DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum RB problem.....

I'm not trying to make a point here, but for the record: 2014 - 3.6 yds/carry average
2015 - 3.4 yds/carry average

Not a huge discrepancy...

Good, than I won't try to argue a counter point

There may be a negligible difference in YPC, but in spite of such a low average last year, the run game at least had to be taken seriously.

I mean, play action this year just flat out sucks. Someone I think posted earlier that opposing D's can tee off pretty much every play. Either they'll blow up the run, or they'll hit the QB. There's nothing to lose by doing so. Hell, we can't even sell a friggin screen play to the RB!! lol

I didn't expect our run game to somehow become elite this season, but I definitely didn't expect it to become an after thought. But then who among us did?

I honestly believe that the problem is the blocking scheme. Going into the season, our OL was widely recognized as one of the top 10 in the league. If our line is so good, why are they performing so badly? We lost the OL coach to a domestic violence charge. Whether the scheme is bad, or isn't being properly coached, it certainly isn't working.

And that's why I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how ineffective it is. I'm pretty sure when Shanny left he didn't take every physical copy of the playbook. (Or do they???) And our O-Line is one of the more experienced out there. It SHOULDN'T take a helluva lot of coaching on a weekly basis for this line to at minimum do what they did last year. It's probably my frustration talking, but this line is too good to have someone blow right through it almost every other play.

Why can't we?

Do we have a worse offensive line than last year?

Are the RBs worse than last year?

How is Flip being dealt a worse hand than Shanny was?

It appears that you are more intent on defending Flip than finding the truth.

Flip has done some good things, but he doesn't really try to establish the run. He abandons it way too easily. That hurts the team on many levels.

--Play action is not as effective.

--Defenses can pin their ears back and rush the passer.

--A physical mind-set never materializes.

I think Flip has some creativity, but I think he's failed as an OC this year. We don't run the ball enough. Unless you are a team that has a guy like Brady or Ben, you gotta run the ball to keep defenses honest. Our routes are longer, which leads to the qb holding the ball longer. More sacks occur. More holding penalties because the OL can't hold them out forever especially when the other team is bringing the house. That creates longer down and distance situations, which puts even more pressure on the OL and leads to even more sacks, penalties, and fumbles by the qb.

Flip's playcalling looks snazzy, but it's not very practical or productive.

We actually look like we're on the downward spiral we were on after Mack got hurt last year.

We did stay with the run, which is important, but our yards/carry went as follows:

Game:
1-6.1
2-4.1
3-2.8
4-4.9
5-4.2
6-2.3
7-1.6
8-1.8
9-3.3
10-2.4
11-5.6
12-2.8
13-3.6
14-3.1
15-3.8
16-3.8


This year, thus far it's been:
1-3.7
2-3.9
3-2.8
4-4.8
5-3.3
6-3.3
7-3.4
8-2.0
9-4.1
10-1.1
11-3.5
12-3.6

The difference is that we have had, in our last 4 games, 17, 14, 18, and 19 rushing attempts. (plus one earlier game with less than 20 attempts) We ran less than 20 times in only one game last year.

I think that you do have a point in that Shanahan was secure of his scheme to run the ball even when it did not work. He was secure in his scheme and offensive foundation enough to keep running even if we averaged less than 2 yards/run. In some ways that was frustrating, but like you say, it did give the defense something to think about other than pinning their ears back and coming after the QB.

I do wish we would commit to the run a bit more, but I really am unsure who to commit to at RB.

I also think that we have too many players and packages that tip our hand on plays.

I think that Flip did a lot of good things this year, but he has definitely had issues as well. He is a 1st time OC, and I think that comes into play, as well as having too many one dimensional players. I like the way that he has used Duke Johnson in the passing game, for example, but his running has just never got off the line. Even there, though, he has then gone away from Duke at times, that I just do not understand. (not even having him in the game) I just looked, because I cannot remember Duke putting the ball on the ground very often, and he doesn't. He has 48 reception on 50 targets. Crowell actually has been almost as good, with 15 catches on 18 targets. They average around 9.6 yards/catch, and neither has fumbled as a receiver. Man, that's stealing money. I do think that is part of the reason rushing attempts are down too. For the team, this year, we average 8 yards every time we throw to the RB. (not just completions, bu throws) I think that we use the RBs in the passing game as an extension of the run game. For all of the good things Shanahan did last year, we did very little of that last year. Our RBs last year had 33 catches on 48 targets for the year last season. We averaged only 7.1 yards/catch, and 4.7 per throw. I think that is a huge improvement, and an aspect of the game that I really like.

Anyway, there are some things that Flip has done really well, and other areas that definitely need improvement.

