The Hits Against PC/Schotty Keep Coming

[Scorpion05]

Except the numbers are validating that premise in full now. You are hanging on to people's perception of heralding in a new era before it was really in full effect over the heads of people pointing to the statistical evidence that the league really has changed distinctly now.

The MEDIAN completion percentage among NFL Qbs is 67%. Palmer LED the league in 2005 with that number. Come on buddy.

I'm not remembering anything wrong.

How the NFL Became a Passing League

Posted the September before we won the Super Bowl:

It's a passing league, but balance still wins.

Gone are the days of the hard-nosed, old-school head coaches and offensive play-callers who preached toughness and 3 yards and a cloud of dust. If you don't believe it, just look at the numbers in Week 1 of the NFL regular season.

This past weekend, NFL teams threw for a combined 8,143 passing yards, the highest total in NFL history. Not Week 1 history. League history.

Also recorded were the highest number of receiving touchdowns. Again, the most in league history.

And then it actually goes on to say that BECAUSE of this passing league phenomenon, focusing on the run is basically a market deficiency teams could exploit. That's exactly what Pete did.

Working a market inefficiency in perpetuity is not a reasonable long term plan for an investor. Many have lost their shirt in arbitrage gone wrong. I didn't claim you were remembering wrong, I claimed you were holding the words of premature declaration of the status quo irrevocably changing against people claiming the status quo has verifiably changed in 2018. In 2013 the Median pass completion was still ~61%. This has everything with you acknowledging change in the now, not using false prognostications about the end of rushing as we know it against people claiming that the league is sufficiently different now than it was even 5 years ago. And that conceptually some things are on the table and some things are off.

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

Well, there also isn’t a defense left that even closely resembles LOB. Maybe the Bears are close, but their kicker choked.

Unless a team can replicate a defense that great, then yea, you do need to pass more or be more unpredictable. More balance.

However we won the Super Bowl, if that’s Pete’s mindset that’s unfortunate. He’ll end up like Blockbuster, or any other major company that failed to adapt to the present. Great coaches, great CEOs, great companies adapt and adjust. Or end up filing for bankruptcy

 

[mrt144]

Working a market inefficiency in perpetuity is not a reasonable long term plan for an investor. Many have lost their shirt in arbitrage gone wrong. I didn't claim you were remembering wrong, I claimed you were holding the words of premature declaration of the status quo irrevocably changing against people claiming the status quo has verifiably changed in 2018. In 2013 the Median pass completion was still ~61%. This has everything with you acknowledging change in the now, not using false prognostications about the end of rushing as we know it against people claiming that the league is sufficiently different now than it was even 5 years ago. And that conceptually some things are on the table and some things are off.

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

Have it your way dude. The league hasn't changed materially from 2013 and most offenses that are succeeding now on the back of the passing game are an aberration to NFL football. Agreed. Have a good offseason!

Now you're the one throwing around whiny straw men.

All I'm saying is that you can win either way. That's all I was ever saying. 48 was a win against the exact kind of offensive philosophy that's now dominating the playoffs.

You can win either way but the elephant in the room of your argument is we don't have anything resembling the defense composed of amazing talent on their first contracts nor do we have a QB in the same circumstance. Secondly, what teams in the NFL resemble a dominating, suffocating, lockdown defense on the level of 2013? One in the running right now? Yes, defensive and offensive dogs have their day of winning the SB - the 2015 Broncos were a reaction to the humiliation of the SB loss at the hands of the defense Pete built. And it worked. And now they're listless and seemingly out of the running again.

Without predicating what a team should do solely on SB wins or not, I think there is enough compelling evidence on the table at this point in time to suggest that maybe they should reevaluate the comparative value they place on rushing versus short/intermediate passing. If Pete can do the damn thing on defense again with pulling in 5 studs on defense in 2 drafts, maybe they can win another SB without advancing their tactics some. But I'm dubious on that proposition when other teams are stretching their legs out in current offensive environment in a major way, in a way that while heralded before, is even more the case now.

It's not just about winning the SB through playing your cards the same way for 19 hands, it's about elevating the totality of the team to be resilient to adversity in its talent and tactics. The 2018 iteration of the Hawks, while superseding expectations, while delivering entertaining football, while putting a smile on my face many times, were simply not resilient enough in a few key facets to get over the hump.

Maybe next season will be better and I hope it is and I think it will be. But something as small as developing a robust and efficient short/intermediate passing game shouldn't be viewed as heretical lunacy as the NFL stands now. To quote RW: "Why not us?"

