Why do people think we'd be 4-0 if we threw all the time?

[Rack]

I may be wrong...happy to admit if I am, but don't the sacks go as rushes..not passes? He never threw it....

You're missing the point.



There were 31 pass plays CALLED. And, no, sacks count against your passing yardage, not rushing yardage. It goes against rushing yardage in college.


And if a sack did count as a "rush" then you'd have to subract 4 rush attempts from your total since they were actually called pass plays.

 

[wileedog]

Philly runs very little. What they do is short passes over the middle to Westbrook and the TE Smith. Eventually, it causes the Safeties to start cheating up to stop Westbrook and Smith. That's when they pump fake short and go long out of the exact same formation. In essence, it serves the exact same purpose as a good running game, just a longer handoff in an area that is more open.

Could we do this. We sure could. Witten would be huge and almost unstoppable on the short hooks and curls in the middle. Thought Jones is not as good as Westbrook (watch, you'll see it), more open field could serve him well also.

Basically, the Eagles have created a new offense that basically doesn't hand off very much, but serves the exact same purpose. Throw five or six five yards curls to Witten or jones on a drive, then pump fake one to him, and see how open Glenn is deep. Same thing as a good running game and playaction.

If you think you are going to turn Bledsoe into a WCO QB you are asking for a world of hurt.

 

[marchetta]

Why do people think we'd be 4-0 if we threw all the time?

No one said throw it all the time. We said, why do we wait until we're behind in the 4th quarter to decide to start throwing deep? It's still a valid question. Any answers? All we do is run the ball, dink and dunk passes, settle for field goals, and then, surprisingly, when we're behind in the 4th quarter we start throwing deep successfully when our opponents are expecting us throw deep. If we can throw deep against defenses (dime) designed to stop us from throwing, and we're successfull anyway, how much more successfull will we be if we did it early in the game when we're still in it?

 

[Wolverine]

Why do people think we'd be 4-0 if we threw all the time?

No one said throw it all the time. We said, why do we wait until we're behind in the 4th quarter to decide to start throwing deep? It's still a valid question. Any answers? All we do is run the ball, dink and dunk passes, settle for field goals, and then, surprisingly, when we're behind in the 4th quarter we start throwing deep successfully when our opponents are expecting us throw deep. If we can throw deep against defenses (dime) designed to stop us from throwing, and we're successfull anyway, how much more successfull will we be if we did it early in the game when we're still in it?

Great post.

It is amazing that when defenses are playing us to throw deep in the 4th quarter how Bledsoe still make the throws. His accuracy is just hella sick.

It would be even easier for him to complete deep stuff early in the game when it is not as expected. Sure would be nice to complete a big deep pass or 2 in the 1st quarter more often to the other teams defense scared. Then all off a sudden the run game and short and underneath stuff opens up.

 

[FolsomCowboy]

Great post.

It is amazing that when defenses are playing us to throw deep in the 4th quarter how Bledsoe still make the throws. His accuracy is just hella sick.

It would be even easier for him to complete deep stuff early in the game when it is not as expected. Sure would be nice to complete a big deep pass or 2 in the 1st quarter more often to the other teams defense scared. Then all off a sudden the run game and short and underneath stuff opens up.

You mean kinda like what Oakland did with the 79 yard bomb to Moss

 

[Rogerthat12]

I love reckless interceptions

 

[Kevinicus]

It's pretty easy for opposing defenses when 90% of the plays are 1st and 2nd down up the gut, slow as hell run plays, with a few slow as hell sweeps in there (why do we not have a quick toss in this offense? Why must the RB always be 8 yards deep when he gets the ball on an outside run?) and when it's a passing play all the WRs/TEs are withing 12 yards of the line of scrimmage. It's a pretty small field to defend, and not very difficult to stop. I was at the Commanders game. I had no problem with the # of passes vs. # of runs, that was fine. But the routes the WRs were running were all short. There were only a handful of plays where there was a WR or 2 running some longer routes, and surprise surprise, those were the ones we had the most success with.