Completely agree with this. Look back to the first game of the 2014 season. We were getting our butts kicked and stuck with the run anyways. It was the run that brought us back into that game.

I bet league-wide the YPC on rushing attempts is more than half a yard higher in the second half than in the first, and that we attempted more than 60% of our runs in the first half this season.

That's a good point about passing to the backs and that being more of a wrinkle to the running game. I think that jives with getting Duke in the draft.

I think Flip would say that the short passes are an extension of the running game.

I agree that a balanced run/pass attack is the ideal. However, in 2014 we won many more games than this year, thus we were ahead on the scoreboard more than this year. (No brainer there, I know). Being behind obviously dictates more passing than perhaps you may want. I don't believe that you can discount this as having an impact on the run/pass ratio. You know as well as anybody, that when you are trailing in the second half by 2 or more scores, play action won't be as effective and yes, the defence is going pin their ears back. I understand what you are saying, but our run game was not good last year, and it hasn't improved this season. (as a sidenote: the Vikings got whomped last weekend, AP only got 8 carries).

That was a good post.

Playing the cards he was delt? He was dealt a pretty good running game. Why screw it up? Ego? I HAVE to run something different that Shanahan did. He's an idiot and I'm a genius... Well genius, your ass is going to be gone real quick.

He didn't HAVE to dump the zone scheme. He didn't HAVE to start out week one throwing the ball almost every down. Even in this inferior scheme he COULD have DEVELOPED a run game. It takes WILL and dedication. Keep running it. Eventually the line gels, the backs get in a groove and you start gaining yards. There were times last year that we had trouble running the ball. Know what Shanahan did? He KEPT RUNNING THE BALL.
Flip didn't even bother. Not ONE game has he even tried to establish the run. Not one. He runs one here or there just to keep the D honest. I can't remember the last time we ran the ball three times in a row. Have we tried four in a row ONCE this season? I doubt it. Running the ball isn't of any concern to Flip. And that's why we keep getting QB's killed.

Can't blame the line. They were pretty good last year. Can't blame the backs. Crowell played very well last year, no one forced them to dump West, and Duke is a quick little change of pace. We should be able to run effectively. There's no good reason why we can't. Except Flip doesn't want to TRY. That is ego. That is not using the tools at hand. That cost us this season.

You look back at some of those wins from last year. We were down and Shanahan kept running it anyway and we came back. It wasn't just we got a big lead and then got conservative. He could be down 20 and still run it. We could have 30 yards rushing on 15 carries at the half and he'd STILL keep running it. And eventually we'd break one, then get another good one, get something going. Even if we don't score we eat clock, we keep THEM off the field, gives our D some rest. All that went out the window Pettine and Flip DECIDED to dump the run game. Just blow it off.

What about the games in which Shanahan didn't do that? I think you are having revisionist history.

I really like this post... but I think I'm only on board with about 99% of it. I'm not at a point where I would classify Flip as a failed OC. If I had to grade him out now, it would be a C- (admittedly hovering on a D+). I certainly wouldn't say his rookie debut was a smashing success, but if Pet survives until next season, I don't think we'd be in a bad way if Flip was still our OC.

I think at this point of the season its safe to say that whatever they said our offense was going to be in the preseason was at best gamesmanship. This offense is exactly opposite of what it was billed as lol

-I don't like that the run blocking scheme is a mess.
-I do like that we have system where we've gotten pretty consistent and decent production from the QB position.

I think cfrs is on to something in that it appears to me that Flip views throwing the ball to the RB's is an extension of the run game. A few weeks back someone posted the stats of how many times we ran the ball vs. passing. IIRC, it was something like 15 runs and 45 pass plays? Any way, when I added the number of times the RB ran the ball to the number of times the RB was thrown to, our RB's touched the ball something like 40%+ of the time.

Now the Pros and Cons of this: let's say we are getting a good YPC average of like 4.1 YP carry. Then we look at and see when thrown to our RB's average 8 YP catch.

The Pro to throwing it to them is that a) the greater gain and b) Crow and Duke are pretty dangerous in space.

The Con though are for reasons you stated above... play action suffers, the opposing DEF probably isn't going to wear down as much...

I think if we were a bit more up tempo, and actually spent some friggin time learing how to execute a friggin screen play, the philosophy of passing to the RB as an extension of the run game could work for us. We killed the Ravens in the first match up this way. But you are correct that opposing DEF's at this point can just tee off almost every play because we don't have much to mitigate it.

Running out of the shotgun can be very successful if you have the right scheme and players. I think Duke Johnson could be very good at it, Crowell not so much.

Are you saying teams don't fear the McCown, Davis, Manziel pu pu platter? How dare you!