 

[MontanaHawk05]

The problem with going after a star receiver should have been highlighted already by the Jimmy Graham saga. You're paying big bucks for a guy whose desired number of targets will require a forsaking of Pete's philosophy, not a tweak. You want a ten-touchdowns kind of guy, you're becoming a pass-first team, not a run-first anymore. And that's just not going to happen with Pete.

As far as the OL, given where it was in 2017, I don't see how people say we HAVEN'T invested in the OL. Brown is a big expenditure. Britt is on a second contract. Ifedi was a first-rounder and serviceable. Nobody was complaining about our guards until they got injured. And there's great depth in the form of Simmons, Jones, and Hunt (and still, maybe, Pocic).

 

[mrt144]

So have all the "are we too predictable" conversations you want, that's a real discussion, and I'm all ears. But enough already with "OMG we have to pass all the time now cause the league has changed!"

We don't have to pass all the time because the league has changed. The league has changed because an increasing amount of league participants have found ways to pass better than previous participants in previous iterations, on average. I would never suggest we need to do something because others do it, rather, I would suggest that we should look at the WHY and HOW other teams do it well and see if there is anything remotely applicable to the Hawks. If the consensus opinion is that there is nothing in the playbooks of other teams that would help the Hawks up their offensive game, fine, it is what it is - but... I think that's kinda boring and probably wrong.

I think you maybe unintentionally identified why this conversation turns so fruitless - The causality is backwards on the impetus for passing. It's not because the rest of the league is passing us by per se, it's because there might be seeds of thought that could help us out as well that we seemingly swat away out of an identity issue.

Again, we shouldn't just pass more, we should identify why passing more in specific ways is so fruitful for other teams and maybe crib it. That all boats are being lifted in the game meta environment vis a vis passing doesn't mean the Hawks should lay down their vigilance and camp on what they know.

 

[chris98251]

I'm not remembering anything wrong.

How the NFL Became a Passing League

Posted the September before we won the Super Bowl:



And then it actually goes on to say that BECAUSE of this passing league phenomenon, focusing on the run is basically a market deficiency teams could exploit. That's exactly what Pete did.

Working a market inefficiency in perpetuity is not a reasonable long term plan for an investor. Many have lost their shirt in arbitrage gone wrong. I didn't claim you were remembering wrong, I claimed you were holding the words of premature declaration of the status quo irrevocably changing against people claiming the status quo has verifiably changed in 2018. In 2013 the Median pass completion was still ~61%. This has everything with you acknowledging change in the now, not using false prognostications about the end of rushing as we know it against people claiming that the league is sufficiently different now than it was even 5 years ago. And that conceptually some things are on the table and some things are off.

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

Have it your way dude. The league hasn't changed materially from 2013 and most offenses that are succeeding now on the back of the passing game are an aberration to NFL football. Agreed. Have a good offseason!

Gurley, Elliot, Hunt, Michal, Anderson in L.A. yeah those passing teams sure don't run the ball.

 

[mrt144]

Working a market inefficiency in perpetuity is not a reasonable long term plan for an investor. Many have lost their shirt in arbitrage gone wrong. I didn't claim you were remembering wrong, I claimed you were holding the words of premature declaration of the status quo irrevocably changing against people claiming the status quo has verifiably changed in 2018. In 2013 the Median pass completion was still ~61%. This has everything with you acknowledging change in the now, not using false prognostications about the end of rushing as we know it against people claiming that the league is sufficiently different now than it was even 5 years ago. And that conceptually some things are on the table and some things are off.

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

Have it your way dude. The league hasn't changed materially from 2013 and most offenses that are succeeding now on the back of the passing game are an aberration to NFL football. Agreed. Have a good offseason!

Gurley, Elliot, Hunt, Michal, Anderson in L.A. yeah those passing teams sure don't run the ball.

Yes, some teams with more forward thinking offenses dont have to spite passing to support running. Ive already made this point. This is the heart and soul of the entire split between the Hawks and other teams in the league for better and worse.

 

[AgentDib]

If Pete can do the damn thing on defense again with pulling in 5 studs on defense in 2 drafts, maybe they can win another SB without advancing their tactics some.

There are different paths to success in the NFL and doing it with defense is a legitimate tactic that Pete knows and is excellent at. I wouldn't want him to try to imitate Andy Reid anymore than I think Reid should try to copy Pete Carroll.