 

[Hoffa]

I haven't read any other pages in this thread so let me just say my opinion - everytime we go deep, we seem to complete it. It worked against the Chargers, it worked against Washington for the Glenn TD, and another deep pass to Glenn later on. It worked in SF to Glenn late in the game. It worked last week late in the 2nd half to Crayton and then Glenn.

WHY NOT DO IT MORE?? If we had just taken a few more shots downfield against the Skins, there's no doubt in my mind we would have put the game out of reach. Oakland has a weak secondary and we didn't try to exploit that until the late 2nd half, and it worked, but by then it was too late.

 

[kartr]

Just asking.

I'm looking at the league leaders in rushing attempts per game..

Atlanta 3-1
Washington 3-0
Tampa Bay 4-0
Cincinnati 4-0
Pittsburgh 2-1
Denver 3-1

Why do teams with the most conservative game plans win? Is it because they're winning, so they can afford to run the ball late in games? That doesn't make sense to me, because I was told that running the ball with the lead is "playing not to lose" and "not going for the throat" and that always gets you beat. I was told that repeatedly after the Washington game. So why are these teams getting away with "playing not to lose" and still winning?

Has it dawned on anyone crying about "conservative game plans" (which I find very little to no statistical evidence for, by the way), that we'd be 0-4 if we had it your way? Why do you want us to play a proven losing formula for football instead of a winning one?

Cause they think it's more important to have a Manning-clone than win ball games. Look at it, Manning's numbers are down and the Colts are winning more. That's been the real problem with the Colts all along. Manning is a premadonna hot dog more concerned with records than winning it all. If you remember, Aikman was never a numbers qb, he was a game manager with a good running game, good defense and a play-maker at receiver. Aikman never led the league in any category except completion percentage. Neither did Irvin, but we still got our superbowl wins.

 

[InmanRoshi]

Why do people think we'd be 4-0 if we threw all the time?

No one said throw it all the time. We said, why do we wait until we're behind in the 4th quarter to decide to start throwing deep? It's still a valid question. Any answers? All we do is run the ball, dink and dunk passes, settle for field goals, and then, surprisingly, when we're behind in the 4th quarter we start throwing deep successfully when our opponents are expecting us throw deep. If we can throw deep against defenses (dime) designed to stop us from throwing, and we're successfull anyway, how much more successfull will we be if we did it early in the game when we're still in it?

You act like nothing bad ever happens when we get behind and we just open up the game plan and start slinging it around. Drew has 3 INT's this year. They all came when we were behind. He has no INT's when we were tied or ahead in the game. Coincidence? 8 of Drew's 10 sacks come from when we're behind in the game, the other two when we're tied. He has 0 sacks when we're ahead and playing "conservative". Obviously when you get behind you have to sling it around more indiscriminately, that doesn't mean its a smart way to play football. Most people just look at the positives and ignore the negatives of playing that brand of football, or they just blame it all on the QB when playing low percentages eventually catches up. Its not like anyone is going to say "We should have been conservative". There's no such thing on messageboards. That animal simply does not exist.

And I guess someoene will have to prove to me that we don't attempt to throw deep in the first half. I'm not buying it. Looking at Drew's season splits, he has four 20+ passes in the 2nd quarter. Four 20+ passes in the 3rd quarter. Five 20+ passes in the 4th quarter. I'm not seeing a huge disparity there. Looking at Drew's splits, his best ypa comes in the 3rd quarter. His stats in the 2nd quarter aren't all that different from the 4th quarter. Also, you have to prove to me that Drew isn't even bothering to look deep early in the game, or if he's looking deep and getting sacked, throwing the ball away or dumping it off. Also its a necessity to at least attempt to establish the run early in the game if you have any hope of the defense taking your play action seriously.

I'm also not buying that ther other teams that I listed at the start of the post throw the ball down the field more in the first half than we do. I bet the Steelers and Falcons they throw the ball down the field far less at all times in the game.

I think actually some people do believe in throwing the ball all the time. They won't admit to it consciously and publicly, but after the first 5 or 6 runs don't work out, its time to give up and move to the passing game. Really, I think that's how a lot of people think. For some reason they have much more faith in proven poor formula of low percentage football than sticking with a struggling running game ... even in a close game when there is no need to panic.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Does anybody have the break out on exactly how much of our passing yards are RAC and how much is actually patterns being run deep?

