty for not executing is too severe.
YR
