5 Wide no rb in the backfield sets

Can we please talk about some football? Why do we constantly go 5 wide? Taking away any threat of a run/any extra protection from a RB block? It's especially puzzling when you consider the fact we were playing the best dline in football with our patch work oline.

There has to be some sort of football strategy that says you go 5 wide for this reason. I just fail to understand it. Anyone have any clues.

And i'll beat all you to it,,,, bevells an idiot/moron/doesn't know what he's doing..... so now that thats out of the way, please don't derail a thread that could actually be about football.

Why we kept going to this strategy over and over again with the same result is completely baffling. Why do we have the best blocking RB sitting on the bench in these situations? Why do we have two FBs on our roster?

Not my favorite set either... but it's okay when Russ comes out throwing immediately but if not, sack city is a likely outcome.

onanygivensunday":3n4lh78v said:

Not my favorite set either... but it's okay when Russ comes out throwing immediately but if not, sack city is a likely outcome.

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Yeah, but even then, the db's can SIT on all the routes, since they know it's either coming out hot or gonna be a sack. See the Pick when rw threw hot to lynch,...

marko358":35tzb96g said:

Why we kept going to this strategy over and over again with the same result is completely baffling. Why do we have the best blocking RB sitting on the bench in these situations? Why do we have two FBs on our roster?

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+1

I think the point of the formation is to stretch the field out. By having to account for all of the receivers, the defense has a harder time putting a spy on Wilson without leaving someone uncovered. It opens up the field, which is great when you have a quarterback than can run as well as Wilson can.

I really like when we run the four WR set (two stacked on either side) with Lynch in the backfield.

This is were Russell needs to grow a little in my opinion, when your in that set or anytime you have more people rushing then people we have blocking he has to be able to find his best match up and exploit. You think of the pick that he threw, Marshawn Lynch on a hitch at the sticks against there best corner? It also seems like he just won't pull the trigger on some of those throws. To me it doesn't matter if you leave a back in to block, that just means they send another rusher, if Russ doesn't get the ball out as soon as he get it, it's on him.

JimmyG":2qcfnf22 said:

I think the point of the formation is to stretch the field out. By having to account for all of the receivers, the defense has a harder time putting a spy on Wilson without leaving someone uncovered. It opens up the field, which is great when you have a quarterback than can run as well as Wilson can.

I really like when we run the four WR set (two stacked on either side) with Lynch in the backfield.

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That makes sense....thank you

It works for a QB like Wilson when you can look to get the ball out quick or create open space for him to run. This wasn't the case yesterday against the best front four in the NFL who were consistently beating their man. It was clear the empty set wasn't going to work from the first few attempts but we continued to use it with zero success (a consistent Bevell complaint). Having no RB let an already aggressive defense pin their ears back without any worry of read option, a RB leaking out, or any type of deep developing pass.

It is mind blowing we didn't look for dump offs to guys like Marshawn and Fred Jackson when the Rams defense basically kept the same non stop pressure all game. I'll take Marshawn in space against whatever LB is shadowing him 10/10 times. Instead we did many obvious bubble screens against a secondary already playing at the LOS. They kept showing Jimmy Graham's routes for most of the game and he consistently was doing a quick 4 yard out or a drag basically at the line of scrimmage. Why? We also didn't test their corner backs deep at all. We knew this was their game plan coming in and still were completely unprepared for it until late in the game.

JimmyG":81j9dvvs said:

I think the point of the formation is to stretch the field out. By having to account for all of the receivers, the defense has a harder time putting a spy on Wilson without leaving someone uncovered. It opens up the field, which is great when you have a quarterback than can run as well as Wilson can.

I really like when we run the four WR set (two stacked on either side) with Lynch in the backfield.

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Darrell Bevell agrees with you about how great it looks on paper.

The "empty set" with this O-line especially against good fast defenses is always a dumb idea and a recipe for disaster. See yesterday as exhibit A. I believe they had a 0% success rate on 3rd down out of that formation against the Rams, but yet they kept running it. Bubble screens are also a dumb idea.

The empty set formation and bubble screens need to be elimated from the playbook IMHO. I think the success rate of the offense would go up noticibly if you got rid of those 2 things.

Because it works.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/606878866821509121[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/6 ... 6821509121

Recon_Hawk":2k1bj2vl said:

Because it works.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/606878866821509121[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/6 ... 6821509121

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Let's not start confusing things with facts here.

DavidSeven":yaw8wboe said:

Recon_Hawk":yaw8wboe said:

Because it works.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/606878866821509121[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/6 ... 6821509121

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Let's not start confusing things with facts here.

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We hate bevell though.

Fire Bevell!

DavidSeven":3q1vg624 said:

Recon_Hawk":3q1vg624 said:

Because it works.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/606878866821509121[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/6 ... 6821509121

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Let's not start confusing things with facts here.

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That % has come with different plays than what we saw Sunday.

And that is just an awful stat to use in defense of a play-caller. It's akin to saying "Bevell is awesome because we've won two Super Bowl championships with him". No, we've won them because of Wilson's improvisational abilities. How many of those 3rd down empty backfields were salvaged by Wilson's legs?

Recon_Hawk":2pnjds1c said:

Because it works.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/606878866821509121[/tweet]
https://twitter.com/FO_ASchatz/status/6 ... 6821509121

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That's from June. Has zero bearing on this specific game. Different sets work differently on different teams. I know, Capt Obvious. Our offense did not evolve throughout e game yesterday, and our empty set failed miserably against this from four.

MontanaHawk05":358s8m9y said:

And that is just an awful stat to use in defense of a play-caller. It's akin to saying "Bevell is awesome because we've won two Super Bowl championships with him". No, we've won them because of Wilson's improvisational abilities. How many of those 3rd down empty backfields were salvaged by Wilson's legs?

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I don't see any discussion of specific plays here, though. The premise of this thread, and many arguments throughout this forum, is that empty sets are inherently bad. This goes against factual data that disproves this. It goes against other QBs having immense success in empty and our own ability to create explosive plays out of that set. Is it the right call every time? Probably not. Was it the right call the majority of the time in the St. Louis? I don't know. I doubt anyone here has looked at the footage close enough to know that either.

If people want to discuss actual plays, you know I'm more than happy to engage in those conversations. What I sometimes lose patience with is people who make blanket statements regarding entire formations with no effort to understand why an empty set might be called, how it might useful to the QB, how successful it's actual been for the team, etc. (not referring to you).

If I get a chance, I will break down every empty set.

For that empty set to be successful you need to have route trees that create almost instant seperation, you have no blocker in a HB or a FB and you are releasing the TE many times, that means quick hitters not ten yard curls and outs. Slants and pick plays or rub routes with others opening up areas of the field by running deeper routes to drag a defender off to get the primary targets a open field to run in once they catch the ball in STRIDE not sitting on a spot. We hold the ball to long and do nothing creative on the route trees to spring guys.