I haven't charted plays, or anything, but based on what I've seen, the offense lately was called differently than in the past. They used to run essentially picks, with WR's crossing each other's patterns which they don't seem to do anymore. They do more shotgun than in the past, and they used to run QB sneaks, and especially I used to love the play action naked boots that I don't see much. The caveat is that my viewing habits aren't exactly , but for whatever reason, be is Shanahan or not, I liked the offense so much more back then.
The offense was more effective back then... and I'm talking even post Kyle Shanahan 2010-2011... because the league as a whole hadn't really game planned against it. Once enough film gets out on any team, they become vulnerable. No team in the NFL stays invincible for long, without having to reinvent itself. The Texans actually helped accelerate their own regression by not re-signing key members of the O-line, which led to the run game being more ineffective, which led to less effectiveness of the play-action, which led to more straight-up pass plays (which the line had trouble protecting for), which led to more shotguns. Again, Kyle was running Gary's offense... and the offense continued to be effective (if not more-so) after he had already gone to Washington.
On Lovie Smith, the Mike Martz hire is an interesting thing. I'm conflicted as to whether it is good or bad, but assuming Martz wasn't forced on Smith, it does show creative thinking for a ground - pounding defensive HC to go for "the greatest show on turf" .
Genuine question. Have they been running those naked boots this year and I've just been looking away? Because I watched enough in the past to know that nobody "figured them out". I just assumed that Gary became risk adverse.
Didn't Martz coach with Lovie in Chicago? Also, not sure the greatest show can exist on the Reliant turf since it (the turf) kinda sucks
Yeah, that is what I was saying. Martz was Lovie's OC one year. It was a disaster, but it is interesting to me that Lovie even tried it. Coaches like Lovie usually are stuck into running extremely conservative offenses.
I I've in DC. I've seen a lot of redskins games ...unfortunately. Just like its unfortunate that I'm a Texans fan. Kyle Shanny has not done a good job this year. In general I think he knows what he's doing and runs the play action well, but it feels like the league has caught up. It wasn't effective this year for Houston or the skins. Can we please make a clean break from the past and go in a new direction? Please? No Kyle and no Lovie, who is an incarnation of Kubiak. ...now if Lovie wants to be our D-coordinator, I'm all for it. But we need to go in a new direction offensively, and we need to be bold and smart with our head coaching hire.
They were earlier in the year, but they were getting sniffed out and were ineffective. Schaub would roll out and there'd be a defender waiting so he'd throw it away and it'd end up a wasted play. So they abandoned it. Not sure why it stopped working. I remember the play action working even when we didn't have a running game. I find it hard to believe that defenses are just now catching on. Maybe we were just more predictable this year as far as what situations we were running it in.
When it becomes predictable, that's exactly the definition of "defenses catching on". It's one thing to have "success" with the play when this team was 6-10 with no defense. Once this team started "winning", teams are going to further dissect everything u do to try to beat you. Plus, most offenses lose their effectiveness when running the "same" things after 3 or so years. By then, either the defense figures you out or you have to reinvent yourself. No team stands pat and consistently has success with the "same" things.
It's funny that both Washington and Houston are the two worst teams in football this year and run the same offense. Something was figured out.
As sad as it sounds, a part of me actually wishes there was something tipping off the defense about our play calls this year. Maybe the way a lineman (Newton?) set up on the LOS or the formation or something. It was just bizarre how it all fell apart seemingly overnight. The lethal double play of diminishing line play and a shell-shocked QB doomed the offense this year. On the Redskins front, I admit I didn't watch a ton of their games, but some reports I've read have them taking out some of the Baylor components of the playbook this year so maybe that had an impact. Hard to say for sure though.
The most likely explanation is that defenses no longer have to over commit to stop the run. The defense player responsible for containing the naked bootleg stays put, since he knows that his team mates don't need him to stop the run. Clearly the failure of the run game reduced the effectiveness of the pass game, in Kubiak's offense.
