Rope-a-Dope. Sandbagging.

[Doomsday]

I'm all alone on this here, I am sure. But I can't help the niggling little suspicion that all season we've been intentionally playing rope-a-dope on offense. Opening it up only when absolutely necessary but otherwise keeping it as plain brown wrapper and generic as possible. In order to control what playoff opponents have on tape, of us.

I think this is going on quite a bit on the defensive side of the ball as well. And we saw a huge abberation vs Nawlins, in our approach. That was all-out attack, pall-mall damn the torpedoes Jimmy Johnson kamakaze assault. And never saw it again after that.

Dismiss this completely and out of hand, I definitely get that. It's just a little grain of suspicion I have and thought to give it voice. But I suspect that if it's true at all, it comes from Richard. Only strategist we have on staff actually.

We'll see.

 

[yimyammer]

If Garrett proves to be that crafty then I think we'll all have to rethink our position on him as head coach

until then

 

[Doomsday]

If Garrett proves to be that crafty then I think we'll all have to rethink our position on him as head coach

until then

If this winds up panning out I give zero credit to Ginger for it. If he heard this from Richard and went with it, leading from behind as it were, it's a straw a desperate man clung to trying to save his ass.

 

[theoneandonly]

If Garrett proves to be that crafty then I think we'll all have to rethink our position on him as head coach

until then

No

 

[Dustdevil]

I'm all alone on this here, I am sure. But I can't help the niggling little suspicion that all season we've been intentionally playing rope-a-dope on offense. Opening it up only when absolutely necessary but otherwise keeping it as plain brown wrapper and generic as possible. In order to control what playoff opponents have on tape, of us.

I think this is going on quite a bit on the defensive side of the ball as well. And we saw a huge abberation vs Nawlins, in our approach. That was all-out attack, pall-mall damn the torpedoes Jimmy Johnson kamakaze assault. And never saw it again after that.

Dismiss this completely and out of hand, I definitely get that. It's just a little grain of suspicion I have and thought to give it voice. But I suspect that if it's true at all, it comes from Richard. Only strategist we have on staff actually.

We'll see.

There's no way at 3-5 this team decided to play rope-a-dope. If they were playing rope-a-dope on offense, they would have never traded a 1st rd. pick for a WR.

I think part of it is the OL. Sua'Filo and Looney are adequate, but not ProBowlers. We have a good OL this year instead of great due to injuries.

 

[Doomsday]

There's no way at 3-5 this team decided to play rope-a-dope. If they were playing rope-a-dope on offense, they would have never traded a 1st rd. pick for a WR.

Yeah, trade for him, give him a couple of good test runs, then go away from him for awhile.

I think they were TRYING to play rope-a-dope and realized they didn't have the weapons to make the playoffs that way, hence the sudden trade.

O-line suffers from the Carrot Syndrome, where there's a big dropoff between the starters and the guys you have to coach up.

 

[Scot]

You give Jeruh and Garrett entirely too much credit to be able to come up with a plan like this. Let alone to be able to pull it off.

Garrett and this coaching staff are what they are....

Predictable, unimaginative, and incapable of pulling off something like your scenario suggests

 

[dbair1967]

Wish it were true, but not buying into it.

I think the offense is mediocre because the coaching is so bad.

 

[Doomsday]

You give Jeruh and Garrett entirely too much credit to be able to come up with a plan like this.

Apparently you don't know how to read.

 

[Scot]

Apparently you don't know how to read.

I can read, in your scenario Richard came up with the plan. The fact remains that....

It’s still up to Garrett to pull it off

Which is where your scenario all falls apart

 

[Doomsday]

I can read, in your scenario Richard came up with the plan.

But then you stopped reading.

When a desperate man grabs at any straw he thinks might save him, and especially when he has no real core values or beliefs, he'll try shit like this and gets NO credit for it. Any more than you would give credit for the guy grabbing tree roots to pull himself out of a snake pit.

It’s still up to Garrett to pull it off

Which is where your scenario all falls apart

All he's gotta do is say "yeah" then stay out of the way. Lead from behind, as I said. His natural state.

You don't think there's been talks where Richard was telling them, "Yeah when we would prep for Dallas y'all made it too easy, you never changed anything all season long and showed us everything you do, year after year. We had y'all down pat, better than some of your own players. You should do what all the Lombardi winners do, SANDBAG all season but work on your playoff offense and defense in practice all year. Occasionally pull some of it out in game situations but never go back to it until the playoffs, control what book other teams have on you."

And Carrot, Linehan and Marinelli all look at each other and nod, and grunt approval.

NOT saying this is what is happening, if you'll bother to actually read. AM saying it's a sneaky niggling little tiny suspicion I have, that could explain a lot.

I've played lots and lots of poker and chess, all my life. Pretty good at both. Can tell when someone is sandbagging. Sort of smell it a little bit, here. That's all.

 

[NoMoRedJ]

So Richard is the Trump of the coaching staff and then Garrett will be like NoBama trying to take credit for Trumps economy only in this case it will be Garrett pointing to 8 years of futility (8 yrs fitting coincidence?) as the real stimulus that got it going?