Bob Sacamano
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- Thread starter dbair1967
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It doesn't matter. They'll probably be in "lets get out of town" mode at kickoff time.
I think the only way we lose at Philly is if Kellen Moore somehow ends up suiting up at QB.
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Shhhh. If Garrett hears this criticism, he's going to intervene again like when the offense was criticized before the Viking game.
Aside from that, this dink and dunk criticism makes no sense. First of all it's all about ball control and especially first downs. Linehans 2013 Lions offense was about completing underneath passes in order to open the long pass. This is still not Linehans playbook and that's why (if you were paying attention in the 4th quarter, there was a classic Garrett play that was so predictable, each of the receivers ran to where their defenders were already standing - think Kuechly in 2015 running to intercept Romo before he even threw but I digress).
It's the first downs. It's controlling the series. It's pressuring the defense to worry about the short area gains. The dumb part of the criticism is that a team that commits to running the ball will do the same thing with even less yards per play. If you are successful in the high percentage short pass, you can manage the red zone. Every single Coryell coach except Don Coryell and Mike Martz has been criticized for red zone stalls. Don Coryell thought the running game should take over in the red zone. Garrett tries to pass without using lateral movement and orchestrated pass plays.
But let's look at this further. Are "dink and dunks" really supposed to be short passes? No. the WCO was based on high percentage passes opening yards after the catch. Walsh thought that his QB didn't have a strong enough arm and his "players were not good enough" and the offense was made to make practical use of the talent.
Still, dinks and dunks? 6 players had pass plays over 12 yards, 4 were over 15 and 3 were over 20. It's better that Dez has the ball in his hands and running than him running downfield in coverage waiting for all the improbable parts to coalesce.
Yes to dink and dunks. No to stupid.
Bob Sacamano
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I read a write-up prior to Sunday night about Tampa Bay's defensive strategy lately; and it has been to force teams to dink and dunk their way down the field. Disguising coverages by appearing to put their corners in man coverage before the snap, only to drop back into zones. Hoping that the QB would be confused and make mistakes. It ended up hurting them because Dak took what the D gave him, found open guys, moved the O up and down the field, and wasn't confused.
Watch Kirk Cousins on Monday night. The Panthers were running a lot of zone coverage to try and limit the deep passes, and largely it worked. Difference was though; Kirk and his receivers were fucking up in the short area of the field. His accuracy on those throws were off and his wideouts were dropping them.
Watch Kirk Cousins on Monday night. The Panthers were running a lot of zone coverage to try and limit the deep passes, and largely it worked. Difference was though; Kirk and his receivers were fucking up in the short area of the field. His accuracy on those throws were off and his wideouts were dropping them.
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The dink and dunk criticism makes sense the closer we get to the playoffs. If our goal is to protect a rookie QB, then it makes sense. But D coordinators are starting to figure it out and this type of mindset forces us to move the ball down the field and play mistake free football. A holding penalty pretty much makes it tough for us to convert and they're drive killers with this QB.
Our 3rd down conversion rate has taken a dive. We're moving the ball, controlling the clock and folding in the redzone. If our D hadn't been playing lights out (for the most part), this dink and dunk system would be the talk of the media. Our inability to punch it in after controlling the clock and racking up yards would be the discussion. What folks overlook is that the D is really covering up this team's flaws.
How so? We're not scoring TD's. We pretty much dominated the game and still needed the D to make another stop to seal the win.
While the WCO can help a QB with a weaker arm, it's not the primary theory behind the WCO. It was pass to set up the run and open up the field for longer pass plays. There were/are a lot of strong armed QB's who ran the WCO and the system wasn't abandoned when a team had Farve, Elway, Young or McNabb, etc.
I'm all for the short passing game to open things up. The problem is, we don't open things up by taking shots downfield. We don't make teams pay for stacking the box. I don't even think we take advantage of our running game by using playaction from under center. And the few times when we've seen Dak do it, it's usually a dump off rather than going down field.
Again, maybe this is all by design. Dak made a great throw to Butler and we've seen him go deep before. But this strategy will only work so long as the D holds up but when the D is challenged by top rated passers during the playoffs, it's a recipe for failure.
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This is a pretty good place to better evaluate the YPA. Quarterback Air Yards: 2016 NFL Season
In it, you'll see that Prescott ranks 5th in "air yards per attempt" Here are the top-5
1 Winston 4.86
2 Ryan 4.84
3 Cousins 4.79
4 Mariota 4.71
5 Prescott 4.61
Also, I'm going to have to call total b/s on the lack of play action stuff. I am sure there's a place to find the actual numbers, but we run quite a bit of PA and it doesn't seem any more or less than other teams. I'll keep doing a search to find the real numbers to support, but maybe someone else knows where to look as well.
And by the way, right now Prescott's Yds Per Attempt rank ahead of Tony Romo's career Yds Per Attempt numbers (7.93 to 7.89). And again, Prescott ranks 4th in the league this year in yds per attempt.
In it, you'll see that Prescott ranks 5th in "air yards per attempt" Here are the top-5
1 Winston 4.86
2 Ryan 4.84
3 Cousins 4.79
4 Mariota 4.71
5 Prescott 4.61
Also, I'm going to have to call total b/s on the lack of play action stuff. I am sure there's a place to find the actual numbers, but we run quite a bit of PA and it doesn't seem any more or less than other teams. I'll keep doing a search to find the real numbers to support, but maybe someone else knows where to look as well.
And by the way, right now Prescott's Yds Per Attempt rank ahead of Tony Romo's career Yds Per Attempt numbers (7.93 to 7.89). And again, Prescott ranks 4th in the league this year in yds per attempt.
ThoughtExperiment
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They play classic bend-don't-break defense, but that's a terrible match for us because we have the power run game to convert to TDs when we get in the red zone, which most teams don't.
Yep, the defense has played great lately, they really have. This is what good coaching looks like, thanks to Marinelli. This is why I was so frustrated for years before Linehan got here, because we never played to our potential. The zzzzone line of thinking that you can't judge a coach and/or expect good results until and unless you have pretty much a perfect roster is nonsense.
But you're right, this kind of conservative QBing works with this particular team. It didn't work in a lot of previous years when Romo had to score 30 points just to keep us in the game.