 

[Derinyar]

The other thing to remember about this increased vertical passing game is that it also requires the OL to be successful in pass protection for a longer strech of time. Do we all have faith in our OL still?

 

[FolsomCowboy]

Drew has 3 INT's this year. They all came when we were behind. He has no INT's when we were tied or ahead in the game. Coincidence?

The first 2 INT's were in a game we actually won, the 3rd INT was on a Hail Mary so you can call that one a wash.

I think actually some people do believe in throwing the ball all the time. They won't admit to it consciously and publicly, but after the first 5 or 6 runs don't work out, its time to give up and move to the passing game. Really, I think that's how a lot of people think. For some reason they have much more faith in proven poor formula of low percentage football than sticking with a struggling running game ... even in a close game when there is no need to panic.

I think people want to absolve all blame from the almight HC and subordinates and place it on execution. Heaven forbid us lowly fans critique the almighty HC's playcalling.

 

[InmanRoshi]

I think people want to absolve all blame from the almight HC and subordinates and place it on execution. Heaven forbid us lowly fans critique the almighty HC's playcalling.

Lowly fans can critique whatever they want. Certainly I'm not stopping them. Check the board ... I'm one lone man standing with an umbrella against a tidal wave. I just wish there was more research and thought put into it than standard knee jerks.

A great example was the Washington game. I was on a flight for most of that game. Didn't get to watch it live. Got the final score when I got to the airport. Logged into my wifi account and the board was littered with "Why did we play so conservative at the end of the game?". I got home, watched the TIVO to see what all this conservative playcalling was ... and in the end of the game on the final drive we passed the ball 4 out of 6 plays, generally all down field for 15 yards or more with plenty of time left in the game. What was conservative about it? Because we lost, therefore it was conservative. I posted the entire sequence of plays in a post and asked what was conservative about it, and the post was ignored. Then I heard Zimmer stopped blitzing Roy Williams in the 4th quarter because he gave up some long touchdown passes. Watched it on the TIVO .. he was blitzing all over the place in the 4th quarter, including the play right before Moss caught the TD. But since he wasn't blitzing on that particular play, revisionist history states that he wasn't blitzing at all.

So when I see this "conservative playcalling" stuff over and over and over again without any breakdown or statistical elbow grease, its credibility starts going out the window. Because I see it on every single NFL board after every single loss. Its amazing, every week 16 teams' fans swear up and down that their game plan was too conservative. I somehow doubt that 16 teams lose every single week simply because their playcalling was too conservative. I somehow doubt that's the reason. Because as I showed in my first post on this subject, the teams that are winning are the most conservative in the NFL. As I said before, its just something fans can grab ahold of with both hnds and run with. Because better execution is simply too vague, conceptual, esoteric nonsense. No, just fire this guy, call this play and everything will be much, much, much better.

Besides, fans take great pleasure in painting themselves as the realists of the herd in the offseason as they predict growing pains and 8-8 or 9-7 seasons, and then proceed to lose their minds when their realist expectations come to fruition in the regular season. No sweat off my back.

 

[marchetta]

Does anyone remember how we had success during the triplet era? We would throw the ball, get TDs, and then give our opponents a heavy dose of Emmitt to kill the clock. We are doing the opposite now. We are trying to establish the run, settle for FGs, kill the clock, and then when the game is about over, and we're behind, then we start throwing in an attempt to win the game late. How has that been working for us? Drew Bledsoe just said, "When we're in a position in which we have to throw we have been successful, I just don't know why we have to wait so long to do it. It would be nice if we could come out swinging and draw first blood." (paraphrasing) Listen to the locker room interview for exact quote.

 

[MichaelWinicki]

Yea, it is.

No one is saying to throw all the time.

We have one of the deepest WR corps in the league. Witten is pretty good, too.

We just want to see a few deep throws early in the game.

Yea...let's keep doing what we're doing while losing football games.

Now that's smart.

But we only have one guy that is a deep threat. You double him and your deep game is gone.

