A Good Argument as to Why Mike Shanahan Should Evaluate his Coaches and Play Calling, Not His Players.

[Mursilis]

Don't be fooled. Pioli scouted and helped to suggest players to Belichick, for sure. But Belichick absolutely had final say. In many coach + GM team structures, the coach doesn't have full say. That's why Parcells left New England, and he said famously that he wanted to shop for his own groceries. Kraft then hired Carroll and he shared power with two other guys and was often outvoted. Kraft learned and hired Belichick and gave him full say over his roster. Belichick is smart enough to know, though, that a good personnel guy can help even if you have the ability to shop for their own groceries. Pioli certainly helped, but Belichick had final say.

I understand that, and to a certain extent, I agree that the coach has to have a strong influence on personnel issues - the players have to fit the coach's schemes. I just don't think Shanahan is smart enough to check his own ego and consider conflicting viewpoints.

[darrelgreenie]

WRs:

I think recent events (10 drops) are leading to a bashing session on our WR corps.
Comparing them to Green Bay isn't a fair comparison imo. Imo WRs corps and passing games take time to gel.
The current focus on this 1st year offense has not been the passing game. And as a consequent no WRs has received a large number of targets to put up the 'stats' everyone wants to see.
But, the passing game has been productive.
I don't have access to pro football focus, which from LL article seems to be the sourse of a lot of the grumbling about the WR unit.
But look at the rankings compared from football outsiders (which I believe are that far apart from pro football focus) compared to some 'name' WRs:

[KDawg]

I just don't think Shanahan is smart enough to check his own ego and consider conflicting viewpoints.

This we agree on 100%. It's certainly a big concern.

[darrelgreenie]

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/wr

Moss is ranked #48 in DYAR and #42 DVOA
Morgan is #50 and #51 respectively

That squarely puts them as starting caliber WRs.
Here are some 'name' receivers that Moss/Morgan are ranked ahead of according to FBO:

Dez Bryant
Stevie Johnson
Santonio Holmes
DeSean Jackson
A.Brown (steelers)
D. Bowe
M. Manningham
N. Burelson
M. Wallace (steelers)
Heyward Bey
Larry Fitzgerald
M. Floyd
Robert Meachum

[darrelgreenie]

And information was out there. But it's easy for us to say sitting in forum land without seeing the players every day, feeling the pressure inside the park, hearing from team doctors/trainers, etc. I think hindsight is the right word to use here, being as we don't know everything that went down inside the Park.

Well the above is always gonna be true regardless. And I don't think we need to be privvy to such knowledge to make an observation.

[RandyHolt]

We appear more likely to use proven wideouts, in this example, Morgan and Briscoe as running backs, than as wideouts. Is Moss 10 yards deep next?

Really, you can't make this stuff up. Seeing Morgan lined up 10 yards behind the center so often, does anyone expect him to make a play from back there? He may be our overall best WR right now, not a threat to catch a pass at all.

Sure Hank has his catches but is hesitant and unassertive, a big kid, still finding his feet. Robinson needs another year and is coming off a concussion. Moss is winding down and is not the force he once was.

But its also how we use those 3 - poorly. Moss should be headed deep much more after slimming down - we need a deep threat found and quick. The 8 yd slant to Robinson into the FS is not his game, he needs space. Hank appears in his comfort zone, so... maybe its actually best to keep using him as we do.

Whats next, a triple I formation with all our wideouts behind RG in pistol? By the time they get to the LOS, there will be a shoulder in 3s gut.

[NewCliche21]

We appear more likely to use proven wideouts, in this example, Morgan and Briscoe as running backs, than as wideouts. Is Moss 10 yards deep next?

Really, you can't make this stuff up. Seeing Morgan lined up 10 yards behind the center so often, does anyone expect him to make a play from back there? He may be our overall best WR right now, not a threat at all.

Sure Hank has his catches but is hesitant and unassertive, a big kid, still finding his feet. Robinson needs another year and is coming off a concussion. Moss is slowing down and is not the force he once was. But its also how we use those 3 - poorly. Moss should be headed deep much more after slimming down. The 8 yd slant to Robinson into the FS is not his game.