Our best shot is maximizing what we do well and like any team the luck factor cannot be ignored. Just a couple of plays this season made the difference between us making the playoffs at all, or advancing past Dallas in the wild card round. We shouldn't overreact to them.

 

[mrt144]

If Pete can do the damn thing on defense again with pulling in 5 studs on defense in 2 drafts, maybe they can win another SB without advancing their tactics some.

There are different paths to success in the NFL and doing it with defense is a legitimate tactic that Pete knows and is excellent at. I wouldn't want him to try to imitate Andy Reid anymore than I think Reid should try to copy Pete Carroll.

Our best shot is maximizing what we do well and like any team the luck factor cannot be ignored. Just a couple of plays this season made the difference between us making the playoffs at all, or advancing past Dallas in the wild card round. We shouldn't overreact to them.

Do you know how frustrating it is to be rooting for the team whose only shot at getting back to that level involves one of the least interesting (to me) and most hilariously speculative means in the draft and free agency. Seriously, it's like a hilarious cosmic joke on me as a fan.

"Hey Marc, says you like tactics in football."

"Yup"

"Says you also like amazing circus plays from offense and defense alike"

"Yup"

"Alrighty, here's what I'm gonna do for you as the Universe. You get to root for a team that will be loaded to the brim with talent a personality, they will take you all the way to the promised land as a fan and do so with tactical panache with their RB QB combo"

"Wow, that's awesome. Thanks Universe! What's the team?"

"The Seahawks. I figure you live in Seattle now, your life has settled down and you're in a better place as a person, and I just kinda owe it to you at this point. Your wife is a local, she grew up groaning over them, she loves Marshawn Lynch from his Cal days, most your good friends went to Cal during Marshawn's days...so I'll make that happen. It'll be great"

"Alright Universe, sign me up!"

"Great, sign on the line here and we'll get started right away"

"Alrighty, T crossed. By the way, there's a catch right? Like there's no way that this lasts forever."

"Oh, that's the best part. That one SB will make you feel amazing, it will be done with such flair that you will get hooked to that level of dominance. I can't reveal it all because the narrative is too darn cute, but I will say this - it's better to be lucky than good"

"Oh...huh, well alright. GO HAWKS!"

*Beastquake happens*

"It's a sign, thanks Universe!"

*We sign RW and Bobby Wagner in 2012 and lose in the playoffs to Atlanta*

"Okay Universe, you're whetting my appetite"

*We miraculously come back against the Texans and Bucs in 2013*

"Wow, this is a team of Destiny!"

*The Tip*

"HERE WE GO"

*SB 48*

"Wow, that was actually kind of anticlimactic but wow what a feeling. Take that Giraffe Neck. Take that doubters!"

*SB Parade*

"YAAAAAAAAA THIS IS WHAT ITS ALLLLLLLL ABOUT! PAAAAAAAARTY! THANKS UNIVERSE!"

*NFC Championship 2014 Season*

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHY WOULD YOU EVER CALL COVER-0 PACKERS?! WHY?! YOU DUMB BASTARDS"

*SB 49*

"Yes, we're gonna do it again! Kearse you magnificent hotdog finger bastard. Now if we can just punch it in here. Okay...here we go, for all the marbles! Ahhhh...oh...OH...OMG NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! UNIVERSE! YOU ARE CRUELER THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE!"

*Universe pops its head in*

"Hey Marc, ya like that? Ya like that?!"

*Me catatonic on my bed*

"No"

*2015*

"Despite the injuries to Rawls and Marshawn, I like what we're doing in response - I didn't realize that we could light it up passing like this. I hope this becomes a fixture of our team going forward. Just an off season, we'll be back in the thick of it"

*2016*

Game 1 "Uhg. No. Ooof. God Russ, please be okay"
Game 2 "I don't like this"
Game 3 "Russ...NOOOOOOOOOO!"
Game 4-17 Scene Missing

*2017*

"What am I even watching for 53 minutes of gametime? This is bad football even in spite of the record. Blair Walsh? Why did we adopt the syphilitic dog? What are we even doing? Well I hope we fire Cable and Bevell"

"Granted Marc!"

"Damnit Universe, you said it was better to be lucky than good but we haven't been good OR lucky in 3 seasons, what the hell gives? When am I gonna taste anything as exhilarating as an NFC Championship or SB again for the Hawks?"