 

[Hoffa]

Cause they think it's more important to have a Manning-clone than win ball games. Look at it, Manning's numbers are down and the Colts are winning more. That's been the real problem with the Colts all along. Manning is a premadonna hot dog more concerned with records than winning it all. If you remember, Aikman was never a numbers qb, he was a game manager with a good running game, good defense and a play-maker at receiver. Aikman never led the league in any category except completion percentage. Neither did Irvin, but we still got our superbowl wins.

The Colts aren't winning because Manning's numbers are down. They are winning because they have a defense now. If Manning had played every week like he did last year (and last week), they'd still be winning, but it would be like 49-7 instead of 13-7.

Aikman was a game manager, yes, but guess what - we also had the best RB in the game, one of the best WR's in the game, one of the best TE's in the game, one of the best defense's in the game, and maybe the best O-line in NFL history. This current team doesn't have any of that. "Game Managers" and "Bus Drivers" are good for a regular season, and then a first round playoff exit (unless you are Trent Dilfer, riding the coattailes of a great RB and one of the best defenses ever).. we need a franchise QB.

But we only have one guy that is a deep threat. You double him and your deep game is gone.

Patrick Crayton and Peerless Price are both deep threats. We have 3 legitimate deep threats, one of the best posession WR's in the game and an elite receiving TE.. why not open things up.

 

[Doomsday101]

The Colts aren't winning because Manning's numbers are down. They are winning because they have a defense now. If Manning had played every week like he did last year (and last week), they'd still be winning, but it would be like 49-7 instead of 13-7.

Aikman was a game manager, yes, but guess what - we also had the best RB in the game, one of the best WR's in the game, one of the best TE's in the game, one of the best defense's in the game, and maybe the best O-line in NFL history. This current team doesn't have any of that. "Game Managers" and "Bus Drivers" are good for a regular season, and then a first round playoff exit (unless you are Trent Dilfer, riding the coattailes of a great RB and one of the best defenses ever).. we need a franchise QB.

Yet in some of the biggest games Dallas had Troy came up with some outstanding performances. Troy no doubt knew how to manage a game but Troy also had the ability to put up some outstanding numbers in the big games

 

[chicago JK]

But the funny thing is Bledsoe isn't on much, of any, leash. He leads the NFL in YPA. We currently have a balanced offense. The Cowboys are almost exactly at a 1:1 pass/run ration. When we throw its not watered down with a bunch of dink and dunk crap, its down the field for the big play. So our passing attack isn't conservative.

Honestly, I think people want us to throw it every single down, and anything less is "conservative" and "boring". This is why Arena Football owners think they have an up and coming league. They're giving the casual fans what they want.

I think it is the same on the other side of the ball. If the Cowboys don't blitz every down then the Cowboys are in prevent and playing not to lose. Just message board complaining.

 

[Wolverine]

Drew has 3 INT's this year.

One was on a hail mary that didnt hurt the team. One was a real freak play and the other was on Bledsoe.

They all came when we were behind.

Duhhhh. When you are behind even a DC as dumb as Mike Zimmer knows you are gonna throw more and so they will play you that way.

He has no INT's when we were tied or ahead in the game. Coincidence? 8 of Drew's 10 sacks come from when we're behind in the game, the other two when we're tied. He has 0 sacks when we're ahead and playing "conservative".

Has it ever come to your mind that maybe if we slung it around more in the beginning and mixed it up more that teams would not expect it as much. Maybe if we did not start off the game conservative we would not have to go to more passing at the end of the game when it is obvious to everyone we need to pass.

Maybe if we started games with opening it up more then we could go to a more conservative plan when we get a good lead.

It would be a real good idea to pass more when the other team is not expecting it.

As long as we keep going along with YOUR thinking of how the play calling is good the guess what we will again pass when everyone expects it. Nobody expects it in the 1st quarter so catch them off guard and get them to the point where they have no idea what it coming.

YOUR game plan ideas will only lead us to the same thing we have seen these last 4 games and probaly a record of under .500.

Obviously when you get behind you have to sling it around more indiscriminately

Yeah and OBVIOUSLY playing conservative from the start has put us in the position where we need to do this. Again a more attacking offense from the beginning would cut down on this.