Actually, you *DID* make that stuff up. Look at the post right before yours.

I swear, losing makes everyone drop a dozen IQ points. Which is why we're all idiots.

[Hail Em Up]

Im sorry but when Rg3 has 11 carries and Morris, the actual rb who is ripping of a consistent 6-8 yds per carry and only gets 13 carries, it times to evaluate the HEAD COACH only.

[Mahons21]

What has changed?

Pittsburgh has blue-printed us once again. They did it years ago when we started 6-2, and ended 8-8.

Once again, to beat the Redskins you stack the box take away the rushing attack, and force the Redskins to beat you with their passing attack.

It's going to be like this from here on out this season. Our o-line isn't good, anyone who thought it was a couple weeks ago, failed to grasp how deception within our scheme has allowed them to look much better than they are, much like our WRs who've made a living off play-action and wide open running spaces.

The head to the Redskins snake is their rushing attack, if you can manage to take that away, we've seen what happens to this offense. It's not coaches, it's not play-calling, it's a team devoid of talent, that continuously loses their 1 v1 matchups across the board.

Don't even get me started on the lack of talent in that secondary, how anyone said we have enough talent to succeed is laughable, Josh Wilson is at best a NB, and D Hall is play-making corner that has stopped making plays.

[Voice_of_Reason]

I think that's absolutely a part of it. The other part is how we spent the money that we did have. Hindsight is a mother ****er, but I think we would have been better off trying to find a corner or a RT with some of the money we spent on Morgan. But yes. The cap hit hurt us fairly badly. Eric Winston would have been an excellent addition to this roster.

Yeah, hindsight is 50-50, right?

I dunno, I think that they have done reasonably well with Polumbus. I know that he's not a world beater, but when they can run the ball, he does ok.

Can you imagine if they didn't have Morgan right now and Garcon was hurt? They'd be limited to Robinson, Hankerson and Moss. Yikes. Personally, I like having Morgan out there, he's tough, and provides a good target. Moves the chains. Maybe over-spent, but probably not by much.

Hindsight being what it is, it might have been worth it to try and bring Landry back. He was servicable. Though not always available. But for $4m for 1 year, his Jets contract, it might have been worth the risk. He's certainly better than the doobies they have back there now.

At the beginning of the season, I was pretty happy with a WR corps of Garcon, Morgan, Hank, Moss, Robinson, with Dais as the TE. I never got on the Paul bandwagon last year, and he hasn't done a lot this year, but I get that it takes time to transition.

The OL has come together.

I just think that they had to react very quickly, change their plan, and could not go after secondary guys that they wanted. Can't prove that. But they picked up a bunch of guys off the scrap heap, one known dope smoker, and they're trying to make it work. Then toss in the loss of 2 key front 7 guys, and Jenkins just hasn't returned to form, and you have a disaster.

I'm much more willing to blame Shanahan for not coaching this team well than the player personnel. They had such a pile of garbage to work with when they got here, it was worse than an expansion team. They were in infinitely worse shape in 2010 than the colts were in 2012. They had to scrap just about all the players and coaches, and deal with some of the worst contracts and long standing cap situations in league history. Throw in the lockout, and capgate, I'm not sure who could have been successful from a personnel standpoint.

But from a coaching standpoint, especially on defense, I think that they are just not very good. Poorly schemed, and poorly coached.

[Rocky21]

Maybe when we set the record for dropped balls for the 2012 season so far and our best receiving tight end was lost for the season, Kyle thought he could can't less on the receivers and took out more of the down field passing plays.

[Hail Em Up]

What has changed?

Pittsburgh has blue-printed us once again. They did it years ago when we started 6-2, and ended 8-8.

Once again, to beat the Redskins you stack the box take away the rushing attack, and force the Redskins to beat you with their passing attack.

It's going to be like this from here on out this season. Our o-line isn't good, anyone who thought it was a couple weeks ago, failed to grasp how deception within our scheme has allowed them to look much better than they are, much like our WRs who've made a living off play-action and wide open running spaces.