"Oh wait for the punchline after the 2018 season, it's worth it"

*2018*

Game 1-2: "Wow, this is similar level of bad, soul arresting football."
Game 3-16: "Not a bad effort despite the start. Played close to good teams but room for improvement and additions that make the team stronger for next season. Now let's go whoop some Cowboys!"
Wildcard game: "That game was an expression of some of the worst aspects of Pete as a coach. I am doubtful that this team improves much without another good 2-3 seasons of drafting since it seems the die is cast for how this team approaches football games"

*Universe pops its head back in*

"And there it is for ya Marc - it's better to be lucky at drafting good players for the Pete Carroll led Hawks that you are obligated to follow. I know that your interest in the NFL was rekindled by Football Outsiders and Seahawks.net and Fieldgulls and that you even donated money to Sam R Gold's Patreon so you could bug the heck out of him about breaking down plays and you even sprung for NFL Gamepass to watch All-22 yourself. But in the end the team you follow doesn't hinge on anything you actually really care about within football as a game. It's all about getting lucky in the draft. Pete does really well with his dinosaur rock football jams with generational talent. He didn't stand too much in the way of it to win the SB the first time and we both know he's a defensive guru so actually had a big hand in cultivating the defense at least. And then I'd thought I'd get a little feisty and throw some real humdingers in that would give you hope and then crash it down on you again. Just a rollercoaster of hope and disappointment. Cause you care about the wrong things as a fan of the Pete Carroll coached Seahawks. Not X's and O's but Jimmies and Joes"

"I hate you Universe. And not just for using that stupid low brow idiom but for giving me a taste of the fruit and then yanking it away and letting me believe that it came down to anything but the players making plays. Also, catastrophically injuring most good players and one of the key scapegoats for SB49...like that's just effed up dude. But I have to ask, what is the deal with McVay and the Rams - like it seems like that wasn't just a talent infusion but a good to great utilization of talent on offense at least. Or Reid and the Chiefs with Mahomes - they already had these concepts floating around and now Mahomes and Hill among others are just nitro fuel."

"Different team, different souls to steal, different method of humiliation. They may never win a SB which is a fun cruelty in its own way. They may win one and only one and then have to break the band up. They could win 3 in 5 years. You will find out. The point is, you are in your situation with your team and you only get to grudgingly respect the other torture devices I've planted in the NFL. Universe Out."

 

[TreeRon]

"As far as the OL, given where it was in 2017, I don't see how people say we HAVEN'T invested in the OL. Brown is a big expenditure. Britt is on a second contract. Ifedi was a first-rounder and serviceable. Nobody was complaining about our guards until they got injured. And there's great depth in the form of Simmons, Jones, and Hunt (and still, maybe, Pocic).
GO HAWKS!!!"

Sweezy, Flucker, and Simmons have chronic injury histories. Has Jones played a down in a "real game" and wasn't he hurt as well? Right now he's just a hope. Hunt is undersized and Pocic is inadaquate. Chances are all these guys, save Hunt and Pocic could be injured at the same time and we then are incapable of run or pass blocking.

 

[Tical21]

Excellent post.

 

[scutterhawk]

Did you people honestly think that our O-line was going to go worst-to-first in one year? With the same players, and a new line coach who has to un-learn them from all the rhymes-with-unable "techniques" he taught them? Holy shit. Even one entire season is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions yet. Criminy!

Yep, that is entirely the point.
A rebuild year....Players getting retooled (Coaching), Russell Wilson working with a big changeup in Offensive Coaching & philosophy.
A 10 win Season amidst the massive changes? = Impressive.
Once they get a better handle on the Run Game, get a healthy Doug Baldwin & Dissley back, I believe they will open up the playbook a lot more.

 

[mrt144]

Did you people honestly think that our O-line was going to go worst-to-first in one year? With the same players, and a new line coach who has to un-learn them from all the rhymes-with-unable "techniques" he taught them? Holy shit. Even one entire season is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions yet. Criminy!

Yep, that is entirely the point.
A rebuild year....Players getting retooled (Coaching), Russell Wilson working with a big changeup in Offensive Coaching & philosophy.
A 10 win Season amidst the massive changes? = Impressive.
Once they get a better handle on the Run Game, get a healthy Doug Baldwin & Dissley back, I believe they will open up the playbook a lot more.

In a situation where there is barely any imaginable reason beyond "We literally didn't practice an alternative" to avoid opening up the playbook if struggling to achieve success with your MO.

