And... if you listen to the interview D Jeremiah just did with Brock and Salk on Kubiak, he said a few positive things about Kubiaks offense, the biggest being its fairly common in the league so its easy to get personnel to fit it.
Biggest drawback? When you fall behind in a game its a difficult system to consistently come back in.
Ironically, there was an interview i was listening to today on Wymans program where he spoke to Mathew Paras a journalist who covers the Saints in NO. His biggest criticism of Kubiaks system? When they fell behind, they struggled to claw there way back. He acknowledged that the injuries were likely part of the problem... but not all of it.
So again, color me not enthused until I can see proof he is something more than what he has shown himself to be.
Interesting re: Responding to a deficit with Kubiak's system. Going to have to go back and watch some of New Orleans games this year and get a feel for why that issue is. My initial thoughts, though:
First, I think it should be noted that injuries were probably a
big part of the problem. New Orleans literally only had 3 games with their starting QB, RB, WR, and TE playing together, and that was done by Week 4. They finished the season with literally all 4 of them out for the final 3 weeks.
Now, New Orleans did bring in Marquez Valdes-Scantling over in Week 9 to replace Shaheed, so that nets you an additional 4 games with 'core' offensive weapons that you can kind of look at as an honest barometer of Kubiak's scheme.
Put simply though, if we went into Week 7 down Geno, DK, JSN, and then lost Walker in Week 15... well, I don't think I'd expect us to be able to claw back into many games either and I would assume that a lot of the playbook had been thrown out the window.
Second, I think part of the issue might be Derek Carr, who just isn't great in those situations. From 2022 - 2024, Carr is ranked 24th of 32 in ANY/A and 26th of 32 in Passer Rating while trailing with 4 minutes or less to go.
That said, the 7* games where they do have their core weapons are worth a look at, so I'll probably be spending some time looking at those. In particular, they had 3 games in that span where they played teams we faced this year (2 Atlanta games and the Rams) and 1 against a good defense (Browns game).