The head to the Redskins snake is their rushing attack, if you can manage to take that away, we've seen what happens to this offense. It's not coaches, it's not play-calling, it's a team devoid of talent, that continuously loses their 1 v1 matchups across the board.

Don't even get me started on the lack of talent in that secondary, how anyone said we have enough talent to succeed is laughable, Josh Wilson is at best a NB, and D Hall is play-making corner that has stopped making plays.

But most teams havent stopped our rushing attack? The only defense to stop us is Kyle. At this point Morris should be touching the ball 25-30 times not splitting carries with RG.

[Laron Burgundy]

Funny you should mention that, because Green Bay just played a game without either Greg Jennings or Jordy Nelson. How'd they do against a pretty decent Arizona team (top 10 defense)? They scored 31 points.

Misleading though. Rodgers was 14/30 (under 50% completion rate) and if not for that 72 yard pass his stats would have been pretty dismal, as is 218 yards is just average output. What happened was their run game stepped up, so let's not act like their pass offense went off without their top two targets.

[MustangSteve]

Couldn't agree more with the entire post. I was at the game Sunday and the first pass of the entire game that had any air under it, came with 3:40 left in the game. I think the aspect that is plaguing us most on offense is ego. In the beginning the shannahans devised a system that uses all of RGIII's abilities, and Robert rose to the challenge and played exceptional, that was great. Now because there are a few missing pieces on offense the coaching staff has mentally retreated.

They are trying to force a compact WCO onto this team now because they are not able to let loose of the reins and let our players play. Kyle and Mike see a few games slip and think they have to tailor the play calling for a depleted offense. This in itself represents a defeatist attitude.

It's crippling them; instead of letting it fly they have confined our offense to a depth of fifteen yards. Dink and Dunk drives require so many things to go right and precise execution from all eleven players. 14 play drives are great for establishing a tempo, but to sustain that type of execution throughout an entire game requires near perfection.

The reason I say ego is part of our downfall right now is because I believe our coaching staff has been restraining this offense. They do not trust our quarterback right now to play beyond the playbook. And to allow their young quarterback to play outiside of the playbook would be an admission that their coaching talents our secondary to Roberts on field talents. So as a response, they have confined his play style to a condensed version of the offense which requires impossible execution. In this way the coaches recieve personal validation that they still have something to teach him.

Mike wants Robert to play in his Sandbox.

So you get to see the entire play unfold, while I get to see whoever has the ball at the time. You hit the nail on the head when you said I was at the game Sunday and the first pass of the entire game that had any air under it, came with 3:40 left in the game.

I feel that is the problem for the sudden scoring drought. I know teams have tape on us now, and the fact is they still can't stop us from moving up and down the field. Morris was eating chunks out of the panthers defense, and every time we get something going, as someone else stated, We try and get cute. Why? When you have a QB who can flat out fly and throw very accurate, and receivers who get open every game, some caught fire in this game, and a RB who is ripping through defenses, don't stop using them!

Take your shots in the endzone, throw the ball down field more, to hell with this cute 4-7 yard pass. We were eating teams up throwing 18-25 yards a play, and not only to Davis either. We stopped attacking defenses, we stopped airing the ball out, we stopped driving it down the defenses throat inside the 10 yard line, and we stopped scoring TouchDowns because of it!

This is all you Kyle! You should be the 1st one evaluated and told to open it back up, or take the next bus out of here. we could of had a terrible offense without spending any draft picks or money. But instead we drafted and signed some pretty good weapons, how about we start using them again! Use this bye week to get your head out of your ass and back on 1st place in the NFC East.

[MustangSteve]

Funny you should mention that, because Green Bay just played a game without either Greg Jennings or Jordy Nelson. How'd they do against a pretty decent Arizona team (top 10 defense)? They scored 31 points.

Wasn't it Morgan who was catching everything thrown to him in the 1st half? Finally a receiver that caught an attitude, and nobody put that fire out but us. Again by not even letting him near the end zone. This is enough to take even the hungriest fans hopes and to look forward to the offseason.I sure hope to see Garcon and Merriweather after the Bye, it's worth a shot at turning this around,