I agree that there are reasons for optimism next season but the domain of that optimism is not with the coaching staff who dialed up a game what was a manifestation of all the brittle elements of the team.

 

[Tical21]

Did you people honestly think that our O-line was going to go worst-to-first in one year? With the same players, and a new line coach who has to un-learn them from all the rhymes-with-unable "techniques" he taught them? Holy shit. Even one entire season is too small of a sample size to draw any conclusions yet. Criminy!

Yep, that is entirely the point.
A rebuild year....Players getting retooled (Coaching), Russell Wilson working with a big changeup in Offensive Coaching & philosophy.
A 10 win Season amidst the massive changes? = Impressive.
Once they get a better handle on the Run Game, get a healthy Doug Baldwin & Dissley back, I believe they will open up the playbook a lot more.

In a situation where there is barely any imaginable reason beyond "We literally didn't practice an alternative" to avoid opening up the playbook if struggling to achieve success with your MO.

I agree that there are reasons for optimism next season but the domain of that optimism is not with the coaching staff who dialed up a game what was a manifestation of all the brittle elements of the team.

It isn't with the coaching staff that masterfully took a subpar roster to a 10-4 record over the last 14? The one that led the league in rushing?

I think we should do some analytics, fine the play that nets us the most average yards per play, and run it every play, amirite?

 

[Uncle Si]

Seattles 4.8 yards per carry was 5th in the NFL this season

Seattle was 18th in total yards per game but 6th in points per game. 2 of the teams ahead of them in that stat didnt make the playoffs.

Defense was ranked 11th in scoring, but #1 in turnover ratio.

Not pretty, not complicated, but effective for 10 wins and a top 10 offense.

And yet...

The drama

 

[Smellyman]

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

Have it your way dude. The league hasn't changed materially from 2013 and most offenses that are succeeding now on the back of the passing game are an aberration to NFL football. Agreed. Have a good offseason!

Gurley, Elliot, Hunt, Michal, Anderson in L.A. yeah those passing teams sure don't run the ball.

Yes, some teams with more forward thinking offenses dont have to spite passing to support running. Ive already made this point. This is the heart and soul of the entire split between the Hawks and other teams in the league for better and worse.

It's truly amazing how about 4 posters can't figure out this simple concept.

 

[mrt144]

Have it your way dude. The league hasn't changed materially from 2013 and most offenses that are succeeding now on the back of the passing game are an aberration to NFL football. Agreed. Have a good offseason!

Gurley, Elliot, Hunt, Michal, Anderson in L.A. yeah those passing teams sure don't run the ball.

Yes, some teams with more forward thinking offenses dont have to spite passing to support running. Ive already made this point. This is the heart and soul of the entire split between the Hawks and other teams in the league for better and worse.

It's truly amazing how about 4 posters can't figure out this simple concept.

I'll cop to being inarticulate at times but I thought this was what was implicit in a lot of what I wrote before explicitly saying it like that.

If some folks took the time to read the post i linked and the sources in the post, they would see that we are nearly a polar opposite to the teams remaining in the playoffs this season in how we approach play selection on downs and yet none of the remaining teams seems particularly avoidant of running in aggregate but the key distinction from us is how they approach first and second down.

Not only that, in the 1st 3 quarters of the game, when generally there is a more adherence to a gameplan the Hawks threw the least on first down of any team in the NFL and when trialing by a score threw the least on first down as well. They rushed on first down 50 more times than the 2nd team in the NFL did when trailing by a score in the 1st 3 quarters. It seems almost spiteful towards opportunity or at least distrustful towards talent. I don't even give a hoot what the 538 article said about RRP because the glaring issue is how dissimilar we are to other teams in approach on just a basic thing.

And there are folks here that are agnostic that running that much on first down over the course of a season didn't induce the Cowboys to stack the box from the get go? And instead of throwing counterpunches to that anticipation by the Cowboys we just lead with that lazily telegraphed jab over and over and over again? It's just utterly baffling how much Hawks fans seemingly underestimate the coaching of other teams to understand what we do and at least give it the beans in stopping us. I'm sure every fanbase has some contingent of fans that think the game begins and ends with only with their team but it is stunted to think that the Cowboys didn't do exactly what they needed to defensively given our seasonal tendencies and then we didn't break from those tendencies in any meaningful way when presented with their failure because the game was apparently 'close enough'...which conformed to a seasonal tendency to not pass early in a series UNTIL NEEDED! MY GOD PEOPLE FOOTBALL IS A FLAT CIRCLE HERE! From the source of the GIF I posted inline in the OP:

https://www.draftace.com/2019/01/12/pet ... n-failure/

The fact that Wilson appears on this list with Jeff Driskel and a crew of rookies is telling. In order to attempt this many passes in third-and-long, your coaching staff needs to be actively trying to keep the ball out of the quarterback’s hand until it becomes absolutely necessary. That makes perfect sense if you’re the Bengals and are just running out the clock on a lost season with Driskel, or you have an underdeveloped rookie taking snaps. But why on earth would the Seahawks be actively trying to prevent Wilson from throwing in more favorable situations?

Nearly a quarter of Wilson’s total dropbacks occurred in these scenarios where the defense knew, with a high degree of certainty, that he was going to drop back to pass—which obviously creates a higher degree of difficulty for Wilson.

Everyone should take a moment to appreciate that RW is like Hercules fighting against the fate that Pete Carroll and Schotty bestow upon him.

Other teams with good offenses by many of the same metrics that say our offense is at least average to good don't have to endure the same hinky weirdo things like an absurd 3 and out ratio or having their QB execute 25% their drop backs on 3rd and 5+. That's exactly why I pointed that out. Our offense in many ways resembles a much worse one than a much better one if we are comparing likes to likes across some metrics.

Schotty and Pete have agency is those statistical aberrations where we differ from better offenses. RW, the OL and our RBs have agency in that. The whole damn team. And I know we excelled at various things on offense but that is only a charming rebuttal to clear signs of weirdo dysfunction in the offense and none of those good things that are offered up sufficiently translated in playoff football for 'reasons' that all but excuse the agency coaches have in developing and carrying out a gameplan at the cognitive level. Russell Wilson's relatively great season didn't translate in the playoffs because it was shunted into necessity mostly, and our relatively good running game didn't translate in the playoffs at all. All the good things anyone will cite about our offense was mostly absent bar RW hitting some tight windows when needed.

And if the reason is Fluker and Sweezy were too injured to execute that makes me want to barf - that as a seemingly sufficient rationale for anyone who takes a game as seriously as paid professionals, let alone paid professionals themselves? Like the coaches couldn't tell this was an issue and their seeming response to protect against this was calling interior rushes? Into the 3rd Quarter. Come on.

Some of you are making this worse for me by insisting that game was a reasonable way to dictate how the offense attempted to play despite the empirical, the statistical, and the admitted by players and coaches.

All is forgiven you cop to winding me up.

 

[KARAVARUS]

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

It's not an either/or question, it's both a running and a passing league.....and it's always been that way, it's about balance, not one or the other.

Why do you think three of the four teams left in the playoffs took RB's in the first round (Saints, Rams and Patriots). They're all shining examples you guys keep puking up to prove it's a passing league, yet all three think running is AS important as passing.........so much so that they spent the most important draft pick there is on a premiere running back.

Why? Balance. Because that's what wins games. Passing ,running, it doesn't matter because if there's one thing you cannot be and win in the NFL, it's predictable.

So have all the "are we too predictable" conversations you want, that's a real discussion, and I'm all ears. But enough already with "OMG we have to pass all the time now cause the league has changed!"

Sanity rules the nest. Great post, first of all. Secondly, I think a lot of us who just wish we would have changed things up a bit when they continually failed, are unfairly getting lumped into the ‘let’s throw all the time’ crowd. It’s nothing like that. Watching that game live was frustrating because it was almost as if Pete was trying to tell people, we aren’t changing what we do for any reason—and he was fine if that meant losing. That’s just how it looked to a lot of folks.

I’m glad (and I see why) it was necessary to get rid of all the players who weren’t all in, because personally, if you’re a player on that offense, you have to feel like there’s little trust. Quarters 1-3, we start a drive inside the 10 yard line—what’s the result 95% of the time? We’re punting in three plays. There’s no design to get out of there. We’re happy to run three and kick without any issues. There’s zero trust shown in our play calling there, and this is just one example.

We have Montana (love you bro, but you’re my most frustrating poster on the Dallas game) basically telling us that we shouldn’t expect our team to gameplan for the team we’re playing against because only BB is capable of doing that. We should just then be fine our coach not trying to be ahead of the game. It’s a copy cat league, right? The messed up part is, he knows we should have made adjustments. If he needs us to admit it might not have worked, fine, I’ll cop to that. But people saying we lost the line of scrimmage, which cost us the game, are saying nothing else could be done to prevent the loss, and that’s just not the truth.

 

[mrt144]

You are all twisted up in knots at this point.

You implied earlier that it wasn't a passing league in 2013 in order to get around the fact that Pete won two NFC championships with a run-first, pass-when-you-must approach. I corrected your hypothesis. Now we should re-examine the conclusion.

It's not an either/or question, it's both a running and a passing league.....and it's always been that way, it's about balance, not one or the other.

Why do you think three of the four teams left in the playoffs took RB's in the first round (Saints, Rams and Patriots). They're all shining examples you guys keep puking up to prove it's a passing league, yet all three think running is AS important as passing.........so much so that they spent the most important draft pick there is on a premiere running back.

Why? Balance. Because that's what wins games. Passing ,running, it doesn't matter because if there's one thing you cannot be and win in the NFL, it's predictable.

So have all the "are we too predictable" conversations you want, that's a real discussion, and I'm all ears. But enough already with "OMG we have to pass all the time now cause the league has changed!"

Sanity rules the nest. Great post, first of all. Secondly, I think a lot of us who just wish we would have changed things up a bit when they continually failed, are unfairly getting lumped into the ‘let’s throw all the time’ crowd. It’s nothing like that. Watching that game live was frustrating because it was almost as if Pete was trying to tell people, we aren’t changing what we do for any reason—and he was fine if that meant losing. That’s just how it looked to a lot of folks.

I’m glad (and I see why) it was necessary to get rid of all the players who weren’t all in, because personally, if you’re a player on that offense, you have to feel like there’s little trust. Quarters 1-3, we start a drive inside the 10 yard line—what’s the result 95% of the time? We’re punting in three plays. There’s no design to get out of there. We’re happy to run three and kick without any issues. There’s zero trust shown in our play calling there, and this is just one example.

We have Montana (love you bro, but you’re my most frustrating poster on the Dallas game) basically telling us that we shouldn’t expect our team to gameplan for the team we’re playing against because only BB is capable of doing that. We should just then be fine our coach not trying to be ahead of the game. It’s a copy cat league, right? The messed up part is, he knows we should have made adjustments. If he needs us to admit it might not have worked, fine, I’ll cop to that. But people saying we lost the line of scrimmage, which cost us the game, are saying nothing else could be done to prevent the loss, and that’s just not the truth.

It's the fatalism of outcome that bugs me the most. That is such an anti-competitive mindset. You don't wildly thrash about trying to avoid catastrophe when you're struggling but you also don't stoically pretend like everything is fine while the house is on fire. If you walk away from a game, literally any game thinking there was nothing that could have been done better, especially on your account, then I don't think you're maximizing your opportunity to do better at the game next time.

The coaches and players seem to at least have enough humility to toss that out there, even if its a platitude, I don't get why some folks on .net feel like they have to be the armor against player and coach agency in how they played the game at a cognitive level.

 

[AgentDib]

It's neither complacency nor fatalism to recognize that opening things up in the passing game also incurs risk. How much risk we need to accept is a function of how well our defense is playing. This team has been historically very, very good with a lead in the third quarter and so it isn't that crazy to think we could have held onto that game by continuing the conservative game plan.

Once the defense did give up the first fourth quarter TD we passed eleven times and ran once. In fact, our punt after the KJ pick was the result of four straight passes and that directly led to a second fourth quarter TD by the Cowboys. That series was sabotaged by two consecutive interior OL penalties on passing plays, and I don't think it follows that passing it more would have guaranteed a better outcome.

Try to take hindsight out of the equation. If I told you that we could win a game if we stopped Dak Prescott from scrambling for a first down on 3rd and 14 would you bet on the Hawks?

 

[mrt144]

It's neither complacency nor fatalism to recognize that opening things up in the passing game also incurs risk. How much risk we need to accept is a function of how well our defense is playing. This team has been historically very, very good with a lead in the third quarter and so it isn't that crazy to think we could have held onto that game by continuing the conservative game plan.

Once the defense did give up the first fourth quarter TD we passed eleven times and ran once. In fact, our punt after the KJ pick was the result of four straight passes and that directly led to a second fourth quarter TD by the Cowboys. That series was sabotaged by two consecutive interior OL penalties on passing plays, and I don't think it follows that passing it more would have guaranteed a better outcome.

It wouldn't have guaranteed a better outcome and that's a canard argument unto itself. I don't know why people think I'm offering guarantees like I'm trying to build a Monorail in Springfield. It is the combo of conforming to all of our seasonal tendencies, the other team playing those tendencies to a T, and there being seemingly listless recourse until there was an actual time impetus to change the dynamics and risk profile of our series approach late in the game. This is a manifestation of deficient coaching in one facet of coaching and it's a particularly annoying one to me. You guys do know that coaching has many facets, right? And one might have a facet that raises a team up but another facet that undermines them at times. This is the nature of all coaches in all sports. This is commentary on one particular facet of our coaching staff that could reasonably improve with some cognitive gusto thrown behind it.

If you are seriously invoking the need of a guarantee to justify an alternative approach to how the game was called, even in a hypothetical fun space in your imagination...just no. That is not how any one in their right mind should entertain the possibility that the game could have been called better and as a rebuttal to some somewhat specific things. We are not dealing with matters of life and death where my hunch of about an alternative treatment could KILL someone.

You invoke penalties on passing downs as a risk - and yeah that's true but we you're going to list of instances of self sabotage to undermine the argument there was room to either break our seasonal tendencies earlier or to initially even run contra to our seasonal tendencies when presented with the Cowboys D frontage, at least list the instances where the running game self sabotaged themselves out of good situations like following up Penny's great run with a 7 yard loss or penalties or tackles for loss - an element of a run game that is so wholly unacceptable if you insist on starting you dedicate your first two downs to them on the predication of RISK AVERSION.

I almost feel like you are downplaying just how ineffective our rushing game was in that game to the extent that I can't possibly offer a convincing argument that would have you entertain the notion that was a substandard called game. Nothing about our regular season rushing goodness translated in that game bar Penny's singular run and RW's two keepers on the RO. All the bad things about our dedication to the run DID manifest in that game bar penalties - those only happened on passing downs

And I keep getting this sensation that many of you butting your head against me on this imagine that I want to see us pass over 55% of the time and not even run at the first sign of struggle and I don't know how much more clearly I need to state that Pete and Schotty might be, MIGHT BE, well served by reevaluting the following

1. Their run sequencing on downs and within series. Nothing to do with aggregate run or pass calls.

2. Not calling play action earlier in the game to set up the run itself or if the run itself is bereft. Nothing to do with aggregate run or pass calls.

3. Avoiding short to intermediate passing and even very specifically routes with higher YAC potential as a possible substitute for rushing if rushing is bereft or as a means to offset negative yardage plays. Something to do with aggregate calls but more of a commentary on the bereft nature of this in our offense at current.

4. Their formations they run out of that might tip the hat a little too much to the defense without sufficient counter punches in passing and/or play action. Like Vin's thread, maybe we arent getting it right enough in spacing against a team that shows up to play and respects that we intend to play our game our way, as the entirety of the season indicates sometimes regardless of it's effectiveness. Is drawing 8+ into the box a good idea against a team that seriously plays to your tendencies AND is actually kinda decent at it?

5. Not seemingly having a robust counter punch audible system in place for specific looks by defenses trying to stymie the run. We know RW can and does audible in Cover-0 situations. A conceptual audible system specifically for runs that's mostly on when there are 8 defenders in the box shouldn't sound like I'm talking about eating babies to solve poor people or I'm reading Shakespeare in Klingon.

6. The aptitude and talent levels of many of their players in executing their vision. Maybe Vannett is lousy for us and Dissly will rise like a Phoenix and fully usurp Nick contributing far more value to the team? Maybe Ifedi will inhabit the top 15 of Right tackles in the league, finally? Maybe Fluker and Sweezy will heal up and be solid enough physically to contribute at a decent level again. I have so many doubts about the speculation of player improvement from either skill, aptitude, or health. I'm not going to waste my time at this point thinking about individual players can do improve upon in the offseason and have it all undone by transactions, surgery and camp injuries, etc etc. And I think it's a waste of time to think that penalties will ever be sufficiently tamed under PC so any of our OL but Duane Brown are a persistent risk there.

And if they don't I'll still watch, still hope the Hawks win, still point out the foibles of our team when I see them (much to everyone's chagrin, especially the hater-haters) and still implore the team to do better and not limit themselves to dogmatic football principles. That's it. I swear, I feel like I've been put on the stand for intimating I want blood sacrifice for football sins, I just don't know any other way I can convey that I emphatically see room for improvement, POTENTIALLY, if there's some sort of willpower to try it with some damn earnestness and enthusiasm. But there probably isn't. Oh well!

Go Hawks!